Dan, On 4/17/13 9:21 PM, Dan Harkins wrote: > We already know "who we are". I disagree. We make a whole lot of assumptions about who we are, but we don't actually know, and that's why the question is being asked. I would clarify that IMHO the only reason this question should be asked is for demographic purposes, along with others. > This question is trying to decide our > gender make up and nothing good can come of it. > > It will provide more "evidence" for people to make use of logical > fallacies-- "if P implies Q then look we now have evidence of Q > therefore P"-- which really have no place in an organization devoted > to engineering. This would be putting the cart before the horse. We first need to understand facts. If we don't understand facts, then people will continue on assumptions. > > And it will be used as a baseline for doing work towards some goal > that has not been justified, work whose very nature requires treating > people according to what they are instead of who they are. > > Look, bias stinks and when it exists its stench is detectable. I don't > recall seeing any evidence of bias being presented on this list. And I > don't believe there is any problem has been mentioned that we had or > have that is caused by this predominance of white men. It's just been > stated as a problem itself. We must have less white men. Why? Because, > that's why. Nobody has proposed that, and I think you can put a bit more faith in your peers to not make important decisions based on "because". Eliot