Did James Damore say anything scientifically proven factually incorrect?
08-11-2017
, 09:40 PM
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"They tried really hard to hire black folk," isn't hard data.
"Some black folk who applied to work here didn't meet our qualifications," isn't hard data.
"This particular black guy didn't get hired," isn't hard data.
"Out of our graduating class of 30 CompSci students, none got hired by Google, even though Google did show up to our job fair," is kind of almost like hard data if you push on your eyeball to make it appear to be hard data, but is just one applicant more than an anecdote.
08-11-2017
, 09:52 PM
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So entrenched is the racism in the US, that's they're hiring Asians in huge numbers:
Or maybe it's that hirings are race-blind, and Asians are simply outstandingly competent at coding? Which do you think is the most reasonable explain for why Asians are 18 times more likely to be coders generally than black people? Racism?
Or maybe it's that hirings are race-blind, and Asians are simply outstandingly competent at coding? Which do you think is the most reasonable explain for why Asians are 18 times more likely to be coders generally than black people? Racism?
Again, actually reading the article is rather illuminating.
08-11-2017
, 09:55 PM
Anyway, the reason coding is such a stark example is that it's a strong meritocracy. You want to claim there's a sexist or racist bias in management? Go ahead, I've no hard evidence against that (or for it apart from pure numbers). Midwifing? Sure.
But coding is very strongly a question of whether you have the intellectual horsepower to do the job. There's not much more to it. You can learn an MIT computer science degree in about a year - in fact people have done just that. Coding is about juggling large numbers of concepts at once in your head, at various levels of abstraction.
From an old coding blog I like to read
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15 years of experience interviewing programmers has convinced me that the best programmers all have an easy aptitude for dealing with multiple levels of abstraction simultaneously. In programming, that means specifically that they have no problem with recursion (which involves holding in your head multiple levels of the call stack at the same time) or complex pointer-based algorithms (where the address of an object is sort of like an abstract representation of the object itself).
I’ve come to realize that understanding pointers in C is not a skill, it’s an aptitude. In first year computer science classes, there are always about 200 kids at the beginning of the semester. They are having a good ol’ time learning C or Pascal in college, until one day the professor introduces pointers, and suddenly, they don’t get it. They just don’t understand anything any more. 90% of the class goes off and becomes Political Science majors, then they tell their friends that there weren’t enough good looking members of the appropriate sex in their CompSci classes, that’s why they switched. For some reason most people seem to be born without the part of the brain that understands pointers. Pointers require a complex form of doubly-indirected thinking that some people just can’t do, and it’s pretty crucial to good programming. A lot of the “script jocks” who started programming by copying JavaScript snippets into their web pages and went on to learn Perl never learned about pointers, and they can never quite produce code of the quality you need.
That’s the source of all these famous interview questions you hear about, like “reversing a linked list” or “detect loops in a tree structure.”
I’ve come to realize that understanding pointers in C is not a skill, it’s an aptitude. In first year computer science classes, there are always about 200 kids at the beginning of the semester. They are having a good ol’ time learning C or Pascal in college, until one day the professor introduces pointers, and suddenly, they don’t get it. They just don’t understand anything any more. 90% of the class goes off and becomes Political Science majors, then they tell their friends that there weren’t enough good looking members of the appropriate sex in their CompSci classes, that’s why they switched. For some reason most people seem to be born without the part of the brain that understands pointers. Pointers require a complex form of doubly-indirected thinking that some people just can’t do, and it’s pretty crucial to good programming. A lot of the “script jocks” who started programming by copying JavaScript snippets into their web pages and went on to learn Perl never learned about pointers, and they can never quite produce code of the quality you need.
That’s the source of all these famous interview questions you hear about, like “reversing a linked list” or “detect loops in a tree structure.”
Last edited by ToothSayer; 08-11-2017 at 10:03 PM.
08-11-2017
, 10:12 PM
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Join Date: May 2012
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Quote:
So entrenched is the racism in the US, that's they're hiring Asians in huge numbers:
Or maybe it's that hirings are race-blind, and Asians are simply outstandingly competent at coding? Which do you think is the most reasonable explain for why Asians are 18 times more likely to be coders generally than black people? Racism?
