Google Diversity Report Straight Out of 'How To Lie With Statistics' Playbook

theodp writes: Among the books recommended by Bill Gates for beach reading this summer is How to Lie With Statistics, the published-in-1954-but-timely-as-ever introduction to the (mis)use of statistics. So, how can one lie with statistics? "Sometimes it is percentages that are given and raw figures that are missing," explains the book, "and this can be deceptive too." So, does this explain Google's just-released Diversity Report and the accompanying chock-full-o-percentages narrative (find-all-%-image), which boasts "the Black community in grew [sic] by 38 percent", while the less-impressive raw figures — e.g., the number of Google employees increased by 5,928, but the ranks of Black females only increased by 35 (less than 0.6% of the net increase) — are relegated to a PDF of its EEO-1 Report that's linked to in the fine-print footnotes? To be fair to Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Apple and Amazon didn't want people to see their EEO-1 numbers, either.

Comments

Diversity

[asylumx]

The big lie, I guess.

Re:Diversity

[Chas]

Pretty much.

What color a person's skin is, or what equipment they keep between their legs isn't as important as the knowledge they have in their head and their skill at utilizing it.

Slotting someone into a position ahead of a worthier candidate, simply because they're a certain race/gender, rather than because they're the best candidate is idiocy of the highest order.

It's not Google/Apple/whoever's problem that a given race or gender has historically been downtrodden. Google/Apple/Whoever didn't do the treading, so why should they be guilt-tripped into settling for mediocrity for some lie about "equality"?

Because what's being pushed here is not about "equal" treatment. It's about "special" treatment.

Re:Diversity

[NotDrWho]

Part of the lie is that somehow diversity is somehow going to help your business. "It will open us up to new ideas and a new audience" usually just turns into "Everyone is walking on eggshells around the new hire, the new hire isn't as qualified or hard-working as candidates we passed over, and if we ever try to fire the new hire we're going to get sued for discrimination."

Re:Diversity

[kabulykos]

And perhaps when such assessments of worthiness become as exact a science as you presume them to be, such nonsense can be done away with. My experience with getting jobs in tech — and my hearing of interviews in other fields of employment — suggest at best a loose relationship between most interviewing techniques and many skills actually relevant to completing projects in a corporate environment.

The folks that run these companies are bright people, and they're more than able to decide if it furthers their interests to (publicly, at least) go on about diversity in their employee statistics. Corporations may be legal persons, but they themselves are not capable of feeling guilt.

And you of course remain free to found your own company devoid of such considerations.

Re:Diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

There are biases. Conscious or sub-conscious and everyone has them. People like to fool themselves into thinking that they are objective and that they can fight their own prejudices. And it's not just about race or gender. When I hear folks with those thick Southern accents, I find myself considering them of lesser intelligence.

And what about the prejudice against age? Zuckerberg actually said that older people "don't get it" - which I find funny since old people love facebook since they can be a part of their grandkid's life - sort of.

And sometimes the prejudice is buried in the interview process. All those stupid questions that are asked will only allow a certain population of people because they answered the question in a way that the interviewer wants it answered.

And as far as race or gender is concerned, people's perception of their skills isn't accurate. I have witnessed it first hand -as a white guy - how others perceive women and black people. They're perceived as not being as good.

And then there's positive prejudice. How many think that Asians are BETTER than white people? I actually had a development manager prefer Indians because "they are bred to sit in front of the computer all day."

I think this should be a wakeup call on the inherent deficiencies in recruitment and hiring practices.

Re:Diversity

[weilawei]

Everyone is walking on eggshells around the new hire

Balls. Grow some. I don't care if you're pink, purple, and green all over in the worst re-imagining of Picasso. You either have the technical chops and willingness to learn & work, or you don't. Nothing else is relevant.

As an aside, I'd rather work with someone who was a complete asshole, but often right, than a person who was always nice, but often incorrect.

Re:Diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

Google/Apple/Whoever didn't do the treading, so why should they be guilt-tripped into settling for mediocrity for some lie about "equality"?

