Speaking as a successful by-product of the american Affirmative Action
and Equal Opportunities programs of the 70s and early 80s, I would
suggest the IETF needs to work two small baby steps:
- Improving its Marketing,
- What is its products?
- What will attract all/any groups?
- Reaching out to diverse groups.
- Don't assume they will come to you. Recruit!
--
HLS
On 3/12/2013 7:56 AM, Dan Harkins wrote:
On Mon, March 11, 2013 10:08 pm, Margaret Wasserman wrote:
On Mar 11, 2013, at 6:54 PM, Dan Harkins <dharkins@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In other words, the statement that gender and racial diversity in
groups makes them "smarter" has no basis in fact. Do you feel that
an all-female group is stupider than a similarly sized group that is
equal parts male and female? Really?
Actually, Dan, there are well-regarded academic studies that show that
groups that contain women are smarter than all-male groups, regardless of
the relative intelligence of the group members. Surprising, perhaps, but
true. Here is a pointer to a discussion of one of them:
http://www.antonioyon.com/group-intelligence-and-the-female-factor
There are also numerous studies, of various types, that show that more
diverse groups make better decisions and/or perform better than less
diverse groups. Here is a description of one such study:
http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/better_decisions_through_diversity
So, as illogical as these statements may seem on the surface, they are
well-established facts. Both of the articles I've sited give some insight
into why this is true.
I will readily admit that a group whose members have diverse backgrounds,
diverse experience, and diverse opinions will generally produce better
decisions than a group whose members are all of the same background,
experience, and opinion. That is generally what the Northwestern article
promotes (and what the papers that Rhys pointed me to earlier) say. But
that is far different from saying that having less white males would make
for a better IETF.
In fact, the makeup of the IESG is already diverse. If it was entirely
comprised of security people it would make horrible decisions. It's not,
and that's because "diversity is good".
Regarding the CMU/MIT study, that is very provocative. There is
"converging evidence" from 2 studies of groups of 2-5 people who
scored higher in "general collective intelligence" when social sensitivity
was higher in the group, when group conversation was done in turns,
and there were more females in the group. OK. We can all draw our
own conclusions about that and "more women = smarter" certainly
does get your study reported in Forbes and Business Weekly et cetera.
I believe there is also a bell curve of human intelligence that shows
a preponderance of men at both ends-- i.e. there are more male idiots and
male geniuses. Which would seem to suggest that adding women to a group
of men would, on average, increase the group's intelligence. That study
also showed that east asians scored higher than whites and whites scored
higher than blacks on IQ tests. An that current immigrants to the USA are
less hard-working and less imaginative than past immigrants. Also very
provocative.
Now before anyone accuses me of any more -isms, let me say that these
studies make very bad social policy recommendations. I don't think we
should strive to make groups more east asian or less black or to favor
past immigrants over recent immigrants. That would be wrong, and I hope
we are in agreement there. It would also be wrong to strive to make groups
more female for exactly the same reason.
While these studies are interesting and thought provoking, I think it is
wrong, and very dangerous, to use these studies to justify blanket
statements about intelligence, group or otherwise.
If there's some bias involved in the Nomcom's selection process then
point it out and let's address it. The mere fact that there are is
preponderance of white males being selected does not mean bias exists
and the notion that a cherry-picked study (or selectively interpreting
the results of a cherry-picked study) justifies imposing bias on the
selection process to derive some ideal diversity is crazy.
regards,
Dan.