This is interesting as I've typically made friends along lines of interest. I guess my next question would be are genetically similar people more likely to have similar interests.
edit: corrected grammer
edit: corrected grammer
If that is the case, it would lead to the politically uncomfortable question of different genders or ethnic groups being more likely to have particular interests.
What is a problem is if you use that to justify discrimination. Just because members of a demographic are statistically different, it isn’t okay to treat individuals differently because they belong to a certain demographic. And that’s what people are complaining about!
People don’t complain when you say: “A lot of the fastest marathon runners are from Kenia”. People will complain if you use that fact to justify an imbalance in your workforce: “Well, it’s obvious that we hire only people from Kenia since marathons show they are much faster!”
So why do companies fire people who say stuff like that? Because discrimination is stupid from a business point of view: variance within demographics is much larger than variance of the mean between demographics. So if you hire people based on them being part of a “good” demographic, you will end up with worse hires than if you actually selected for individual aptitude.
People don’t complain when you say: “A lot of the fastest marathon runners are from Kenia”. People will complain if you use that fact to justify an imbalance in your workforce: “Well, it’s obvious that we hire only people from Kenia since marathons show they are much faster!”
This is precisely the point. If objectively they are better, why is it discrimination to only hire them? Definitely you give everyone the opportunity to work for you, but if a singular group always performs better, is it really your fault? And if society did determine that it was your fault, how long could that go on for? Forever? How long can that charade last? Hasn't a Darwinian economy (capitalism) done the best ever for man kind (massively raised standards of living over the last 200 years).
TL;DR - Don't hire only Kenyans, that's discrimination. You might end up with a lot of Kenyans if you hire only marathoners, but that's not the same.
Of course, a lot of the discussion is about faulty tests, that claim to test for individual aptitude, but end up testing for demographics instead (eg. interviewers inadvertently giving higher scores to people similar to themselves)
Discrimination is suspected if the test has little to do with actual job requirements.
Lack of diversity in tech is sad for me, but I don't think that there should be any additional incentives or bonus points on entry based on minority status. The problem for me is that large companies pretty much shy away from responsibility of training new employees for themselves and only hire people who got themselves fully educated already. This causes artificial barriers in entry to tech that let in only the people who in the past had the means and the will.
I'd put responsibility on the companies to hire for entry level positions people that have not previously worked in tech and attempt to train them. This could be proportional to company headcount and if company refuses to hire it should contibute significant amount of money to a fund that sponsors free tech education initiatives for anyone who's willing.
I think this approach would increase diversity and even help other groups disadvantaged on the job market.
It would put burden on companies but I haven't heard of company bankrupt because it spent too much on new employee training.
This kind of scheme is in place in my country to support employment of the disabled people. I think it should work on entry level employees too.
How is this even possible? People have to work full time jobs while interviewing.
> variance within demographics is much larger than variance of the mean between demographics. So if you hire people based on them being part of a “good” demographic, you will end up with worse hires than if you actually selected for individual aptitude.
did you not read the comment fully? that last part seems to pretty clearly address what you're asking here.
The uncomfortable questions are whether people are genetically predisposed to, or naturally have a greater aptitude for, some particular interest, particularly on racial or gender lines. For many physical activities this is a settled question for gender, but that's about all we know.
Even this alone is not necessarily controversial, the problem as we've seen time and again is that the reaults of such a study are taken as a basis for discrimination. If we could rigorously quantify and prove a statement like "people of East Asian descent show a 2.3% greater aptitude for mathematics," it doesn't mean that the Chinese guy sitting in front of you has any such aptitude. Historically the metrics by which we have attempted to measure such things have been deeply flawed and biased. I'm not sure it will ever be possible to make such assertions in any rigorous manner, the factors behind cognitive tasks are just too complex.
The answer is obvious here: yes. The only question is the size of the effect.
Let's say the statistical size of the effect is something around a millionth of a millionth of a percent, then I think most people would answer the question with "no" and be understood correctly by everyone. These kinds of questions almost always have a "big enough to have a perceptible impact"-clause implied. Pretending they don't feels needlessly pedantic.
There are going to be definite real world measurable differences.
OP leaves open the possibility, for instance, of cultural differences that have a effect an order or two of magnitude larger though.
Personally I doubt this, but OP seems open to the idea the size might be small.
I'm not saying they are wrong, I just disagree with the tone.
In small groups that are already interested in something, finding genetic similarity would mean that their nature is similar, and that nurture has also had an opportunity to take effect.
So small groups of people interested in something, can't necessarily be extrapolated to a larger group.
I'm sorry, but genes clearly determine appearance.
Genes, along with other factors, contribute to appearance, but it is possible to be (for a pair of humans) relatively close in appearance and generically dissimilar, or vice versa.
Genetic similarity and appearance similarity aren't the same thing.
If your talking about the often vaunted genetic diversity on the continent of Africa, that has no bearing on the existence of clusters of relative genetic similarity around the world we have come to refer to variously as ethnicity, race, population group, etc. In fact that African genetic diversity supports the reality of distinct population groups and ethnicities because it is a bunch of genetic material that other groups don't have.
The very basis for ethnicity/race/population groups is a genomic "alphabet"/string within certain bounds. In considering the global level distinctions between populations it makes no difference the level of genetic diversity in any particular group.
The defining factor is that various groups share traits that no other group does.
Asians and Europeans have stretches of DNA that we've determined through the magic of modern science come from an extinct species of human called Neanderthals. None of these stretches of DNA are found in Africans.
Likewise, Africans have stretches of DNA that come from as yet identified extinct species, these stretches of DNA aren't found in Asians or Europeans.
Then of course there are the myriad other genetic structures that while having origins in the ancestors of all living humans have nonetheless diverged through the process of evolution over the millennia into reliable genetic markers for the various population groups.
And it is true that ethnic groups are defined as well by visual appearance, for example cranium shape and size, nostril diameter, length of nasal bridge, hair color/texture etc. but these things aren't the result of members of your culture gathering around at your birth and molding these things like clay, these things are encoded in genes and what molded their shape into your genes are evolutionary pressures in your ancestral environment.
Also, for many human traits (i.e height), the intra-population variation is much greater than the inter-population variance, especially when controlling for the effect of environment.
We have a tendency to anchor our biases on the extreme examples of any population when we form our biases, often through mediums like elite/pro sports which select those at the extremes.