Hi Eliot,
On Wed, April 17, 2013 12:48 pm, Eliot Lear wrote:
> 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.
Pardon me, but that makes no sense. Asking about the gender make-up
of those who elect to register for a future meeting is going to tell us
little
about who we are. It will be a snapshot in time and it will not
representative
of "who we are" because we are more than just the people who register to
go to any particular meeting.
And "...the only reason...along with others"? So then it's not only for
demographic purposes. Those other purposes aside from the "only" one
are what, exactly?
>> 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.
The facts are already not in dispute. The I* leadership is predominantly
white and male. The fallacy works like this:
"If there was bias in favor of white males then we would have a
leadership that is predominantly white and male. We have a
leadership that is predominantly white and male, therefore we
have bias."
All this question will do is provide a snapshot in time of just how
predominant it is-- 5% female, oh that's bad, 8% female, oh my look
how skewed the I* leadership is. See, it's skewed therefore we have
bias! If P then Q, and Q (we now have the numbers!) therefore P.
>> 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".
What has been accepted is that "diversity is good". Further, it has been
stated that we cannot remove the race and gender from the problem
statement about our lack of diversity. As Margaret said, "I don't think
it is possible for [sic] remove race and gender from the list of axes,
though, since there is a notable lack of diversity in those areas."
So a problem statement has been made: there is a notable lack of
diversity in the areas of race and gender. Why is this a problem? What
problem can we point to, now or in the past, that is the result of this
lack of race and gender diversity? Well? Hmmm? Anyone? Bueller? No,
nothing. So in lieu of nothing all we have is "because". If you don't like
"because" as a reason then fine, I will concede the point: decisions will
be made for no reason at all! That hardly seems better.
And now the only action I see out of this whole diversity discussion on
the list is a plan to ask the gender of registrants for the Berlin meeting.
If this is just some innocent question to find out "who we are" then why
don't we ask about the size of the organization we work for? We all
agree that we have a diversity problem on that axis and there is a skew
for large corporations. No, the question is just about gender.
Sadly, I can't put much faith in my "peers" to make important decisions
because they're asking the wrong questions so they can gather data
"while working on addressing" a non-problem.
regards,
Dan.