And is it a pure coincidence that the same people who crushed black people 40 years ago on tests of spatial analysis, and somewhat beat whites, are now crushing blacks in an occupation where spatial analysis is a big part of the general skill area, and somewhat beating whites?
Racism though. It's all racism. The white man keeping themselves down to hire Asians instead. Oh wait.
Or maybe it's that hirings are race-blind, and Asians are simply outstandingly competent at coding? Which do you think is the most reasonable explain for why Asians are 18 times more likely to be coders generally than black people? Racism?
And is it a pure coincidence that the same people who crushed black people 40 years ago on tests of spatial analysis, and somewhat beat whites, are now crushing blacks in an occupation where spatial analysis is a big part of the general skill area, and somewhat beating whites?
Racism though. It's all racism. The white man keeping themselves down to hire Asians instead. Oh wait.
The between-country data (East Asians in Asia, etc.) is far beyond messy in the rare instances where it wasn't entirely fictional. The only proper response to seeing what is available is to say, "please go back and do some proper research please."
More interestingly, how would you explain the strong link between conservativism/liberalism and IQ? The difference is only twice as large as the black-white difference.
08-11-2017
, 10:14 PM
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Please refrain from muddying the waters. Thank you in advance.
Last edited by Zeno; 08-13-2017 at 08:02 PM.
Reason: Deleted part of quote
08-11-2017
, 10:26 PM
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The differences between Asians and Blacks on full-scale IQ were nearly as large as the difference in South Africa between those of British and Dutch ancestry or the difference between those of Korean ancestry and Japanese ancestry in Japan.
And again, as relates to this topic, spatial analysis is what matters, not verbal skills. As much as your former profession can say (which isn't much) men and women also have a disparity in spatial analysis skills, and the structure of the parietal lobe, both closely linked to math and hence professions like coding.
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The between-country data (East Asians in Asia, etc.) is far beyond messy in the rare instances where it wasn't entirely fictional. The only proper response to seeing what is available is to say, "please go back and do some proper research please."
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More interestingly, how would you explain the strong link between conservativism/liberalism and IQ? The difference is only twice as large as the black-white difference.
08-11-2017
, 11:01 PM
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Quote:
Yawn. Post actual numbers if you want to claim this. Also, I think it's hilarious that you think you've got a trump card on tests of minor, probably selection biased, minorities in a couple of countries.
Also, wat?!? I'm pointing out weaknesses in the data and making a joke of you taking certain silly studies (that you've only read summaries of) as being telling.
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And again, as relates to this topic, spatial analysis is what matters, not verbal skills. As much as your former profession can say (which isn't much) men and women also have a disparity in spatial analysis skills, and the structure of the parietal lobe, both closely linked to math and hence professions like coding.
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We have solid sets of data for China, which is good enough for me.
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When arsenic poisoned rural Chinese villagers with next to no education are beating wealthy blacks in the US, we have a problem, Houston.
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So we've descended into "making **** up" now? I mean you did that already when you claimed that the evidence showed that homosexuality was entirely inborn (it shows the opposite, and clearly), but this is pretty brazen.
You can use scholar.google.com to get some info on the relationship between conservatism and IQ. I like to assume that you are one of the extremely rare high functioning conservatives,* so I will leave it to you to find some possible squishy narrative that makes it not entirely necessarily true that conservatives are, on average, pretty much dumb as **** compared to average folk.
*the alternative to the assumption is that I am an ******* who gets my kicks by kicking mental toddlers.
08-12-2017
, 12:08 AM
We? How many of you are there?
08-12-2017
, 12:21 AM
A non-interesting blend of zero content sounds pretty interesting.
Followed by:
Followed by:
08-12-2017
, 01:09 AM
Long way to go and a short time to get there.
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Please don't muddy the water
08-12-2017
, 04:47 AM
08-12-2017
, 12:42 PM
This whole thread is remarkably evidence-free, despite Toothy's best efforts at making like the Evidence Fairy.
Here are a few instances where evidence (by which I mean, actual data) would support Toothy's perspective.
What sort of metrics are you using to develop "psychological profiles?" You touch on individual variation, but you're actually arguing mean differences. Do you have any evidence that distinguishes intergender <whatever metric you choose> mean vs variation in that metric?
Data supporting this? Define "high-end" coding (vs low-end coding)?
