Comment by stared | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stared | Hacker News Reader

My impression is that it is not only about topics, but also perceived intentions (and if you step, however unintentionally, on a trigger (of a landmine)).

I wrote Dating for Nerds: Gender differences (http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-differ...) and got no backlash (much to my surprise, though).

From my experience nerds (and aspies in particular) talk mostly to exchange information (learn, share). Same questions are being understood by neurotypicals as expressing intentions, in a covert way.

Nerd: I read that X, on the average, are less interested in tech.

A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X inferior.

A non-nerd disagrees with the perceived intention and fights back, while a nerd perceives it as immunity to facts and unwillingness for a discussion.

That said:

- not all nerds are well-intentioned and open-minded

- workplace is not a place for all possible talks (or other social activities); if it makes people feel bad, excluded or less productive - it may be an argument to keep such discussions outside of the workplace; in particular, workplace is not an evolutionary biology discussion club

And BTW, from "Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context": https://gist.github.com/stared/00ce50e95f9bcecc8965feb04650c... see "Not Recognizing 'Yellow Light' Conditions" and even more: "Doesn't Apologize Readily".

"A non-nerd reads it as: I want to kick out all X from tech. / I consider X inferior."

I was out on an internet date with Scandinavian woman a few years ago. She was some type of sociological researcher, which interested me. I told her that part of the discrepancy in representation between genders in tech could be biologically oriented and she immediately said, "I don't want to hear arguments from biology!" She said it with the same tone and conviction you'd label someone a racist.

It's as if once we allow these facts into the argument, it means we can say the fight for gender equality is finished, that whenever equality exists, we can all throw our hands up in the air and say, "It's biology!" I can see the danger but at the same time, the alternative--denying reality--is far more insidious.

I can of understand her reaction (I would have had the same) and for me it’s in fact not very dangerous:

- to my knowledge it’s impossible to separate biology and culture with the data we have

- some discriminations were and are made by wrongfully attributing it to biological traits

- since it’s hard or impossible to separate things a lot of people (myself included) adopt « it’s not biology it’s culture » by default because we think if we are wrong it causes less harm and is less dangerous than falsely attributing something to biology, and if it’s right then it helps the society progress.

I understand closing the debate is frustrating for the scientifically minded and rationale people, but my opinion is that it’s not a bad heuristic for society as a whole at least until we make progress. But obviously the debate can happen in the right context, but I find it dangerous to introduce it in the actual climate of crtitical thinking we are in

This leaves me wondering:

What do you consider to be the right context for public debates about these thorny issues?

What besides communicating with each other about those issues will move us forward?

I don't think they will go away by themselves and I agree that some cannot be resolved, but then we should politely agree to disagree, after having explained our reasoning for each other's viewpoints, no?

Disclaimer: I work in this space and we get this reaction quite often, so I am happy to read your thoughts on this.

It depends of the issues we are talking of.

What I'm saying is that introducing biology at this point in the debate, by looking if the inequality is "natural" because phenotype A or chromosome B gives you some edge or not in science or other discipline, is kind of irrelevant given the weight of culture in our societies.

I find it even dangerous because I don't think a lot of people are ready to understand the subtleties of a shift in a normal distribution (if one is present), and it'll just give them a wrong/misused "scientific" evidence for reinforcing their prejudices. Because I can't teach critical thinking in minutes I now resort to "it's always cultural" and try to move the debate forward to the (IMHO) main causes.

(not a native english speaker so sorry if I missed your point)

You're saying you want to keep science out of the 'debate.' That's not a debate. That's religion. You refuse to allow scientific evidence into the discussion because you don't trust people with that knowledge. We can't discuss science is what you're saying. We're supposed to keep our heads in the sand and pretend that genetics don't exist to support your agenda. No thank you.

I’m not saying I want to keep science out of the debate, I’m saying with our current state of knowledge there is no evidence to help conclude anything and tell things apart between biology and culture in complex high level chain of decisions like choosing a career path.

We can’t say “biology=true science!” and try to shoehorn it in the debate no matter what, this, is unscientific.

Yes, given that we don’t know, assuming it’s always culture to help society progress (and implicitly saying society needs a change) is a political and philosophical opinion, and on this we can disagree, but don’t invoke religion vs science to create a false dichotomy and paint me on the irrational side.

I disagree, we should always, when available, use our best source of knowledge to argue about issues. Always. I see no reason to say, "hmm let's go and use lesser quality evidence."

I would even say that, if you don't know the science about an issue, it might be the wisest to refrain from having a strong position on a matter, at all.

