2017/08/08: James Damore and his Google Memo on Diversity (complete)

James Damore of Google recently wrote a memo detailing his thoughts about Google's diversity initiatives. Within a month, it went viral, and he was fired, for "perpetuating gender stereotypes." The problem is that everything James claimed is solidly backed by well-developed scientific literatures. Thus, the company in charge of much of the world's communication has now fired an excellent engineer for citing established scientific truths.

In this full 50 min interview, James and I discuss his motivations, and the consequences of his actions. We are joined (audio only) by another Google employee who wishes, for obvious reasons, to remain anonymous.

A fund-raiser for James has been established, here:

Here are a series of references buttressing the claims of James' memo:

Sex differences in personality/cognition:

Lynn (1996)

Lippa (2008)

Lippa (2010)

Weisberg (2011)

Del Giudice (2012)

Larger/large and stable sex differences in more gender-neutral countries: (These findings run precisely contrary to social constructionist theory: it's been tested, and it's wrong).

KatzGerrog (2000)

Costa (2001)

Schmitt (2008)

Schmitt (2016)

Differences in men and women's interest/priorities:

Lippa (1998)

Rong Su (2009)

Lippa (2010)

See also Geary (2017) blog

Life paths of mathematically gifted females and males:

Lubinski (2014)

Sex differences in academic achievement unrelated to political, economic, or social equality:

Stoet (2015)

Big Five trait agreeableness and (lower) income (including for men):

Spurk (2010)

Judge (2012)

The general importance of exposure to sex-linked steroids on fetal and then lifetime development:

Hines (2015)

Exposure to prenatal testosterone and interest in things or people (even when the exposure is among females):

Berenbaum (1992)

Beltz (2011)

BaronCohen (2014)

Hines (2016)

Primarily biological basis of personality sex differences:

Lippa (2008)

Ngun (2010)

Status and sex: males and females

Perusse (1993)

Perusse (1994)

Buss (2008)

de Bruyn (2012)

To quote de Bruyn et al: high status predicts more mating opportunities and, thus, increased reproductive success. “This is true for human adults in many cultures, both ‘modern’ as well as ‘primitive’ (Betzig, 1986). In fact, this theory seems to be confirmed for non-human primates (Cheney, 1983; Cowlishaw and Dunbar, 1991; Dewsbury, 1982; Gray, 1985; Maslow, 1936) and other animals from widely differing ecologies (Ellis, 1995) such as squirrels (Farentinos, 1972), cockerels (Kratzer and Craig, 1980), and cockroaches (Breed, Smith, and Gall, 1980).” Status also increases female reproductive success, via a different pathway: “For females, it is generally argued that dominance is not necessarily a path to more copulations, as it is for males. It appears that important benefits bestowed upon dominant women are access to resources and less harassment from rivals (Campbell, 2002). Thus, dominant females tend to have higher offspring survival rates, at least among simians (Pusey, Williams, and Goodall, 1997); thus, dominance among females also appears to be linked to reproductive success.”

Personality and political belief:

Gerber (2010)

Hirsh (2010)

Gerber (2011)

Burton (2015)

Bakker (2016)

Occupations by gender:

Problems with the measurement and concept of unconscious bias:

Fielder (2006)

Blanton (2009)(this one is particularly damning)

Microaggressions: Strong claims, weak evidence:

Lilienfeld (2017)

And, just for kicks, two links discussing the massive over-representation of the left in, most particularly, the humanities:

Klein (2008)

Langbert (2016)

My links:

Self Authoring

Jordan Peterson Website

Reading List