I'm at a loss to understand how selection pressures might vary between sexes in humans. Sexual selection isn't especially strong in humans afaik...I mean, it's not like there's a natural selection/sexual selection tradeoff. I've never seen a male with tail feathers so long that he can't outrun a predator. Citations and data for selection coefficients and how they differ between sexes please?
That's funny, because there was literally no data or discussion of research (or even anecdotes lol) that supports the assertion that "black coders as a group underperform." Is there a standard coding test that Silicon Valley code monkeys take on a regular basis to support this?
Here are a few instances where evidence (by which I mean, actual data) would support Toothy's perspective.
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FWIW I always assumed hormonal differences between males and females throughout life, including prenatal, would absolutely cause them to have different psychological profiles on average (with huge individual variation and overlap) and don't even really consider this a misogynist viewpoint. Just a biological one.
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The extreme disparity in the field is because of choice, not talent. See the study I linked above, or what women choose when they have maximum choice - they move AWAY from STEM the richer they get and the more choices and freedom they have.
Let me ask a simple question. Why are there FAR more Asians in high end coding than white people, relative to their population percentage?
Let me ask a simple question. Why are there FAR more Asians in high end coding than white people, relative to their population percentage?
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Black coders as a group underperform so badly that big tech companies - which are as non-racist and pro PC/diversity as you can get - are unable to hire them.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2...ersity-coders/
This is despite their desperation to do so.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2...ersity-coders/
This is despite their desperation to do so.
08-12-2017
, 02:09 PM
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Data supporting this? Define "high-end" coding (vs low-end coding)?
- Desirable coding jobs as measured by number of applications or applications vs acceptance rate.
- Salary relative to peers
- Highly skilled coding as opposed to more routine (C++/assembly/CS algorithms vs business software)
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I'm at a loss to understand how selection pressures might vary between sexes in humans. Sexual selection isn't especially strong in humans afaik...I mean, it's not like there's a natural selection/sexual selection tradeoff. I've never seen a male with tail feathers so long that he can't outrun a predator. Citations and data for selection coefficients and how they differ between sexes please?
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How could there not be, given evolution? Men and women occupied two very different roles, had to face very different threats, and had very different selection pressures.
- Ability to carry a baby to term
- Ability to have a healthy, thriving baby
- Ability to turn that helpless thing, through constant nurturing and care in a hostile environment, into an adult which itself has at least an average chance of breeding
- Tendency to bond powerfully and emotionally with children, in order to facilitate the above where it conflicts her other instincts and traits
- Ability to coerce potential protectors and providers into providing protection, nutrients, etc with
Men have very different selection pressures.
- Ability to impregnate multiple females
- Ability to protect mates and children from other males and physical threats
- Ability to get on with other males
There's a little bit of overlap, but the gender roles are quite stark. In fact it's quite likely that female-child pair bonding, combined with the child growing weaker and more helpless than most animals and requiring far longer care, has driven brain evolution toward greater intelligence and language skills.
In case this isn't completely obvious to you, look at the strength of the mother-child bond, and compare it to the strength of the father-child bond. That's pure evolution working in the mother's brain, and less in the father's.
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That's funny, because there was literally no data or discussion of research (or even anecdotes lol) that supports the assertion that "black coders as a group underperform." Is there a standard coding test that Silicon Valley code monkeys take on a regular basis to support this?
As for hard data on aptitude, here is what it says. The GRE for example, which tests general skills.

Asian men score 1.4 standard deviations above black men on a widespread post-college test of general quantitative reasoning aptitude. What does this mean? That if hiring is fair, we will see EXACTLY what we see now in Silicon Valley -Asians will outnumber blacks in high end jobs by a huge amount. 1 standard deviation to the upside puts blacks at 2.4 standard deviations.
So there will be 14% of the Asian population in this sample, and <1% of the black population. And this is precisely what we see in the higher end jobs - blacks are outnumbered 15:1 or more.
If you go even further out (the kind of jobs there are at Google), you'll have 1 in 1000 black people with the ability to do quantitative reasoning at a high level, and about 1 in 20 Asians. That's a 50:1 ratio in the hiring pools. And this is what we see. Asians make up 34% of high end coders, blacks make up 1%. Asians are about 5% of the population while blacks are 13%.
It's all perfectly explained by demonstrated post-college aptitude in the general field of quantitative reasoning attitude, not racism or bias at the hiring level.
