“Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” memo goes viral, usual suspects outraged

Bob24 · 16-08-2017 08:42AM

Informative enough interview with Damore (written, not video): https://reason.com/archives/2017/08/14/an-interview-with-james-damore/

He does give a few details about what made in uncomfortable about the diversity policies. Also apparently he was already receiving threats from within Google before this went viral.

Saruhashi · 16-08-2017 12:54PM

kylith wrote: »

Should girls growing up who could go into IT be made to feel like they are biologically incapable of doing the job based on some half-wit's comments?

I think it would be better to let them read his comments and make up their own minds.

If he didn't actually say they are biologically incapable of doing the job then they might wonder why you are trying to convince them that he did say that.

I don't think you can tell girls growing up that IT is unwelcoming to them and then expect then to have a positive attitude towards entering IT.

You could show them why this guy is wrong if his memo had an impact on their confidence or ambition but first you would need to encourage them to read the memo to see what it actually says.

What if... the IT industry is actually very welcoming to women but we are incorrectly telling young girls that it's full of people who think they are biologically inferior?

Grayson · 16-08-2017 01:36PM

Saruhashi wrote: »

I think it would be better to let them read his comments and make up their own minds.

That's like telling a jew they can't disagree with the protocols of zion unless they've actually read it.

Damores article is riddled with factual/scientific inaccuracies. He quotes a study to say that women are more neurotic but the author of the study even says he misread it and got it wrong. Yep, the guy who wrote the study actually says that damore is wrong in the way he interpreted it.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-damores-google-memo/

So, why would anyone want to read that piece of crap.

This is a load of sexist drivel written by a fecking engineer. He's not a social scientist. He's not a psychologist. He's not even a HR specialist. He's an engineer who wanted to find science to fit in with his views so he made up some pseudo science based on some articles that he (probably) misinterpreted.

16-08-2017 01:52PM

"the author of the study says he misinterpreted it"
"you're just being emotional"

Yeah okay

16-08-2017 01:59PM

The Wired article actually confirms most of the science, and is guilty of exactly the same tricks that it accuses the original memo of using.

It talks about gender differences in toy preference (something for which the science really IS pretty conclusive, and confirms the experience of most parents), picks a small argument with the fact that ONE experiment was conducted on monkeys, and then moves directly to quoting someone who doesn't sound like a scientist arguing that all preference is due to socialisation.

A case of 'never mind the science and the tedious business of peer review, here's a non scientist with the correct opinion'.

Grayson · 16-08-2017 01:59PM

I'm dangerous to society?:rolleyes:

listen up rereg, The science is faulty. I'll not argue that there are differences in biology between men and women. If there wasn't we'd all be the same gender. However he's drawing conclusions that aren't scientifically sound.
Read the article I linked. It's not just one study. He misinterpreted loads of studies. And plenty of experts, some of them are the authors he cited, have said that he's wrong. And they've pointed out why.

Besides all the ethical considerations of what he wrote, he's simply wrong on a scientific basis. It's not about ideology. It's about actual facts.

Grayson · 16-08-2017 02:05PM

Deleted User wrote: »

The Wired article actually confirms most of the science, and is guilty of exactly the same tricks that it accuses the original memo of using.

It talks about gender differences in toy preference (something for which the science really IS pretty conclusive, and confirms the experience of most parents), picks a small argument with the fact that ONE experiment was conducted on monkeys, and then moves directly to quoting someone who doesn't sound like a scientist arguing that all preference is due to socialisation.

A case of 'never mind the science and the tedious business of peer review, here's a non scientist with the correct opinion'.

You might as well quote it

With the next pivot, the memo gets more pernicious. Damore switches—again, subtly—from effects to causes. His interpretation of the science around preference and ability is arguable; on causation, though, he’s even rockier. According to Damore (and a lot of research), the biological factor that connects sex to cognitive abilities and personality traits is prenatal exposure to testosterone.
Of all the high-stakes claims in sex-difference research, none is more important or more popular than the idea that hormones in the womb help give people stereotypically masculine or feminine interests. While they’re developing, males get a bigger dose of testosterone. “Among social psychologists there’s a consensus that prenatal testosterone does affect a lot of personality traits, in particular one’s interest in people versus things,” Damore said in an interview last week with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. He also said it to pro-Trump YouTuber Stefan Molyneux, adding that hormonal exposure “explains a lot of differences in career choice.”

