The Diversity Pipeline

[maarsen]

19 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It might have been inspired by it, but it quickly delved into evopsych bullshit, which he has since tripled down on, comparing the idea that women can be successful in tech to the belief in santa claus. 

Kalbear, the latest issue of Scientific American, which landed in my mailbox yesterday, is chock full of articles on sex and gender. There is an article on women in Stem disciplines that comes to a fascinating point. I won't spoil it for you, but I think you will like it. I am dying to read the rest of the issue. 

[The Anti-Targ]

On 8/18/2017 at 0:40 AM, Sheep the Evicted said:

Anyway I believe the memo was largely inspired by this lecture from Professor Haidt on the differences between Liberals and Conservatives and I strongly recommend everybody makes time to watch it and decide for yourselves. If you don't have alot of time then one of the highlights (and the most relevant one here) happens from  about 54 minutes in when he talks about well-supported topics in science  that are blindspots for most liberals.

 

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

It might have been inspired by it, but it quickly delved into evopsych bullshit, which he has since tripled down on, comparing the idea that women can be successful in tech to the belief in santa claus. 

Yes, and the lecture itself was laced with false equivalencies, like climate change deniers and young earth creationism vs IQ deniers. Of which, for the latter deniers there aren't actually any deniers. IQ deniers basically deny that there is anything of material importance to be gained in the socio-economic sphere by focussing any sort of discussion on there being a difference in IQ (if there is one, I haven't read up on it myself), and that such discussion will generally end up with people making a value judgement. Climate change deniers of course are fiddling while Rome burns.

Pointing out that there is a population difference for attribute X does not in itself usefully inform public or corporate policy. The reason behind population differences in X may help to inform policy. But it may inform policy in a way that people who have simplistic views on attribute X might not like.

There are blindspots among progressives on some science issues impacting on sociology, because they are minefields that are ripe for simplistic interpretation in pop media and youtube stars, which gives aid and comfort to harmful prejudices. It could be argued that avoiding giving people with horrible social attitudes ammunition based on simplistic interpretations of science is more beneficial than openly talking about a science issue. The problem with that approach by progressives is that people with harmful social prejudices significantly overlap with deep state conspiracy theorists. Which means any scientific finding that isn't talked about that can be interpreted simplistically as affirming these prejudices gets into these echo chambers as truth that is being kept hidden from the public because it negates the liberal agenda.

A general problem we have is that so few people are good at science communication, so much so in fact that we have people shoulder tapping Neil DeGrass-Tyson to make social commentary on topics about which he is not at all an expert (drug policy for instance). What is an astronomy doing being interviewed on drug policy? I didn't listen to the interview, so I am not criticising NDG-T's views, I'm just commenting that we should have a much broader range of excellent science communicators such that people don't have to pick an astronomer as a go-to popular scientist to talk about drug policy. 

[Jo498]

With similar reasoning one could also say that climate change deniers are not "deniers" because the do not deny change, but "only" that the change is caused by humans and that there can and should be done anything about it. (And if one takes climate change seriously virtually everyone who maintains a mainstream middle class Western lifestyle is not only fiddling but kindling the "fire of Rome", so the charges of hypocrisy from the deniers against the "believers" are not unfounded either.)

I think that climate change is real, man-made and will probably have catastrophic consequences and also that the deniers are in most cases acting not in good faith but out of economic interests. Whereas probably most Anti-vaxxers or IQ/biodiversity whatever deniers are often acting in good faith and for (murky and dubious but nevertheless honest) ethical reasons. Still, the latter are often also factually wrong.

But I do not think that Haidt's points rest on these examples. And it is somewhat de-railing the thread. As for the latter, I think there is hardly anything to add to the SlateStarCodex text and the collection of information at Heterodox that Happy Ent linked above.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

On 23/08/2017 at 5:31 AM, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Just thought I'd throw some cheap gas on the fire here...

/I can't believe this hacky troll is still even marginally relevant.

 

//And dude, go a touch lighter on the makeup. What is this an episode of the Addam's Family?

He's really not doing himself any favours by talking to people like this. His original document was at least fairly balanced and I don't think he was sure he believed it that strongly himself. Talking to Milo and others has only made his position seem less reasonable and mannered. 

