Of course, for Equality of Chance to be properly implemented you need to do away with as many barriers to it as possible but you should be willing to accept that no matter what you do, there won't be a perfect 50/50.
From all evidence we have, there is strong evidence that male and female humans grow up differently independent of their social surroundings, for example, we found that the brains of newborns can be easily distinguished into female and male as little as 1 month after birth, before any social factors have had much chance to get deep into development.
From that I find it easier to believe that there will be some statistical biases in one direction or another (like how will have, on average, a bit more height) outside of the purely physical domain.
I would rather see some evidence that despite all the physical, hormonal and developmental differences in male and female humans, there is absolutely no statistically significant difference in the brain and/or mind.
More desirable to whom? To the one with the worse outcome equality of outcome will always be more desirable than equality of chance. Plus, from a probabilistic point of view, wouldn't equal chances mean that for large numbers of trials (people) the outcome would also be equal?
> I would rather see some evidence that despite all the physical, hormonal and developmental differences in male and female humans, there is absolutely no statistically significant difference in the brain and/or mind.
You cannot even properly define what you mean by "brain and/or mind", which is why it's impossible to convince you that there actually is injustice if your opinion relies on that. But, for the moment suppose there is some convincing theory which explains naturally why less women are in STEM. Then why would we have to adjust our society to it, as it would benefit from less social tensions if there was equal outcome? Your point has to be much stronger to justify the inequality, as in everything would go downhill super fast if we had equal outcome. Otherwise there will always be social tensions and you have to learn to live with the "feminists".
Yes. For most people those two options would be the same, which is why the difference between those two options matter.
Equality of Chance merely means that everyone gets a shot at becoming, for example, a Math PhD. You still have to put in as much elbow grease as everyone else and work just as hard as everyone else. If female and male humans are equivalent mentally then the end result should be a 50/50 distribution.
If there are mental differences then the distribution would be skewed but it would be fine since everyone has gotten the same chance as everyone else. It's the approach with the highest game-theoretic fairness; the chance of winning the game is directly related to the skill you bring to the table.
>You cannot even properly define what you mean by "brain and/or mind",
With brain I mean just that, I don't know why it lacks definition. I mean the raw organ of thought in the human skull. There are notable differences, as mentioned, found at early stages in the brain that are sufficient for a computer or human to identify the gender or sex of an individual with a higher-than-chance probability.
With mind I was refering to the mental capacity and properties of an individual, ie how good they are at math, their social skills, IQ score, pain tolerance, etc (these are just example categories, not necessarily categories in which a significant difference exists).
>which is why it's impossible to convince you that there actually is injustice if your opinion relies on that
It is certainly possible to convine me of the opposite, I have clearly formulated which evidence would be sufficient.
>Then why would we have to adjust our society to it, as it would benefit from less social tensions if there was equal outcome?
That question feels slightly loaded since it proposes that an equal outcome leads to less tension. Current movements concerned with an inequality of outcome do only so because it is unfairly inequal.
Not a lot of people complain when the outcome of the game is inequal but fair (for example, nobody minds that someone with low strength will be unable to participate in olympic weight lifting, there is an unequal chance of participation and outcome, but it's a fair process)
The resolution to the problem of "do we have to adjust society" is another question "is the reason we are suggesting to change due to a fair or unfair process?".
[footnote]: Fair and unfair are defined as the ability of a player to apply their skills and get an equal amount of reward to other players with the same skill level (or with neglible difference)
A simple example of why equality of outcome might be undesirable is this: people don't like doing jobs they find unfulfilling.
Even though I admire the nursing profession, I have absolutely no desire to become a nurse. If nursing were the highest paid profession, it still wouldn't interest me -- because I get my kicks out of playing with ideas and building things.
In my case, it has nothing to do with ability, or IQ, or emotional intelligence.
Should nursing training and culture be manipulated to be more appealing to people like me? I would only want that if it were beneficial for the nursing profession itself.
It doesn't matter that people with my temperamental make-up are under-represented, because there are plenty of other people who are drawn to nursing.
Where there are systemic problems that hinder women / minorities who want to excel in tech, focus on those, instead of an artificial number.
Only if human properties are statistically independent.
If they are not, then a policy that depends on equality of outcome will screw someone over.
This has happened before, e.g. in medicinal research. Turns out, generalizing to the general population from a medicinal trial that consists only of men results in worse treatment for women.
