How I see the Damore debacle, by analogy

Robert Kennedy
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

Several readers suggested I should share my Facebook status from this morning here, so here we go:

Suppose I am a mechanical engineer working at a mechanical engineering company, so it is my job to know the principles of how mechanical systems work. And one day I light up the company internally and the popular press externally with my articulately written claim that I have created a perpetual motion machine, and what I describe as my machine is actually an old design that was discredited a long time ago. Dealing with the hubbub around my claim costs my company a lot of time and distracts a lot of my colleagues from their jobs.

Then I get fired from my mechanical engineering job by my mechanical engineering company because of the several kinds of harm my perpetual-motion claim has done. And because I’ve proven publicly that I don’t really understand mechanical engineering.

Is my company silencing legitimate debate?

No, my company is not. Not only was my specific design already discredited, but the entire category has been discredited in principle.

Arguments of the form “humans in genetic group X are, on average, less suited to role Y,” where Y is primarily a cognitive role, are a category that is tired and done. It was tired and done when it was about why Africans were, on average, less suited to hold positions outside of slavery, or vote, or be educated, or own property. It was tired and done when it was about why women were, on average, less suited to own property or vote. It was tired and done when it was about why Jews were, on average, less suited to live as fully free members of German society in the 1930s. And it is tired and done today when it is about why women are, on average, less suited to be software engineers.

The entire CATEGORY of argument is bankrupt, and no, we do not have any moral obligation to take any instance seriously, any more than we are obligated to explain instance-by-instance why somebody’s perpetual-motion machine doesn’t work.