[Seli]

6 hours ago, Jo498 said:

With similar reasoning one could also say that climate change deniers are not "deniers" because the do not deny change, but "only" that the change is caused by humans and that there can and should be done anything about it. (And if one takes climate change seriously virtually everyone who maintains a mainstream middle class Western lifestyle is not only fiddling but kindling the "fire of Rome", so the charges of hypocrisy from the deniers against the "believers" are not unfounded either.)

I think that climate change is real, man-made and will probably have catastrophic consequences and also that the deniers are in most cases acting not in good faith but out of economic interests. Whereas probably most Anti-vaxxers or IQ/biodiversity whatever deniers are often acting in good faith and for (murky and dubious but nevertheless honest) ethical reasons. Still, the latter are often also factually wrong.

But I do not think that Haidt's points rest on these examples. And it is somewhat de-railing the thread. As for the latter, I think there is hardly anything to add to the SlateStarCodex text and the collection of information at Heterodox that Happy Ent linked above.

I think you are making a wrong comparison there. There is a class of climate change deniers that looks at the data cherypicks and claims climate change has stopped, isn't real, isn't bad etc. They tend to refuse to understand the underlying science, models, data.

That seems to be the same way people that assume IQ is indicative/relevant use IQ. They are not as much interested in the underlying processes but convinced a small set of contextless numbers is really relevant.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

He's really not doing himself any favours by talking to people like this. His original document was at least fairly balanced and I don't think he was sure he believed it that strongly himself. Talking to Milo and others has only made his position seem less reasonable and mannered. 

I'd have to agree. I couldn't get through 10 minutes of this. On top of that, he has a face made for radio/audio podcasts. He should shy away from video.

[TrueMetis]

8 hours ago, Jo498 said:

With similar reasoning one could also say that climate change deniers are not "deniers" because the do not deny change, but "only" that the change is caused by humans and that there can and should be done anything about it.

Except they did deny it. Up until recently when they were kicked in the balls repeatedly with facts. And even then I still here assholes talking about climate change "stopping" based on bullshit.

The current state of climate change denialf is similar to creationism. Facts have been laid out so clearly that they can no longer deny what in front of their face, but they still cling to other bullshit. For creationism it's a denial of common ancestry but that things were created "after their kind" for climate change deniers it's "the change is natural humans can't possibly have that large an impact." In both cases it's a denial of facts. That is not the case for those who question IQ's use as a measurement of intelligence.

[Kalbear]

10 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

He's really not doing himself any favours by talking to people like this. His original document was at least fairly balanced and I don't think he was sure he believed it that strongly himself. Talking to Milo and others has only made his position seem less reasonable and mannered. 

His original document stated that women in general shouldn't be looked at for engineering jobs, were more neurotic and less able to deal with stress (which compared to the men in tech, hah), and spent a good chunk of its time ignoring the existence of people like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper. It was written without any curse words that I know of, but to call it balanced is pretty insane; what negative value is there for any man listed in that document? 

He then went on later to compare women wanting to be in tech to people wanting to believe in Santa Claus. 

He does have some points about conservative viewpoints not being welcome in tech, thought a lot of that is because conservative viewpoints are things like 'kill all muslims' and 'women shouldn't work', and that's not really welcome in a whole lot of places. But balanced his document was not, and he's only shown what he really felt after he left. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

37 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

His original document stated that women in general shouldn't be looked at for engineering jobs, were more neurotic and less able to deal with stress (which compared to the men in tech, hah), and spent a good chunk of its time ignoring the existence of people like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper. It was written without any curse words that I know of, but to call it balanced is pretty insane; what negative value is there for any man listed in that document? 

He then went on later to compare women wanting to be in tech to people wanting to believe in Santa Claus. 

He does have some points about conservative viewpoints not being welcome in tech, thought a lot of that is because conservative viewpoints are things like 'kill all muslims' and 'women shouldn't work', and that's not really welcome in a whole lot of places. But balanced his document was not, and he's only shown what he really felt after he left. 

Well if you think that a conservative opinion consists of 'kill all muslims' I suggest you exit your echo chamber quite rapidly.

Either way you are misrepresenting what's he said again. Guess you simply never read what he wrote.