Damore is probably wrong about this too. The most consistent findings linking prenatal testosterone to sex-linked behaviors come from about a dozen studies examining toy preferences among girls with a condition known as congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which causes the overproduction of sex hormones, including testosterone. CAH-affected girls tend to be less interested in dolls (substituting for people) and more interested in toys like trucks (things).
But children with CAH have other variables. They’re often born with ambiguous genitalia and other grave medical conditions, and therefore have unusual rearing experiences. To get around this socialization issue, researchers from Emory University gave toys to young rhesus monkeys. When they saw that females preferred plush dolls and males preferred trucks, they concluded that these tendencies must be hard-wired into each sex.

Squint hard at this result, because it presumes that juvenile rhesus monkeys see stuffed animals as monkeylike but “wheeled toys” as thinglike. But why would a monkey see a plush turtle as akin to self? And how would it know what a truck was or was not? Also: The male monkeys played with trucks. The females chose between the two about equally. The logic here walks a twisted path across the floor of the uncanny valley.

Still, most hormone researchers agree that these differences are real. But that they’re directly linked to prenatal testosterone? Not so much. And to differences in career choice? “There’s 100 percent no consensus on that,” says Justin Carré, a psychologist at Nipissing University in Ontario. “The human literature on early androgen exposure is really very messy.”

.

Now, the guy mentions the monkey study because he states that none of the studies on humans can be trusted. It's because all the studies have been on extreme exposures to hormones in utero. So the scientists when looking at monkeys. And then the author states why the monkey research can't be used.

Effectively he's dismissed the original research and the secondary (monkey) research.

Yet you're accusing him of being selective.

ohnonotgmail · 16-08-2017 02:06PM

the counter arguments came from the people who wrote the studies he quoted. he misinterpreted the results. the authors have confirmed this. the only question now is did he do this because it suited his agenda or was it simply a lack of understanding on his part. or perhaps it was both.

Grayson · 16-08-2017 02:10PM

Now you're pivoting. You've decided that rather than defend the science, which you can't, you'll make this into an ethical argument about whether he deserves the abuse he got for his statements.

Firstly, I provided a link which addresses the science. Read it if you have time between rereg's.
Secondly it's debatable if he deserves the pillorying he got. Personally I don't think he did at first. I do believe he deserved to get fired. He created an uncomfortable work environment and he was dumb enough to publish this thing internally, so yeah he deserved to be fired. I said he didn't deserve to become a global figure of hate, but since then he's done interviews where he's doubled down and has even come out with more stuff (Such at the hormones in utero making women less apt to be coders). So at this point he's actively part of it.

Resist ZOG · 16-08-2017 02:13PM

What's the big deal? Women aren't as inclined to go into IT similar to how men are less inclined to go into nursing.

Anyway fair to Goolag for proving his point. Hope lands a good job soon.

Grayson · 16-08-2017 02:16PM

There is loose evidence. Most of the differences can however be put down to sociological and environmental causes.

However there's no evidence to show that there's a difference between male and female coders. Any woman who applies for that job will have just as much interest as a man. Plus the job isn't just about things. I work in IT and spend my day in meetings with coders, engineers, PM's etc. So much of this work is planning and talking.

Read the article I posted. It's informative and shows how he drew incorrect conclusions.

Grayson · 16-08-2017 02:17PM

He did something dumb. He posted that crap online. From a HR perspective it creates a hostile work environment. And once it became public google really had no option but to fire him. He had to know that saying that crap in work is unacceptable.

ohnonotgmail · 16-08-2017 02:25PM

No it because he is an idiot who didn't understand the studies he was reading and decided to tell the world that he is an idiot. There is no ideology here. only science. science he doesnt understand.

kylith · 16-08-2017 02:32PM

And think IT companies are taking fair steps to see if women can be made more interested in pursuing it as a career.

For the record, I think that there are similar societal blocks toward men who want to become, for example, nurses. These too need to be looked at and the profession made more open to male applicants.

ohnonotgmail · 16-08-2017 02:36PM

that has already been discussed. when the authors of a paper publicly say you misinterpreted what they said then it is fair to say he got it wrong. to exacerbate that by doubling down after being told you are incorrect is the sign of an idiot. there is no ideology here. he got the science wrong. he has been told this by the people who did the science he referred to yet he still insists he is right.

