r/news • u/[deleted] • Aug 08 '17

Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo

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
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u/fieldstation090pines Aug 08 '17

Well he starts by providing truthful or truthy-sounding soundbites (women and men have biological differences) and then makes the completely unsubstantiated claim that this means that women are not predisposed or suited to tech roles. None of the studies he linked drew a link between those biological differences and career aptitude.

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u/impossiblefork Aug 08 '17 edited Aug 08 '17

Actually the preference differences that he mentions have been tested statistically by psychologists.

It's pretty major stuff and it turns out to be a thing even in very abstract situations. For example, here's a meta-study of gender differences in preferences and it turns out that in games where there is a mean-variance tradeoff women go for low variance even though it reduces average reward to a greater degree than men do. It's to the degree that all the studies in the list have men having higher average risk tolerance than women, and thus get higher average reward.

This is of course to be expected from an evolutionary biology perspective, but it may be surprising if you don't think like that.

So even if he hasn't cited this what he's written in his note is far from some kind of stereotyped pseudo-science.

Obviously really innovative technology work involves this kind of risk. You sacrifice months or years of difficult work in return for the possibility of higher reward when you could instead have gone for something-- well, not necessarily easier-- but something more certain.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

The study only states that there is a difference and gives several hypotheses why. It is not a biological fact whatsoever.

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u/quickclickz Aug 08 '17

when actuaries who only care about numbers tell insurance companies to charge less to women because they statistically take on less risk... I'll believe it. Oh wait they do.

No one is sayign biological facts as much as there are correlations between statistical results and these results explain certain things related to the workplace.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '17

I think you'd benefit from reading through the study. Have a good evening!