TL;DR
James Damore’s now infamous conservative diversity manifesto is curiously interesting, however, it fails to realize that environments have the most impact on people’s behavior, potential, and future, rather than biology. A fair and welcoming environment is unfortunately not the norm. You have to work hard to create it.
The author of the manifesto [1], James Damore (ex-Googler), chose to focus on highlighting biological differences between men and women and using these as potential explanations for the lack of women in engineering or the lack of success of female engineers. He is careful to raise the fact that some biases and discriminations exists and that we should find ways to address them, but that we cannot forget that there exists fundamental differences between the sexes that could explain the current realities…
While it’s hard not to acknowledge that Damore makes a few good points (e.g., liberal vs. conservative bias in Silicon Valley) and raised various interesting social topics — while divulging quite a bit about the inner workings of the most important tech company this past decade — he, however, made an important mistake by not realizing that biology alone is but one factor in determining anyone’s future. Heck, in my view and experience it’s not even the most important factor, by a long shot.
The point is, it’s not clear that we understand how much environmental factors affect human behaviors rather than genes? This issue has long been debated in psychology and behavioral sciences. Psychologists often phrase it as the nature vs. nurture [2] question.
Most scientific research indicate that both are important [3] and in the context of professional work, my gut feeling is that environment is much more important than biology. To understand this intuition, think of the environments you grew up in, went to school in, worked in, and so on. And what was the impact of these environments on the person you are today?
Let’s indulge in a simple thought experiment. Think of two kids getting ready to go to college in the fall with seemingly similar potential, that is, similar intelligence, similar grades, similar high-school educations, and so on. Then ask yourself the question: will these two kids have different long term actual professional results and outcome if their environments were different?
For instance, if one grew up in loving family, was encouraged to do well in school, was encouraged to pursue science and engineering, and will be attending a great college, enrolled in a program to get a degree she loves, rather than a kid that had to deal with parents addicted to opioids, was never encouraged to do well in school or to explore engineering, etc… And that’s not even accounting for the luck that either experienced during her life or the luck she created due to her surroundings and family.
As a matter of fact, I even wonder how much environmental nurturing is important in the future life and behavior of any species? For instance, let’s imagine two pitbull puppies. One ends up in a poor, but dog-loving family and one in a rich family, but one who mistreats dogs. Which will become approachable rather than be a little devil? [4]
Now imagine repeating the exact same experiment switching these dogs’ families… will the dogs in two years behave the same as in the previous scenario? The point is again that it is very hard to discount the environmental factors. It’s not all biology and traits and genes and gender that determine the outcome of dogs and for that matter humans, and I would postulate, to many extent, any living animal species.
Perhaps Breed and Sanchez [3] summarize this thought best:
“How do genes and the environment come together to shape animal behavior? Both play important roles. Genes capture the evolutionary responses of prior populations to selection on behavior. Environmental flexibility gives animals the opportunity to adjust to changes during their own lifetime.”
There are many errors, false assumptions, and lack of sensitivity in ex-Googler James Damore’s manifesto, and in my view by failing to account for the environmental factors in his diatribe, its only positive outcome was the fact that it created lots of discussions on the topic of women in engineering and more broadly diversity in the workplace.
Finally, on a personal note, during my entire career — spanning now almost two decades — in software engineering and in computer science, out of the top five engineers and scientists I have ever worked and paired with, two of them happen to be women. While the entire list of engineers I have worked with has been heavily biased and male-dominated, a simple fact remains and is easily observable: we simply do not have enough women in engineering.
Perhaps if the environment at home, at school, and in society broadly was more encouraging to little girls to get educated in STEM, my own experiences would be more skewed toward a 50/50 average or perhaps even more female than male. Of course, that’s an anecdotal evidence, however, I am willing to bet that I am not the only one with such a professional experience.
As male scientists and engineers, we owe it to future generations to fix the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, by fixing the environments, such that our teams are as diverse as human populations and societies.
References
[1] https://gizmodo.com/exclusive-heres-the-full-10-page-anti-diversity-screed-1797564320
[2] https://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html
[3] Breed, M. & Sanchez, L. (2010) “Both Environment and Genetic Makeup Influence Behavior.” Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):68
[4] https://happypitbull.wordpress.com/basics/nature-vs-nurture/