Interestingly, the data disproves (of course) Brian's false assertion that women in non traditional disciplines will outperform the average. This is very telling given the selection bias toward a same-sized talent pool picking the best. Women in non-traditional roles don't outperform, at least not in the GRE.
08-12-2017
, 03:03 PM
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So, women have wombs and boobs, men have testicles and penises and therefore coding. More masculine men are better at coding, quite obviously. This is why google tests for testicle size, physical prowess and aggression as a more pure method of choosing employees.
Why did you pick a test that has been demonstrated to have virtually no ability to predict future performance?
Why did you pick a test that has been demonstrated to have virtually no ability to predict future performance?
08-12-2017
, 09:55 PM
Toothy,
First, would you explain how intraspecific and interspecific competition differs, and how life history strategies have anything to do with selective pressure? Males and females having different parenting roles is not unique to humans, so asserting that differing roles drives skill differences is not supported by using solely human examples. Don't worry, you're not unique in committing this fallacy. Most laymen do.
Second, would you provide evidence that supports a positive correlation between standardized tests, academic performance, and professional aptitude? (brianthemick already pointed this out, but still...)
Finally, to your credit, you did provide candidate metrics for what might constitute a "high end" coding job. Perhaps you could point us to some relevant data that supports your assertions?
First, would you explain how intraspecific and interspecific competition differs, and how life history strategies have anything to do with selective pressure? Males and females having different parenting roles is not unique to humans, so asserting that differing roles drives skill differences is not supported by using solely human examples. Don't worry, you're not unique in committing this fallacy. Most laymen do.
Second, would you provide evidence that supports a positive correlation between standardized tests, academic performance, and professional aptitude? (brianthemick already pointed this out, but still...)
Finally, to your credit, you did provide candidate metrics for what might constitute a "high end" coding job. Perhaps you could point us to some relevant data that supports your assertions?
08-12-2017
, 10:28 PM
If you look at a correlation between height and ability to dunk, but only run it on a sample of NBA players, you'll miss the obviously correct conclusion.
08-12-2017
, 10:43 PM
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Just under 200k take the test annually. I believe this is slightly more than get drafted into the NBA.
08-12-2017
, 10:45 PM
How is it that the people so obsessed with genetic superiority know so little about evolutionary theory?
08-12-2017
, 10:58 PM
And then, there's data that support your common sense assertion. Oh wait, you don't have data. Oh well your argument is invalid.
08-12-2017
, 11:18 PM
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Would you like to hear my argument about music theory? I mean, I did watch a youtube video that a guy who has a beard made, and I found this 17th Century philosopher who wrote something that I agree with, and there is this other thing that links it to quantum mechanics AND fractals that I saw posted somewhere, so I am definitely knowledgeable.
08-12-2017
, 11:25 PM
So if you correlate SAT score to the ability to perform professional biology, it would be huge because the low scores have ~no ability and the high scores have some. It's just selective sampling that causes the opposite conclusion, and it doesn't take more than a rudimentary knowledge of the country to realize it.
08-12-2017
, 11:29 PM
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Quote:
I just gave you one data point to show you that you're thinking about it totally wrong. The correlation between SAT/GRE scores and the performance of professional biology by professional biologists may well be low (I have no idea and no data, but I wouldn't expect it to be high). That's completely missing the point because the lower scores are never professional biologists and the middling scores are rarely professional biologists (not to mention the people who don't even bother taking the test because they know they'd score horribly).
So if you correlate SAT score to the ability to perform professional biology, it would be huge because the low scores have ~no ability and the high scores have some. It's just selective sampling that causes the opposite conclusion, and it doesn't take more than a rudimentary knowledge of the country to realize it.
So if you correlate SAT score to the ability to perform professional biology, it would be huge because the low scores have ~no ability and the high scores have some. It's just selective sampling that causes the opposite conclusion, and it doesn't take more than a rudimentary knowledge of the country to realize it.
08-12-2017
, 11:34 PM
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,256
I'm just catching up on this whole thread, and after one page I had feelings, those of perturbsion. I since feel much better about the state of matters as they stand. Balance has been brought back to the thread.
