Comment by foolrush | Hacker News Reader

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Comment by foolrush | Hacker News Reader

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For the record, the "facts" cited in her post are indeed questionable. A decent sociological analysis has been making the rounds, including https://ifstudies.org/blog/five-facts-about-women-and-men-in... and https://ifstudies.org/blog/what-the-google-engineers-manifes... among others, including a presenter at Google https://twitter.com/histoftech/status/894418661741649920

Even a brief analysis of sociology would reveal a deeply seated counter argument to much of the "fact" present in the screed and the OP link.

There are reasonable arguments on both sides, which rational people can debate.

That's the bigger point here. Not that there is a slam dunk argument on the side of biology or society, but that we don't know where the exact truth lies, and we need to be open to discussion about it in order to find out. As scientists have been saying all along, both biological and societal factors matter.

What I hope we can all agree is unreasonable is to fire someone for just trying to discuss this.

Would phrenology be acceptable to "debate"? Or race based "debates"?

It is remarkable how the need for debate is disproportionately forwarded from the side with power.

We are talking here about reasonable scientific claims believed by large parts of the population and by scientists. You can disagree with them, but you also need to live in a society with them. We need to find a way to work together, even as we disagree on things.

It's not like phrenology or Nazis which are tiny minorities we can just cast out and ignore.

And I'm not sure I agree with you on which side has power here. Look who got fired.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to fire someone for expressing personal opinions counter to company policies. How is this not a classic example of culture fit?

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