Grayson · 16-08-2017 02:40PM

I'm just going to stop responding to you. I put a link to teh wired article in my first response to you. Read it. Until then there's no point in talking to you until you read the links

silverharp · 16-08-2017 02:43PM

kylith wrote: »

And think IT companies are taking fair steps to see if women can be made more interested in pursuing it as a career.

For the record, I think that there are similar societal blocks toward men who want to become, for example, nurses. These too need to be looked at and the profession made more open to male applicants.

the nurse case is interesting but again its not a well paid profession and there are probably alternate careers for men which pay higher or are more exiting. There are more male EMTs (paramedics) who could fit the bill as being potential nurses, but an easy wager would be to guess than men would prefer an EMT job to that of a nurse.

Bob24 · 16-08-2017 02:48PM

Grayson wrote: »

Yep, the guy who wrote the study actually says that damore is wrong in the way he interpreted it.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-pernicious-science-of-james-damores-google-memo/

bluewolf wrote: »

"the author of the study says he misinterpreted it"
"you're just being emotional"

Yeah okay

I don't know if anyone read it (a number of people on this thread seem to enjoy talking about documents they haven't read), but actually the Wired link provided doesn't quite back that statement.

For a starter it (selectively) quotes 2 researchers whose studies are referenced in the memo, not one

And then while one of them does say "That’s a huge stretch to me" (i.e. he's far from convinced but falls short of saying it's wrong) none of them says clearly that their paper was misinterpreted. The authors of the Wired article do say that alright ... but is has nothing to do with "the author of the study says".

But anyway ... I guess going back to people's actual words rather than someone's interpretation of what they have said which supports as specific case to be made is a bit old-fashioned.

16-08-2017 02:51PM

silverharp wrote: »

the nurse case is interesting but again its not a well paid profession and there are probably alternate careers for men which pay higher or are more exiting. There are more male EMTs (paramedics) who could fit the bill as being potential nurses, but an easy wager would be to guess than men would prefer an EMT job to that of a nurse.

There's generally a correlation between when men enter an industry, the pay goes up. I'll try find the link on my computer. Similar to what happened when women used to dominate IT, i think it wasn't well paid. Then men entered the profession and up it went.
So it might happen with nursing

ohnonotgmail · 16-08-2017 02:53PM

When a person continues to insist they are right when they have been shown to be wrong then i feel quite comfortable calling them an idiot. The ability to learn from your mistakes is the mark of a non-idiot. Idiots do not possess this capacity. by all means continue to post your tired rhetoric about "ideology". i could do with a good laugh today.

kylith · 16-08-2017 02:55PM

silverharp wrote: »

the nurse case is interesting but again its not a well paid profession and there are probably alternate careers for men which pay higher or are more exiting. There are more male EMTs (paramedics) who could fit the bill as being potential nurses, but an easy wager would be to guess than men would prefer an EMT job to that of a nurse.

I wouldn't speculate on that. But what I do know is that there is a stigma about men going into what is seen as a 'woman's job', and this needs to be looked at. Quite simply, we don't know if there are many men who would like to go into nursing but choose EMT as a career instead because they fear being ridiculed as a 'murse'. For goodness sake, in the thread on here about a man's dog being killed one of the first comments was deriding on the owner because of the breed of dog.

There's a whole BS mindset about X is a man's job, Y is a woman's job: women can't do X, men are less manly if they do Y. That is an attitude that needs to be stopped.

charlie_says · 16-08-2017 02:56PM

Who leaked the internal memo to the outside world and what was their objective doing it?

It was an internal discussion memo and was only posted on an internal system. So somebody went ahead and posted it, whether that was a decision that was made by management senior to the author or just an annoyed co worker is pretty important slant to this whole story in my opinion.

The whole thing has been a PR disaster, and likely HR disaster for Google as there will be heightened tensions now within their company between the both the anti memo and pro memo groups of employees.

Will I Am Not · 16-08-2017 03:10PM

Men and women are very different and like different things. Big f*cking whoop!!!
Obviously there are exceptions.

Some people won't be happy until a woman can literally grow her own cock.

16-08-2017 03:15PM

Bob24 wrote: »

I don't know if anyone read it (people seem to enjoy talking about things they haven't read on his thread), but actually the Wired link provided doesn't quite back that statement.

For a starter it (selectively) quotes 2 researchers whose studies are referenced in the memo, not one

And then while one of them does say "That’s a huge stretch to me" none of them says clearly that their paper was misinterpreted. The author of the Wired article does say that alright ... but is has nothing to do with "the author of the study says".