[Kalbear]

11 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Well if you think that a conservative opinion consists of 'kill all muslims' I suggest you exit your echo chamber quite rapidly.

Either way you are misrepresenting what's he said again. Guess you simply never read what he wrote.

I've read it several times now. Are you saying that some conservatives don't advocate killing all muslims? Because we saw that stance by POTUS candidates during the election, and it got rave applause. Similarly, are you saying that some conservatives don't advocate keeping all women at home and not working? Because Vox Day certainly does, and he has a pretty big following. 

Damore's view that women aren't suited to computer science isn't a particularly new one in conservative viewpoints, and it's definitely not a new one in the tech field. 

As  to my misrepresentation of Damore's viewpoints, you can simply read his words himself.

https://twitter.com/Fired4Truth/status/899319849297494016

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I've read it several times now. Are you saying that some conservatives don't advocate killing all muslims? Because we saw that stance by POTUS candidates during the election, and it got rave applause. Similarly, are you saying that some conservatives don't advocate keeping all women at home and not working? Because Vox Day certainly does, and he has a pretty big following. 

Damore's view that women aren't suited to computer science isn't a particularly new one in conservative viewpoints, and it's definitely not a new one in the tech field. 

As  to my misrepresentation of Damore's viewpoints, you can simply read his words himself.

https://twitter.com/Fired4Truth/status/899319849297494016

I think maybe you have a problem with the concepts of 'all' and 'some', much like you did with Damores document 

[Jo498]

15 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

Except they did deny it. Up until recently when they were kicked in the balls repeatedly with facts. And even then I still here assholes talking about climate change "stopping" based on bullshit.

The current state of climate change denialf is similar to creationism. Facts have been laid out so clearly that they can no longer deny what in front of their face, but they still cling to other bullshit. For creationism it's a denial of common ancestry but that things were created "after their kind" for climate change deniers it's "the change is natural humans can't possibly have that large an impact." In both cases it's a denial of facts. That is not the case for those who question IQ's use as a measurement of intelligence.

Maybe, I admit that I do not follow closely climate change deniers, creationists or anti-vaxxers. Neither am I familiar with the whole spectrum of "deniers"/critics of evopsych, IQ research etc. and I am myself wary about such claims that by average "test IQ" most of Africa or Australian aborigines would be "mentally retarded" because those people are obviously far too capable in practice that a classification as seriously deficient could make any sense. (So I suspect the tests test a more narrow set of skills than it seems.)

But I don't think that these differences matter for Haidt's points about biases on what is called "the left"/"the right", the examples are merely illustrations (maybe not very good ones). He certainly has a point about lack of viewpoint diversity in some academic fields. I find it likely that more diversity in economics might have prevented former and current crises (that were mathematically proved as "impossible" by leading/dominating experts. (I am wary of some other claims of Haidt's; when he compares political associations of professors between the 1970s and now and finds a strong leftward shift, I am not sure if he somehow takes care of the fact than in 1970s "leftist professor" often did mean "rabid Maoist" (at least in theory and at cocktail parties) whereas today "leftist" usually means "centrist social democrat".

 

[Sheep the Evicted]

So I just would like to note how messed up it is that I link one of Haidts best lectures and get silence whereas Manhole links a fucking Milo video and suddenly the thread is popping off.

 

On 24/08/2017 at 0:31 AM, The Anti-Targ said:

Pointing out that there is a population difference for attribute X does not in itself usefully inform public or corporate policy. The reason behind population differences in X may help to inform policy. But it may inform policy in a way that people who have simplistic views on attribute X might not like.

It could be argued that avoiding giving people with horrible social attitudes ammunition based on simplistic interpretations of science is more beneficial than openly talking about a science issue.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by the first paragraph so I'll only focus on the bit i understand. Damore was trying to discuss the reasons behind population differences with regard to biology (not just culture), because yeah that's how intelligent policy decisions are made you weigh up all the information in front of you; turns out this topic is not open for discussion.

Also I find your second paragraph horrifying. If we couldn't talk about things that idiots might misinterpret then I'm not sure we would have anything to talk about at all. I also hate the idea that truth or at the very least intelligent discussion should be walled off in some way. 

