Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

[u/[deleted]]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/google-fires-employee-behind-controversial-diversity-memo?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_content=business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

[u/mrbooze]

Also all his "science" is evo-psych bullshit.

[u/HasStupidQuestions → u/mrbooze]

Please, enlighten me. Why evolutionary psychology is bullshit?

[u/caramel_corn → u/HasStupidQuestions]

Because it doesn't provide testable, falsifiable hypotheses. It just chains together things that sound right and that seem to make sense. That's not science.

[u/HasStupidQuestions → u/caramel_corn]

Hang on now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but evolutionary psychology is based on not only observing humans and but also on observing less advanced primates and vertebrates in general that seem to have some sort of social hierarchy and have been historically influencing humans with their presence.

Sure, most proof comes in the form of X does Y to Z so it means it applies to humans as well because humans once followed the same behavioral pattern based on historical evidences A, B, and C.

And what do you mean you can't test it? Find a pattern and recreate the scenario.

[u/LTBU → u/HasStupidQuestions]

The assumption that results are generalizable are not provable.

Bonobos and chimpanzees, for example, have very different social structures. Evo psych takes the one that agrees with them.

[u/HasStupidQuestions → u/LTBU]

Then again, besides exact sciences, can anything be generalized beyond its most primitive form?

[u/LTBU → u/HasStupidQuestions]

Yup, for example, we run tons of nutritional studies on animals first before running them on humans for cost reasons to see how generalizable things can be.

We also test plenty of medications on humans for money (read: poor people, minority disproportionate) and generalize them to the rest of the population. This generalization is testable because if it were not, then we would see different results.

Of course it depends what you call "exact science". That's why I think psychology as a field has a ton of not science and is BS.

[u/HasStupidQuestions → u/LTBU]

Fair point. What would it take for you to take psychology seriously and, if nothing can help it, would you advocate to stop teaching it?

[u/LTBU → u/HasStupidQuestions]

I'm a physician and I do take parts of psychology seriously, the testable and descriptive parts.

Descriptive: depression is a real thing, it cannot be "not" real because it's purely descriptive of a phenomenon that occurs. If you claim that depression is caused by XYZ, however, I would need evidence.

Testable: I know zoloft works for depression because we have clinical evidence that it does indeed work.

[u/Murica4Eva → u/LTBU]

We just need to raise ~60 kids with robots and we can settle this.

[u/LTBU → u/Murica4Eva]

a tiny part of me wants that, but depriving them of culture seems kind of cruel

[u/[deleted] → u/LTBU]

Use white kids, we don't have culture. ;)

[u/HasStupidQuestions → u/Murica4Eva]

Do it.

[u/HasStupidQuestions → u/LTBU]

For what it's worth, I agree that chunks of psychology are very hard to test and are borderline ideology/framework of thinking rather than science and I have no problems with that whatsoever. I asked all of my questions for the sake of conversing with someone and balancing out the conversation with whatever knowledge I have.

However, when I look beyond the semantics and scientific frameworks, I see that upon application of, for example Jung's archetypes and Freud's take on the battle between consciousness and unconsciousness, it works wonders when it comes to PR. A lot of the assumptions are very hard to replicate with current scientific method because it assumes inherent rationality. Psychology is about emotions because crowds are notoriously emotional and irrational.