But anyway ... I guess going back to people's actual words rather than someone's interpretation of what they have said which supports as specific case to be made is a bit old-fashioned.

Indeed. The Wired article is written by two journalists (not scientists) engaging in some pretty wild and inaccurate summaries of scientific evidence, mashing it up with flat out opinion from non scientists, and claiming that because the science isn't definitively settled then nobody is allowed to reach any conclusion from it.

And yet we are supposed to believe it is the last word on the subject. It is guilty of all the same crimes as the original memo (crimes that are committed by anyone arguing a point at any time, ie not really 'crimes' at all)

silverharp · 16-08-2017 03:19PM

kylith wrote: »

I wouldn't speculate on that. But what I do know is that there is a stigma about men going into what is seen as a 'woman's job', and this needs to be looked at. Quite simply, we don't know if there are many men who would like to go into nursing but choose EMT as a career instead because they fear being ridiculed as a 'murse'. For goodness sake, in the thread on here about a man's dog being killed one of the first comments was deriding on the owner because of the breed of dog.

There's a whole BS mindset about X is a man's job, Y is a woman's job: women can't do X, men are less manly if they do Y. That is an attitude that needs to be stopped.

I don't think anybody is ridiculing a male nurse, 20 years ago maybe, however I think its just part of the pressures that both sexes apply to different parts of the job market.

fash · 16-08-2017 06:02PM

Geoffrey Miller, an evolutionary psychology professor at the University of New Mexico notes in this linked article that:
"Graded fairly, [Mr Damore's] memo would get at least an A- in any masters’ level psychology course. It is consistent with the scientific state of the art on sex differences. "
That is consistent with almost article from every scientist/academic I've read on Mr Damore's memo as well as my own reading of his memo.
It would therefore appear to me that there is at least a debatable point to what he is saying - even if you disagree with what he is saying. If he has a debatable point, then deeming his argument so bad that he must be called names and his character maligned would certainly suggest that the person doing so is not doing so in the pursuit of truth - but instead is doing so because Mr Damore has blasphemed against their particular religion (and because killing blasphemers is no longer/not yet allowed, they must be condemned, silenced and ostracised - for now at least until execution is reintroduced).
It would appear to be a classic example of:
First they ignore you, then laugh at you and hate you/ Then they fight you, then you win
However if there is evidence that Mr Damore has anything less than a debatable point (which is to say consensus as to him being wrong/ a significant majority of scientists saying that the evidence does not back his assertions), then I am open to changing my mind on this topic and I would appreciate if those who believe so could provide links.

fash · 16-08-2017 06:08PM

Grayson wrote: »

He did something dumb. He posted that crap online. From a HR perspective it creates a hostile work environment. And once it became public google really had no option but to fire him. He had to know that saying that crap in work is unacceptable.

I believe that he was encouraged/requested by Google to publish his memo - they specifically requested suggestions.

fash · 16-08-2017 06:12PM

charlie_says wrote: »

Who leaked the internal memo to the outside world and what was their objective doing it?

It was an internal discussion memo and was only posted on an internal system. So somebody went ahead and posted it, whether that was a decision that was made by management senior to the author or just an annoyed co worker is pretty important slant to this whole story in my opinion.

The whole thing has been a PR disaster, and likely HR disaster for Google as there will be heightened tensions now within their company between the both the anti memo and pro memo groups of employees.

From the reddit thread by Mr Damore, it appears to have been published by coworkers of a more ideological bent. It seems to have been an escalation in order to force Google to fire him after various threats had been issued against him internally.

Grayson · 16-08-2017 08:10PM

fash wrote: »

I believe that he was encouraged/requested by Google to publish his memo - they specifically requested suggestions.

How is that encouragement? Is that like saying facebook/twitter are encouraging ape threats by providing a forum and asking people to use it?

Are you trying to say that it's not his fault he uploaded a 3000 words of sexist drivel but rather googles fault?

fash · 16-08-2017 08:18PM

Grayson wrote: »

How is that encouragement? Is that like saying facebook/twitter are encouraging ape threats by providing a forum and asking people to use it?

Are you trying to say that it's not his fault he uploaded a 3000 words of sexist drivel but rather googles fault?

That presupposes that it is "sexist drivel" as opposed to "A- at masters level in evolutionary psychology". Please support your argument with actual evidence as opposed to trying to "burn the witch".

“Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber” memo goes viral, usual suspects outraged

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