 

19 hours ago, Seli said:

That seems to be the same way people that assume IQ is indicative/relevant use IQ. They are not as much interested in the underlying processes but convinced a small set of contextless numbers is really relevant.

 

I'm afraid your pretty wrong about this and displaying the kind of bias that Haidt was talking about. IQ is the single most robust and reliable predictor the social sciences have ever given us. The fact we found it so early and have spent the last 80 or so years trying and failing to kill it means that IQ is about as solid now as the Theory of Gravity. I'd invite you to read up on it but honestly its one of the most depressing rabbit-holes you can ever go down. Best to accept that IQ can be a useful measure and leave it at that.

 

11 hours ago, Kalbear said:

His original document stated that women in general shouldn't be looked at for engineering jobs, were more neurotic and less able to deal with stress (which compared to the men in tech, hah), and spent a good chunk of its time ignoring the existence of people like Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper. It was written without any curse words that I know of, but to call it balanced is pretty insane; what negative value is there for any man listed in that document? 

He then went on later to compare women wanting to be in tech to people wanting to believe in Santa Claus.

 

Im with Jon; I have no idea what memo you've been reading. Shouldn't be looked at for engineering jobs ? Where did he say that ? Yes women are on average more neurotic then Men - neurotiscism is the official, technical name of the personality trait for negative emotions - and its a statistical fact. And ofcourse he ignored Lovelace and Hopper those are individuals - he's talking about populations and why we might never see anything near a 50/50 split in tech.

As an aside I find it really interesting that women are both more neurotic and more extroverted than men; it goes back to what Haidt was saying about stereotypes - most of them are true. We have strong statistical evidence to show that women really are on average more emotional than men.

Also while I agree its open to interpretation I don't think he's saying the Myth is that women can code - obviously there are plenty who can - the myth is that current tech ratio's are entirely due to discrimination or SV  culture. He's saying a big piece of the puzzle is that girls simply don't want to be engineers and he's trying to come up with reasons why.

 

22 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

He's really not doing himself any favours by talking to people like this.

 

Agreed. But at the same time I can see why he's doing it; a man under siege (and that's certainly how he must be feeling now) will take any support where he can find it. Also, just look at this thread, how many people are willing to even listen to what he's saying.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

6 hours ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

So I just would like to note how messed up it is that I link one of Haidts best lectures and get silence whereas Manhole links a fucking Milo video and suddenly the thread is popping off.

Lulz. That's totally fair. Haidt is a compelling speaker and his positions are very well thought out. Milo is a one-note troll, and couldn't debate his way out of a wet paper bag. Just to clarify, I didn't post that video because I thought it was good or even entertaining. I couldn't get past the 10 minute mark. I've seen Damore interviewed by a few different You Tube type personalities at this point, and he doesn't do much to bolster his own case. He is an awkward speaker at best. At this point it seems a bit like he's just riding the controversy train. 

[Kalbear]

10 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I think maybe you have a problem with the concepts of 'all' and 'some', much like you did with Damores document 

Can you quote where I said all? I think you have a problem with reading things that don't exist. 

[TrueMetis]

11 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Maybe, I admit that I do not follow closely climate change deniers, creationists or anti-vaxxers. Neither am I familiar with the whole spectrum of "deniers"/critics of evopsych, IQ research etc. and I am myself wary about such claims that by average "test IQ" most of Africa or Australian aborigines would be "mentally retarded" because those people are obviously far too capable in practice that a classification as seriously deficient could make any sense. (So I suspect the tests test a more narrow set of skills than it seems.)

But I don't think that these differences matter for Haidt's points about biases on what is called "the left"/"the right", the examples are merely illustrations (maybe not very good ones). He certainly has a point about lack of viewpoint diversity in some academic fields. I find it likely that more diversity in economics might have prevented former and current crises (that were mathematically proved as "impossible" by leading/dominating experts. (I am wary of some other claims of Haidt's; when he compares political associations of professors between the 1970s and now and finds a strong leftward shift, I am not sure if he somehow takes care of the fact than in 1970s "leftist professor" often did mean "rabid Maoist" (at least in theory and at cocktail parties) whereas today "leftist" usually means "centrist social democrat".