It seems to me that you argue from a POV that basic human properties are statistically independent. Now... Why do you think that is so?
It means that someone would get less outcome than he or she would have gotten without the policy, true.
> This has happened before, e.g. in medicinal research. Turns out, generalizing to the general population from a medicinal trial that consists only of men results in worse treatment for women.
Wages or positions in companies are fundamentally different to medicine. We can decide how our companies look like. We can't decide how our body works.
> It seems to me that you argue from a POV that basic human properties are statistically independent. Now... Why do you think that is so?
I think you got me wrong here. I tried to argue from a POV of a reasonable being. I assumed that this is independent from any basic physical properties or even being "human". It's fine if you disagree with that, but I will have a hard time continuing the discussion. In hindsight this assumption although already implies that properties must be "statistically independent". Thanks for pointing that out I think I've learned something.
Well, for the most part, our power over our workplaces is also rather limited. True, you can leave, and go to a "different" company...
> It's fine if you disagree with that, but I will have a hard time continuing the discussion. In hindsight this assumption although already implies that properties must be "statistically independent". Thanks for pointing that out I think I've learned something.
I... think that statistical independence of human properties is a valid basic assumption.
However i think that it is worthwhile to question that assumption from time to time. Especially when, as mentioned in the article, more free societies like sweden or finland have more unequal outcomes than societies like iran (which iirc instituted a male quota for some STEM fields a few years ago).
This is a difficult topic...
Why do we see so few East Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish NBA players? What policy would you create to correct this "injustice?"
If I understood correctly in your original argument you tried to point out that you need this "brain/mind" to be good in STEM. I would argue that anything which has certain mental capabilities (which I'm not able to define) can be good at STEM whether or not it has a brain or even is human or not, would you agree to that? If so, to keep your argument valid you would have to define these properties which are necessary for being good at STEM. In the previous comment I was just doubting that you can do that, as these properties are not bound to a certain physical form under that assumption.
> That question feels slightly loaded since it proposes that an equal outcome leads to less tension.
I agree to that. So, it seems like both equal outcome and equal chances create social tension. Or are you claiming once this hypothetical convincing theory is out "feminists" will be gone?
> (for example, nobody minds that someone with low strength will be unable to participate in olympic weight lifting, there is an unequal chance of participation and outcome, but it's a fair process)
Yet people are concerned about doping. It's the athletes decision to risk his life for better outcome. Why does that make the competition unfair then?
> Not a lot of people complain when the outcome of the game is inequal but fair.
I would claim in real life situations it is almost impossible for me to objectively tell whether the game is rigged or I just performed very well/bad. But I can tell that the larger the differences in outcome averaged over many people, the more I'm suspicious.
If it wouldn't on average it's reasonable to assume that there is a bias of some sort. You can decide if this bias desirable or not.
> Why do we see so few East Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish NBA players? What policy would you create to correct this "injustice?"
Because they don't seem to care. If they would care, it is your decision whether you fight with them or implement a quota.
Hopefully not. Without opposition my hypotehtical theory would have no way of being refined further through discussion.
>I would argue that anything which has certain mental capabilities (which I'm not able to define) can be good at STEM whether or not it has a brain or even is human or not, would you agree to that?
I would agree to that in a limited capacity. These mental capabilities are more like capacities, the efficiency and speed of them is dependant on an individual. I propose that some of them may depend on which chromosome the human individual got at birth. In other physical forms this (potential) difference could be less pronounced or more pronounced.
>Yet people are concerned about doping. It's the athletes decision to risk his life for better outcome. Why does that make the competition unfair then?
Doping affects the added definition of fairness, other players who did not dope with the same skill level are outperformed; if two identically strong players were to participate, one doping, one not, then the doping one would have an unfair advantage that the not-doping player will have to compensate with a lot of hard work.
>But I can tell that the larger the differences in outcome averaged over many people, the more I'm suspicious.
That's usually a pretty terrible approach. Simply averaging the outcome is an easy way to trip over every statistical quirk there is.
The only way to be sure that the game is fair is to get a decent sample out of the population and perform a thorough statistical analysis that accounts for all variables possible. And I would suggest that the data crunching would be performed by people of differing political orientations, as much as possible, including hard right and hard left, to ensure that there is as little ideological bias as possible.
I believe we have established in this conversation that people claiming "difference of affinity" are just covering over their biases.