Sure, many people do not understand statistics, I would dare postulate many many scientists don't properly understand stats ;)

But, if we do away with the science domain, people will resort to another domain, which is normally trumped in debates by scientific arguments. And that is, anecdotal evidence. And people will use it just as much and as falsely to defend their believes.

(no worries, not a native speaker either :) )

.

> Romance refers to the biologically rooted game

It's like you didn't read the comment you're replying to. You do not have good evidence that romance is shaped by evolutionary, rather than cultural, forces. Of course there's a biological motivation for procreation but unless you're going to play semantic games and define "romance" as any activity involved in pursuit of procreation, that motivation doesn't explain specific behaviors.

.

> If it exists

"It" being a biological basis for romantic behavior? We've survived this long without know how, or if, biology determines our current romantic behavior, I think we'll be okay. We're not going to go extinct because everyone is fucking robots.

> We've survived this long without know how, or if, biology determines our current romantic behavior

Do we? Because I see no evidence of the opposite. Also, culture (and sociology for the matter) is biologically determined.

Humans have existed a lot longer than science or the contemplation of nature vs. nurture.

> no evidence of the opposite

There's plenty of evidence that romantic behavior is culturally determined. Just look at how much it has changed over the centuries even though, biologically, humans have hardly changed at all. There's also the wide variance between cultures geographically in which we're all biologically the same.

Culture is biologic, that is my point.

There are two reasons for that:

First of all, almost everything and its opposite can be argued from biology, and evolution. Among the reasons for that is a sort of circular logic, because many ideas of early human life we still hold are based on today’s stereotypes.

Secondly, arguing from biology denies the single most important difference of humans and other animals: that we are unique in having the capability to overcome our biology.

> It's as if once we allow these facts into the argument,

Right, facts.

Most of the biological arguments are very touchy-feely. But .. we can see differences in MRI between gays and straights (or men and women, or some other divide du jour)! That's to be expected. Unless your equipment is broken. But the facts that patterns in the brain has established doesn't tell us anything how, or why, they developed.

Scan a professional piano player and compare with a regular person and you'll pick up patterns there as well. Is that some sort of argument that piano talent is innate? If hypothetically some statistical factor could be identified that is more prevalent among black people and piano player, does that mean black people are more suited to be piano players?

No, it does not. Yet when considering sex differences, and to some extent race differences, those are the kind of argument that goes for factual. I doubt it's the factual part that bothers people, but rather the logical hoops necessary for these argument to gain practical relevance for decisionmaking.

I can somehow relate to the tiredness your friend expressed. In some other areas where I have taken active part for the past decade or two, I still encounter the same arguments over and over again (for example why open source is by necessity non-innovative), and every person genuiney believe they came up with a new and important thought that other people needs to consider. Just a quick skim of the discourse in the relevant area would really go a long way of presenting them in a more informed way.

So it might not be the arguments themselves that are tiring but the repetitivesness with the way they are presented.

"does that mean black people are more suited to be piano players"

Maybe I'm misunderstanding things, but if some statistical factor was identified with predictive power, does that not literally mean that generally they'd be more suited to be piano players?

This isn't some argument about philosophically what constitutes a piano player. If this were true, you'd expect on average that this group has a higher proportion of piano players, and you could say heuristically that, yes, they are more suited to be piano players.

Caveat: this does not necessarily mean you should base decisions solely off of whether they belong to the group, as it depends on how strong said predictor actually is.

It is because some people do the mental gymnastics of separate biology, sociology, culture. But the reality is that these boundaries are virtual. Black people (which I'm) are more likely to become succesful rappers. It doesn't matter if it is because of biology or culture, it is.

> does that not literally mean that generally they'd be more suited to be piano players?

Depending on exactly what you mean by "predictive". You can identify someone as more likely to be a piano player while the person may not be more suited to be one.

The example was meant to be illustrative of a confounding effect, but perhaps a better one could have been chosen.

Chances are this didn't have so much to do with open debate as making a faux pas.

1. Scandinavian society is largely based on that biology isn't a good enough justification for inequality. Unless you're being very specific you also end up making an argument against Scandinavia equality. Which is something that many Scandinavians would obviously disagree with. (the argument, not necessarily the arguing).

2. Scandinavians, compared to other people, have few things in modern history to be ashamed of. Unfortunately eugenics is one of those few things. [0]

3. Presenting a casual theory to someone in the field is generally not a good idea. Maybe especially so if it's in a social setting, if your theory states the importance of a competing field and/or if you are part of the historic majority addressing the historic minority. Since them not being taken seriously can be an issue.

