Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

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Even if it were true, "most women do not wish to be in STEM fields" would beg the question. Why do they not wish to be in STEM fields? One straightforward factor might be the isolation they'd experience in being a tiny minority.

The term "feminist" is being tossed around pretty casually, too. That's convenient for both sides of the argument but unfortunate for truth-seeking, since the term can mean whatever the arguer wants it to be. I presume most women do in fact want equal rights, for instance. Most women probably don't want the end of all men.

The term "STEM" is also being used haphazardly. Your assertion that "most women do not wish to be in STEM fields" doesn't square with the facts. What would have been more accurate would be to say that most women don't want to work in computer science. But that's a less defensible gap; it's hard to come up with a compelling reason why women would want to be chemists, doctors, or actuaries, but not computer scientists.

It raises the question. Begging the question is a logical fallacy. The most straightforward factor is that men and women are actually different. Many studies have shown that innate gender preferences manifest in infancy. I knew I was different from most girls when I was very young. The vast majority of other women I've met at work and at conferences have been similar. We were into "boy stuff". That's perfectly fine. But it doesn't mean the girls who are not into "boy stuff" are broken and need to be fixed.

This argument is so vague that it could be used to justify virtually any gender discrimination. If this issue is so simple and straightforward as to be disposed of in a 90 word comment, why aren't you able to connect any specific difference between men and women to the computer science field, or to explain why women are so comfortable in other STEM fields?

That aside: yes, I was intending to suggest that your previous argument was fallacious. I don't believe the premise of your argument was valid. But even had it been, it would still not answer the question it pretends to answer.

We're comfortable in CS too. That's the point. I don't see how you figure I was begging the question, but at this point I also don't care. Being told I don't know what it is like to be a woman by men gets pretty old.

You can feel free to substitute, with my apology, any other shorthand representing the sharp difference in female participation in CS as opposed to other STEM fields. I didn't choose that word carefully and am not wedded to it. Would it then be possible to respond substantively to my comment?

This exchange between imanaccount247 and tctapek is incredibly fascinating.

One the one hand, we have a female who has a very accurate understanding of evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, genetics, and logic. Her arguments are logically coherent and validated by centuries of empirical science.

On the other hand, we have a male who has violated Occam's Razor so many times that he has completely annihilated any hope of a coherent hypothesis. His arguments imply conspiracy theories behind the formation of family, society, government, and history itself. All reason is abandoned, and science ignored.

Now the question is...does it really matter which position the male took vs. the female? One of these arguments is far more coherent than the other. Which position an individual supports reveals far more about the person than about the true nature of sexual dimorphism, since the laws of the universe do not suddenly change to cater to the opinions of a few misinformed primates.

EDIT: Hello tctapek! Thanks for the downvote. In case you one day want to educate yourself about the science behind human biology (and its numerous resultant consequences), here are a few books you'll no doubt find elucidating:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evol...

3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Animal

For some advanced reading, you can move onto the Extended Phenotype by Dawkins, and the references contained therein.

Enjoy, and remember, the world is yours to discover! Science will always be waiting.

EDIT 2: If you lack the patience for all that, here (http://edge.org/memberbio/helena_cronin) is an expert in the field who explains all of imanaccount247's assertions in video format. Enjoy!

>On the other hand, we have a male who has violated Occam's Razor so many times that he has completely annihilated any hope of a coherent hypothesis. His arguments imply conspiracy theories behind the formation of family, society, government, and history itself. All reason is abandoned, and science ignored.

It is typical position of an "enlightened reasonable conservative". A very successful and stable position in modern society (and on this site in particular). At first look one may think that extremal morons are the ones presenting main obstacle to progress, yet looking just a bit more one can see that it is the reasonable conservatives in the middle who form the humongous main unmovable mass.

>One the one hand, we have a female who has a very accurate understanding of evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology, genetics, and logic. Her arguments are logically coherent and validated by centuries of empirical science.

all these coherent arguments are just like waves splashing against the stone. No chance. It isn't a game of logic and reason, even though it may look so.

I knew I was different from most boys when I was very young, too. Naturally, I too grew up to be a programmer.

So I guess programming must be a girl thing, according to this logic.

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