It's not for its one sake. It's for peace in the society.
> Should nursing training and culture be manipulated to be more appealing to people like me? I would only want that if it were beneficial for the nursing profession itself.
Have you tried it? I think it's not really reasonable to assume that humans are made to do exactly one thing. It's more of a necessary convention to have a functioning society.
> Where there are systemic problems that hinder women / minorities who want to excel in tech, focus on those, instead of an artificial number.
The number is not artificial its reality. One systemic problem is nudging which is tried to be fixed implementing quotas. The quotas are not meant to fix the number but the nudging effect.
This doesn't answer my question. Is equality of outcome in the NBA a desirable goal or not?
If not, why is it one in science or tech fields?
> Because they don't seem to care.
I'm sure many do. Many women "don't seem to care" that they took nursing jobs while many men took software engineering jobs.
How many Hispanic men have to feel like they'd rather be famous millionaire basketball players before we get the NBA to start with racial quotas?
I don't mean to be pedantic. It just seems obvious that American black culture puts a heavier emphasis on basketball, and that results in more world-class basketball players. That in no way implies anything is wrong with basketball or the NBA, and therefore taking measures to bring about "equality of outcome" would be unfair and undesirable.
...and that's why policy attempting to create "equality of outcome" is not inherently desirable in science / tech (or anywhere else).
Sorry I didn't get that you were interested in my personal opinion on that topic. I just tried to tell you what I would find a reasonable approach to answer that question.
> I'm sure many do. Many women "don't seem to care" that they took nursing jobs while many men took software engineering jobs.
Yeah, seems like many of them are still ok with the situation. I'm just saying that it is likely that there will be a problem in the future and its better to fix it now than later. Plus, I think you would agree, that this problem is on a social level more relevant than your NBA example.
What you're seeing as a "reasonable approach," though, may not be logically consistent.
You asked why equality of outcomes isn't a desirable goal in science and tech. I asked you if it's desirable goal for the NBA but you're not giving me a straight answer.
> Yeah, seems like many of them are still ok with the situation. I'm just saying that it is likely that there will be a problem in the future and its better to fix it now than later.
I'm not sure of this. There are many more female nurses than men and I don't see it as a problem now or even necessarily requiring "fixing."
> Plus, I think you would agree, that this problem is on a social level more relevant than your NBA example.
Of course--that's why I'm driving this wedge. It's more relevant on a social level but not for rational reasons. If you can acknowledge that differences in outcomes are inevitable among individuals and not inherently indicative of a problem (as in the NBA), you'd have to question whether or not differences in outcomes in science / tech are necessarily the result of sexism or even bad.
And that answers your question. If we can acknowledge the end result of individuals freely making their own decisions will not be equal outcomes, then pursuing equal outcomes is not necessarily a desirable goal.
EDIT: Added a necessarily.
I am going to try and describe this in a math/programming way.
Say we have two functions randM() and randF() the first returns a Male Person, the second returns a Female Person. Person has an Ability and a Preference. We also have a function stemJob(Person p) that takes a Person and returns a Job with an Income, Prestige, and Satisfaction.
Equality of outcome would mean that after 10^9 calls of each the this is true average(stemJob(randM()) == average(stemJob(randF()). This could be either because 1a) randM() and randF() produce on average the same person modulo Sex and stemJob() does not consider Sex or 1b) The difference between the average randM() and randF() is corrected for by stemJob() considering Sex.
The other option is equality of chance where stemJob(randM()) == stemJob(randF()) where randM() and randF() have the same Ability and Preference.
Notice that in equality of chance and in equality of outcome stemJob() may or may not be the same. If randM() and randF() produce on average the same person modulo Sex then stemJob() is the same for both equality of chance and equality of outcome. If that assumption does not hold then stemJob() must be different.
Thus, if I support equality of chance and believe avg(randM()) != avg(randF()) I would not support equality of outcome because that would require stemJob to consider Sex in a way that invalids equality of chance.
Hope this give you a different way to look at why some people are against equality of outcome in STEM.
I want to live in a society where people can make a living doing things they enjoy and are good at. My concern is that quotas for outcomes (rather than things that more directly measure discrimination) might end up achieving the opposite: on one hand encouraging people into positions that are not a good fit for them, through external incentives, while at the same time removing opportunities from others who would prefer them.