 

Why is a lack of diversity in viewpoints a bad thing? When a academic field is coming to the right conclusion a lack of viewpoints is exactly what you would expect. Only idiots talk about the lack of viewpoints when it comes to evolutionary theory. No one complains that Newtonian Physics and Relativity are the only games in town when it comes to gravity.

Hell economics is a prime example of diversity being a problem, there are dozens of mutually exclusive theories in economics. They can't all be right, but there doesn't seem to be any sign of people moving to eliminate the non-working theories and move toward concordance.

[Seli]

11 hours ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

...

I'm afraid your pretty wrong about this and displaying the kind of bias that Haidt was talking about. IQ is the single most robust and reliable predictor the social sciences have ever given us. The fact we found it so early and have spent the last 80 or so years trying and failing to kill it means that IQ is about as solid now as the Theory of Gravity. I'd invite you to read up on it but honestly its one of the most depressing rabbit-holes you can ever go down. Best to accept that IQ can be a useful measure and leave it at that.

 

...

I am afraid that does in no way contradict what I wrote. Just because we have a test that correlates with success in our societies does not mean that the test measures something inherent. If the test score is dependent upon upbringing, culture, what people have been exposed to, training in addition to something as intelligence it will give that exact same result. But that has highly different implications for society than the interpretation that IQ measures something purely inherent.

And a shallow exploration of the rabbit hole shows that there is evidence that for example motivation is important*. Which reinforces what I said. Focussing on IQ is magic thinking if people are unwilling to understand the underlying processes.

*http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2011/04/what-does-iq-really-measure

Quote

Nevertheless, the Duckworth team concludes that IQ tests are measuring much more than just raw intelligence--they also measure how badly subjects want to succeed both on the test and later in life. Yet Duckworth and her colleagues caution that motivation isn't everything: The lower role for motivation in academic achievement, they write, suggests that "earning a high IQ score requires high intelligence in addition to high motivation."

 

edit:

11 hours ago, Sheep the Evicted said:

...

Im with Jon; I have no idea what memo you've been reading. Shouldn't be looked at for engineering jobs ? Where did he say that ? Yes women are on average more neurotic then Men - neurotiscism is the official, technical name of the personality trait for negative emotions - and its a statistical fact. And ofcourse he ignored Lovelace and Hopper those are individuals - he's talking about populations and why we might never see anything near a 50/50 split in tech.

...

This assumes neuroticism is somehow inherently detrimental for tech. Which is an assumption, not a fact.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

1 hour ago, Seli said:

This assumes neuroticism is somehow inherently detrimental for tech. Which is an assumption, not a fact.

Again this is misrepresenting Damore's point. He is not saying that women are Neurotic ( lower stress tolerance) and therefore cannot do the job, he is saying that it might explain why they are choosing to go into less stressful careers. His entire 'manifesto' was questioning the assumption that all gender differences are purely down to discrimination, it wasn't about saying 'women can't be in tech'.

 

[Sheep the Evicted]

1 hour ago, Seli said:

Just because we have a test that correlates with success in our societies does not mean that the test measures something inherent...

..Which reinforces what I said. Focussing on IQ is magic thinking if people are unwilling to understand the underlying processes.

Well then I'd say your standards are unrealistically high. What's the point of measuring height or hair colour or number of teeth then ? Because if you grew up in a society with very poor nutrition/lived underground/was exposed to radiation.. then it would all be very different and so it can't be inherent.

 

We know IQ is very good for explaining success in our societies, we know its about 80% heritable between adults and that there isn't really anything you can do to change that. In the real world anything that explains 80% of something wouldn't be considered a factor, or even the main component, people would just say its the entire cause.  What more do you want ?

[Seli]

47 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Again this is misrepresenting Damore's point. He is not saying that women are Neurotic ( lower stress tolerance) and therefore cannot do the job, he is saying that it might explain why they are choosing to go into less stressful careers. His entire 'manifesto' was questioning the assumption that all gender differences are purely down to discrimination, it wasn't about saying 'women can't be in tech'.

 

Again missing the actual point, the point Dalmore so carefully ignored. Why the hell should a tech job be stressful? Which is at the core of his issues, he can't see past his interpretation of what the work should be. And seems to be one of the big issues of most people that don't see the problem underlying that piece, assuming some job requirements just have to be the way they currently are.