This article is very skewed, it's annoying that she wrote things like "which he claimed was backed up by studies." rather than "which are backed up by studies."
Here's [0] a lengthy analysis from an evolutionary biology Ph.D that concludes that Damore built a harmful narrative around weak and cherry-picked scientific studies. Of course it's as "skewed" as anything else in that it contains an opinion, but it also backs up the quote you're objecting to here -- the argument Dr. Sadedin makes is that Damore "claimed" the studies supported his narrative but in fact they didn't.
[0]: https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/google-fires-engineer-over-an...
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sexual-personalities/20... [2] http://quillette.com/2017/08/07/google-memo-four-scientists-...
"And I believe there is good evidence of both sexism (including sex stereotypes) and real psychological sex differences (some of which may be evolved) to be causes of the gender gaps across occupations,"
From the start of the memo: "Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don't have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership"
They are saying the exact same thing? In what way does the scientist disagree in concrete words with things that is actually written in the memo?
Also, to avoid further misunderstandings...
Quote from link in the Wired article to Psychology Today: "Using someone’s biological sex to essentialize an entire group of people’s personality is like surgically operating with an axe" This is not what the memo did, as far as I can tell. See the quote from the memo again. He is suggesting that "biological sex" (the scientist's words) MAY IN PART explain why the split men/women is not EXACTLY THE SAME (sorry for caps).
Do you see how the scientist never actually comments anything concrete in the memo, but only concepts that are related?
Further, more recent research cited here, Brian Nosek (PhD Psychology):
“My takeaways: Some observed effects are easy to attribute to culture and hard to attribute to biology in the simplistic dichotomy. Active discrimination occurs and is dramatic, but effects of culture seem more commonly subtle shaping of preferences and desires. And, its a really hard problem. Still room for bio, culture, and bioXculture interactions in ultimate accounts.”
https://twitter.com/BrianNosek/status/895410735412543492
And finally, perhaps one of the more well qualified individuals, Suzanne Sadedin (PhD Evolutionary Biology, BA Psychology, and BSc Zoology):
“Yes, men and women are biologically different — which doesn’t mean what the author thinks it does. The article perniciously misrepresents the nature and significance of known sex differences to advance what appears to be a covert alt-right agenda.”
https://www.quora.com/What-do-scientists-think-about-the-bio...
TL;DR: The “facts” that many insist on, aren't quite as genuinely legible as the screed attempts to make them out to be. Ms. Sadedin’s commentary on the internal memo seems most critical of the interpretation.
First quote doesn't say anything concrete. Someone thinks it is "easier" to attribute to culture without really linking it to the nature of Google recruiting from a small part of the population. The statement can be true without the memo being wrong. I understand the quote sounds like its critical of the memo, but really what does it say? That its hard to tell and that culture might (or even is) be a bigger factor? That would not be contrary to anything in the memo
The second comment is the "least bad" critique that I have seen. However, to me its quite obviously written with an agenda. Read the comments under her post. Especially the ones from Jeremy Arnold. Note particularly his tone compared to hers and how he even points out her quite obvious agenda. Also notice how the conversation shifts to Julie Taylor and how the climate of discussion changed. My point is that I am not competent enough and dont have enough time to read through and understand all sources, find my own sources to balance her agenda etcetc. Lets hope more honest and competent people, who have the ability to see both sides, jump into the debate.
Clearly the people representing your links are not (according to me). Here is a good example from a pretty well known individual:
http://www.nydailynews.com/amp/opinion/google-wrong-article-...
The tone and way of reasoning is like from another world compared to Sadedin.
https://heterodoxacademy.org/2017/08/10/the-google-memo-what...
(Skip to the conclusions if it's too long.)
If you believe that scientific studies should be accorded authority upon citation, then why not share their respect for nuance and accuracy? For example, in the section in which Damore describes "Personality differences" as being biological traits, including neuroticism and "Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things", he links to this meta study:
Gender Differences in Personality and Interests: When, Where, and Why? http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010....
You've probably read that study so I'll sum it up for the convenience of others. From the abstract:
> Gender differences in personality tend to be larger in gender-egalitarian societies than in gender-inegalitarian societies, a finding that contradicts social role theory but is consistent with evolutionary, attributional, and social comparison theories. In contrast, gender differences in interests appear to be consistent across cultures and over time, a finding that suggests possible biologic influences.
The meta analysis finds that 3 studies -- 2 of which are authored by this metastudy's author -- have reported a "very large" difference between men and women in "People-Things orientation". And that 4 studies (1 of which is authored by the meta-author) find a "small" to "moderate" gap in neuroticism.
Skipping down to the concluding section, titled "Where Do We Go from Here?", the main headings are:
- Some methodological suggestions
- More cross-cultural research is needed
- More research should investigate changes in gender differences over time
- The need to move beyond the ‘Big Five’
- The need to test explicit models that include predictions about men’s and women’s mean trait levels and men’s and women’s trait variability
The tl;dr is: it's complicated, and we need more research. Which is exactly what you'd expect a responsible scientist to assert given that there were 3 meta-studies relevant to "people-things orientation) that he could find and only 1 of those wasn't his own. Nowhere does the study's author make the claim that this trait is caused by biology. The strongest claim from the author is him citing his previous study and another study which have both considered the possibility, absent an obvious cultural influence:
> To answer ‘why’ questions, it helps also to consider ‘when’ and ‘where’ questions – e.g., how consistent are gender differences over time and across cultures? Gender differences that vary over historical time and across cultures point to the importance of social–environmental and cultural factors as causes of gender differences (Eagly & Wood, 1999). In contrast, gender differences that are stable over time and across cultures suggest the influence of biologic factors (Lippa, 2005; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974).
So a conclusion that argues that:
- More research is needed
- More explicit behavior models are needed.
- Testing such models "may very well yield ‘messy’ results – e.g., results that show both biologic and social–environmental factors contributing to gender differences, to varying degrees for different traits, and varying kinds of interactions between biologic and social–environmental factors."
-- obligates us to describe Damore's claim -- "Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things" and neuroticism are biologically based -- as being "backed up by studies", and leave it at that?
Bullshit.
edit: accidentally wrote "Damon" instead of "Damore" in one reference
https://twitter.com/BrianNosek/status/895410735412543492
And one of his summary tweets:
> “My takeaways: Some observed effects are easy to attribute to culture and hard to attribute to biology in the simplistic dichotomy.”
But nobody said that scientific studies were immutable truths, did they? No, that's not the issue here. The person that you're responding to said that the issue is with the wording used by the reporter, not the findings of the studies.
If the reporter wanted to bring into question the findings of the linked studies then they should have addressed the studies directly like you are attempting to do here. Instead, they used weasel wording to make it seem like the studies might not even exist.