Shouldn't measures of workplace satisfaction matter a hell of a lot more than the number of women on the board?
I guess it depends on how you go about it. If you needed 100 programmers, and there were exactly 100 programmers available, but 80 were men and 20 were women - but you insisted on equality of outcome, you'd hire 50 of the male programmers, all 20 of the female programmers, and be 30 programmers short, even though there were 30 perfectly capable programmers that would upset your gender ratio.
That's not true. Yes, equality of outcome would give disadvantaged people more money to buy bread. The mistake is assuming that the price of bread would stay the same.
I think it's a bit clearer now where the differences lie. For example the assumption avg(randM()) != avg(randF()), which should more precisely be avg(randM()) >> avg(randF()) to justify stemJob(randM()) >> stemJob(randF()).
There is another assumption here, that is that if you don't touch it, stemJob() is a fair function in the sense that stemJob(randM()) == stemJob(randF()) where randM() and randF() have the same Ability and Preference. I find that unlikely as, for example, there is evidence that people are more likely to hire candidates of the same sex.
What is interesting is that it boils down to the question whether or not you believe that avg(randM()) >> avg(randF()), or in words that in general men are much more capable then women in STEM and I asked for a theory supporting that claim in my original comment. If I understood correctly someone who supports equality of chance would agree that stemJob() must be unfair if it turns out that avg(randM()) ~ avg(randF()).
This only shows that the measures that are taken might be inappropriate to fulfill their purpose of establishing gender equality and is unrelated to the mentioned assumption.
>in general men are much more capable then women in STEM and I asked for a theory supporting that claim in my original comment
Short, inexact, unnuanced version: The same thing that causes a 4M:1F ratio in autism diagnosis causes the similar gender skew in CS/Engineering.
First, I am going to narrow STEM to CS/Engineering which has a worse gender skew than the other parts of STEM. To massively over simplify assume we can plot all possible jobs/careers on two axis of ideas vs people. This is how much you get to work with ideas and how much you get to work with people. You could have low ideas high people (kindergarten teacher), low ideas low people (watching for forest fires), high ideas high people (college professor), high ideas low people (engineering). All the different jobs are spread around this plot. Lets simplify and assume a Person picks the job that best matches there Preference.ideas and Preference.people. Once they pick a job they get Income based on their Ability.
We now have a loose correlation in the population where Person.Preference affects count(XJob()) and Person.Ability affects avg(Job().Income) (and simplifications/assumptions abound).
Now, assuming 1) CS/Engineering is a job that requires high (90%) Person.Preference.ideas and a low (20%) Person.Preference.people. Also, lets assume that 2) std(randM().Preference.ideas) > std(randF().Preference.ideas) and std(randM().Preference.people) < std(randF().Preference.people) (std == standard deviation). These two things in combination could cause us to see more Males than Females in CS/Engineering because standard deviation has large effects at the tails of the population.
Now, is there an basis for assumptions 1 and 2? I am going to say that you agree with 1 as how CS/Engineering currently is. The 2nd is a little bit hard to prove, in fact I don't have hard proof. I have evidence that makes me think it is the case. If you request, I can try and find sources for my claims.
1) Baby boys like to play with trucks/balls, baby girls like to play with dolls. Objection: That is cultural conditioning and not sexually determined. Response: Baby monkeys have shown the same gendered preferences.
2) When looking at college application, males apply for CS/Engineering at rates much higher than females. Objection: Culture preprograms this into people. Response: If this was only cultural preprogramming, it should have went away as it when away in Law, Medicine, and Finance.
3) Autism affects males over females 4:1. One explanation of this is the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism [0]. From that portion of wiki "Baron-Cohen's research on relatives of people with Asperger syndrome and autism found that their fathers and grandfathers are twice as likely to be engineers as the general population." Also, "Another similar finding by Baron-Cohen in California has been referred to as the Silicon Valley phenomenon, where a large portion of the population works in technical fields, and he says autism prevalence rates are ten times higher than the average of the US population. These data suggest that genetics and the environment play a role in autism prevalence, and children with technically minded parents are therefore more likely to be diagnosed with autism."
My laymen's take on the above, the same thing that makes males more likely to have autism make them more likely to be engineers. Objection: Haven't heard yet.
So in summary, since CS/Engineering is an outlier on the ideas/people axis and males are more likely to match that outlier we see more males in CS/Engineering.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathizing%E2%80%93systemizin...