08-13-2017
, 12:25 AM
Only one guy got his mojo working right ITT
08-13-2017
, 06:09 AM
Quote:
Toothy,
First, would you explain how intraspecific and interspecific competition differs, and how life history strategies have anything to do with selective pressure? Males and females having different parenting roles is not unique to humans, so asserting that differing roles drives skill differences is not supported by using solely human examples.
First, would you explain how intraspecific and interspecific competition differs, and how life history strategies have anything to do with selective pressure? Males and females having different parenting roles is not unique to humans, so asserting that differing roles drives skill differences is not supported by using solely human examples.
Just one random study:
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The Nature of Nurture Is All About Your Mother, Study Says
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“We provide evidence that genetic differences in the nurturing ability of red squirrels affect the fitness of their offspring,” said McAdam. He worked on the study with Eryn McFarlane, a former Guelph graduate student and lead author of the paper who is now at Uppsala University in Sweden.
It’s widely recognized that mothers make important contributions to attributes of their developing offspring.
“But our study is the first to measure how important these genes in the mothers are to the evolutionary success of their offspring.”
“We provide evidence that genetic differences in the nurturing ability of red squirrels affect the fitness of their offspring,” said McAdam. He worked on the study with Eryn McFarlane, a former Guelph graduate student and lead author of the paper who is now at Uppsala University in Sweden.
It’s widely recognized that mothers make important contributions to attributes of their developing offspring.
“But our study is the first to measure how important these genes in the mothers are to the evolutionary success of their offspring.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_investment
And nothing I've said is controversial. Your questions and claims above show that you're a either total ****wit who knows nothing about the subject, or desperately trying to obfuscate. Which was obvious from your first contribution here. You're both ignorant and incapable of critical thought.
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Don't worry, you're not unique in committing this fallacy. Most laymen do.
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Second, would you provide evidence that supports a positive correlation between standardized tests, academic performance, and professional aptitude? (brianthemick already pointed this out, but still...)
But if you want a study:
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Descriptions of validity results for the GRE General Test based solely on correlation coefficients or percentage of the variance accounted for are not merely difficult to interpret, they are likely to be misinterpreted. Predictors that apparently account for a small percentage of the variance may actually be highly important from a practical perspective. This study used 2 existing data sets to demonstrate alternative methods of showing the value of the GRE as an indicator of 1st-year graduate grades. The combined data sets contained 4, 451 students in 6 graduate fields: biology, chemistry, education, English, experimental psychology, and clinical psychology. In one set of analyses, students within a department were divided into quartiles based on GRE scores and the percentage of students in the top and bottom quartiles earning a 4.0 average was noted. Students in the top quartile were 3 to 5 times as likely to earn 4.0 averages compared to students in the bottom quartile. Even after controlling for undergraduate grade point average quartiles, substantial differences related to GRE quartile remained.
Descriptions of validity results for the GRE General Test based solely on correlation coefficients or percentage of the variance accounted for are not merely difficult to interpret, they are likely to be misinterpreted. Predictors that apparently account for a small percentage of the variance may actually be highly important from a practical perspective. This study used 2 existing data sets to demonstrate alternative methods of showing the value of the GRE as an indicator of 1st-year graduate grades. The combined data sets contained 4, 451 students in 6 graduate fields: biology, chemistry, education, English, experimental psychology, and clinical psychology. In one set of analyses, students within a department were divided into quartiles based on GRE scores and the percentage of students in the top and bottom quartiles earning a 4.0 average was noted. Students in the top quartile were 3 to 5 times as likely to earn 4.0 averages compared to students in the bottom quartile. Even after controlling for undergraduate grade point average quartiles, substantial differences related to GRE quartile remained.
I'm sure you can come up with studies that pick arbitrary subcategories (like publication volume in psychology postgrads), and show they don't correlate with GRE. Like I said, standardized has been under sustained dishonest attack from people who hate that it shows up minority performance, and therefore must be racist because all groups must have the same aptitude according to leftist theory. But the GRE has the same results as SAT, as intelligence tests like Raven's Progressive Matrices, etc. And it all correlates well with job success. Maybe there's some grand racist conspiracy or maybe, just maybe, Occam's Razor works just fine, and lower aptitude explains it all.
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Finally, to your credit, you did provide candidate metrics for what might constitute a "high end" coding job. Perhaps you could point us to some relevant data that supports your assertions?
Last edited by ToothSayer; 08-13-2017 at 06:15 AM.
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