4. The research of biological traits doesn't seem to support the large gender difference in technology. The overlap between men and women is large, the correlation between gender traits and e.g. intelligence is weak and differences to other fields seem hard to explain. Even if you accept the idea that women don't like x and technology has a lot of x it's hard to explain why technology must have a lot of x. Other than being dominated for a long time by people who like x. At least while establishing causation, or even correlation, between the factors.

[0] http://www.economist.com/node/155244

> Presenting a casual theory to someone in the field is generally not a good idea.

I don't buy that at all. As long as the argument is based on science, there's no reason you can close your ears to other fields of study that could affect your own.

> The research of biological traits doesn't seem to support the large gender difference in technology.

Nor does the research support that the large difference in due to social construct. The default answer "It's all due to social construct" is presumptuous.

There's an interesting paradox. In countries with more gender equality, like Sweden, women end up in more traditionally female fields, like nursing where as in countries with less equality, like India, women end up in more traditionally male fields, like engineering. Do a search for the Swedish gender equality paradox.

The male to female ratio of autism is 4:1. There are other studies that show genetic differences in gender that exist outside of social construct. Male monkeys tend to play with boy toys, while female monkeys play with girl toys.

There are obviously genetic differences between men and women as well as genetic preferences. How these affect the ratio in technology is very difficult to ascertain. We can't just say it doesn't seem like enough to account for the difference because we don't know how that difference plays out throughout people's lives.

> I don't buy that at all. As long as the argument is based on science, there's no reason you can close your ears to other fields of study that could affect your own.

Keeping your mind open to other fields as a researcher doesn't mean, nor is reliant on, having to accommodate casual opinions over dinner.

> Do a search for the Swedish gender equality paradox.

I've read about it, I'm not convinced. If gender equality overall was the main culprit for gender inequality among professions we should see a difference between similar European countries with different levels of equality. According to the figures on the web page of the book popularizing the theory, the UK is far less gender equal than Sweden. Yet, the UK seem to have a lesser percentage of female engineers than Sweden. Just to name one example.

What seem more plausible is that inequality tends to correlate with development. The less time a country has been "developed", the less gender equality there is. But being "developed" recently also mean that you have less cultural baggage.

Sweden is an old engineering culture dating back to at least Alfred Nobel (of Nobel Prize fame). Ericsson was formed in 1876, ASEA in 1883, Volvo in 1927 etc. It also avoided the second world war, when women in other countries "got their break" in technology. And has since the 80s had one of the strongest informal computer cultures in the world. This is obviously quite different from an emerging economy were much of the industry has formed in recent decades.

Scandinavian "equality" is a lie.

"Nearly two-thirds of all university degrees in Sweden are awarded to women." Obviously unequal. But they brag about it and call it equality.

https://sweden.se/society/gender-equality-in-sweden/

And when that inequality was noticed and affirmative action began to benefit men, affirmative action was outlawed.

http://arhiva.dalje.com/en-world/sweden-to-abolish-affirmati...

Their definition of "equality" ignores vast inequalities favoring women.

Sure, there's average differences between groups. Between almost any two arbitrary groups you'll find significant differences.

The problem is that there's a very slippery slope between stating a difference, ascribing causality (the difference is due to biology, for instance), and justifying it as a moral imperative (we should treat men and women differently).

It's dangerous because if differences between groups are easy to pinpoint, they're much harder to explain. Even if you can get to a plausible causal mechanism, it doesn't say anything about how things should be anyway.

How about the moral imperative "we should treat men and women the same", as opposed to "women are heavily oppressed, we must discriminate in their favor"? Would that imperative be justified by stating a difference?

> I wrote Dating for Nerds: Gender differences (http://p.migdal.pl/2017/09/30/dating-for-nerds-gender-differ...) and got no backlash (much to my surprise, though).

Skimming through it, it does seem pretty even-handed. Although I'd like to point out that you're writing a "guide for nerds" and consistently addressing the reader as if they were a man. Women can be nerds, too. It's fair to have a guide for male nerds, since the experience is bound to be quite different for men vs. women, but it'd make sense to actually point that out.

I address it in the first part, where I clearly point that out (http://p.migdal.pl/2017/07/23/dating-for-nerds.html). First, some pieces of advice are gender-specific. Second, I don't have a living experience of a woman.

For nerdy women (dating man) some problems are similar (and I got quite a lot of of positive reaction from this group; and a few requests to write a text for that setting). For nerdy women dating women, it seems that most problems are the same (see also: Emma Lindsay's blog posts).

Reading through "Interpersonal Traits of Aspies Placed in Context" has gotten me thinking pretty deeply about myself. I found many items in that writeup exceedingly relatable. I've previously been told that I definitely have some aspie aspects / tendencies, but hadn't ever given it much thought, especially on their potential impact.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com