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Comment by spzb | Hacker News Reader

Sorry but that's pseudo-scientific bollocks. Far from being "well-established fact" it is actually contentious and poorly supported by the evidence.

Intelligence testing is a human created concept. There are all manner of cultural biases encoded in it. Intelligence is more than just being good at sums which is what your math SAT example seems to suggest.

Jeopardy champions are hardly a representative group. They're a self-selecting group by definition : those who chose to go on a quiz show. Maybe men show a bias towards showing off on TV or are better at remembering random facts. Your example doesn't control for any of those.

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These are good points ("Intelligence testing is a human created concept").

However it wouldn't be surprising to me if higher end SAT scores would be highly correlated with likelihood of being hired at FAANGs of this world later in life.

If the above is true, and given that the SAT score distribution is shallower and wider for males, then it'd probably follow that there would be more males employed at those places than females, even if the hiring would be totally controlled for biases?

Or, is it your point that there's (probably) correlation here, but not causation? As in, there's bias against females (there most likely is), so more males are hired, and it's an independent fact that males have broader SAT scores distribution. Ergo, if we controlled for biases, then faang hiring results would be 50/50 male/female, even if SAT score distribution would stay the same?

Yeah, Jeopardy could be self-selecting based on a sex-specific mental trait.

But you seem to be ignoring the test scores. Why is that?

You're ignoring the part of my reply where I respond to your point about test scores. Why is that?

Did you edit your post? Maybe I overlooked a paragraph.

The math SAT questions aren't a "bunch of sums." And I agree with you about cultural bias. As I stated, the school system is biased against boys. So the SAT math scores should understate the male/female ratio at that level.

No I didn't edit it. You overlooked it.

Sorry for being careless in my reading.

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