Because it's in their own financial and quality reasons for doing so. Look, I know this is an unpopular stance here on Slashdot, where middle class white man-children think they invented the universe because they can use emacs, but if a group of people is "historically discriminated against," and there is no ACTUAL genetic or biological reason which you can point to that demonstrates that they are deterministically incapable of doing math and science, then there is no reason to believe that members of a disadvantaged and underrepresented minority are underrepresented for any reason except for their "historically downtodden" state.

This means that there are, quite literally, tens of thousands of people who are *perfectly capable* of being excellent software engineers - just as good as you - but who are not working in that field because they've been told, in effect "sorry, Black dudes, and girls of all colors can't do this stuff. Maybe you'd like dealing drugs or baking cakes instead?"

Now, to your initial point: why should Apple, Google, et. al. care?

Because if they increase the labor pool, they have more and better engineers to hire from (meaning - better products!), and they pay less for that labor (meaning - lower payrolls, or MORE engineers for the same amount of money).

You may not LIKE that your job has more competition, but pretending that these companies have no interest in seeing capable people of all backgrounds entering the workforce is just idiotic. They get more, and better qualified, engineers, and they pay less for them.

And enough with the "settle for mediocrity" bullshit, yeah? First of all, the true "genius" programmers are a vanishingly small percentage of the population. The bad news: You're not one of them. The good news: companies have been 'settling for mediocrity' all along, as evidenced by the fact that all of the frothing neckbeards on Slashdot have jobs in IT.

Nobody is arguing that companies should go out and hire brain-damaged people who can't read to do these jobs - they're talking about addressing the situation through increased educational outreach - you know, giving other people all the benefits and privileges that you had as a middle class white kid growing up in the suburbs.

It's a tough world, cupcake. Get used to it.

Re:Diversity

[AmiMoJo]

Slotting someone into a position ahead of a worthier candidate, simply because they're a certain race/gender, rather than because they're the best candidate is idiocy of the highest order.

*sigh*

I don't know how many times this has to be said, but that isn't what they are doing or what anyone is suggesting. The selection process is still done on merit alone, no question. All the effort goes into getting more people from under-represented groups up to the necessary standard and to actually apply for the jobs in the first place.

For example, if you look at a network liked LinkedIn you find that in workplaces that are mostly male the people working there are mostly connected to other males. So when a job comes up and people are asked to contact people they think might be suitable on LinkedIn, there is a natural bias towards more of the same. By making an effort to advertise the job to more women the organization can increase the number of women working for it, but ultimately the decision about who to employ is still based purely on merit alone.

Re:Diversity

[tehcyder]

Slotting someone into a position ahead of a worthier candidate, simply because they're a certain race/gender, rather than because they're the best candidate is idiocy of the highest order.

But not as idiotic as denying someone a position simply because they're a certain race/gender.

Re:Diversity

[tnk1]

While a company like Google likely has all sorts go through their doors, I can tell you what my experience with hiring is.

Working in a small company, I frequently have quite a bit of exposure to the raw talent pool. Sometimes HR gets involved, but just as often, I am talking to the recruiters myself.

There is the occasional woman. There is the occasional black man. What there is not are both black and female. Google having only 35 black females mirrors my experience. The percentage of resumes of black females, even for junior positions, is likely so low to begin with that I never see one and Google probably only sees a few hundred.

And that is even before any question of their skills or experience come up.

I'm wary of a scenario where the first black female resume in my 5 years as a manager will someday come across my desk and she just happens to not have the skills I require for the job and don't hire her. Am I suddenly discriminating in my hiring practices because I have rejected 100% of my black female candidates? Do I hire her because "diversity"?

More to the point, if I had two identically skilled candidates, and one happened to be a black female, do I derive an advantage from hiring her over the other person?

Re:Diversity

[Anonymous Coward]

Slotting someone into a position ahead of a worthier candidate, simply because they're a certain race/gender, rather than because they're the best candidate is idiocy of the highest order.

But not as idiotic as denying someone a position simply because they're a certain race/gender.

Are you talking about racial discrimination, or the politically correct version of same called Affirmative Action?

What gets me is ignoring that the USA is 77% white, then complaining when the input demographics match the output filled positions. The null hypothesis: Correlation is not causation is never investigated by those SJWs crying out for more diversity.

The key point I'm getting at is a logical leap whereby an output demographic bias is assumed to be due to prejudice and nothing else. If you really want to fix the problem you need to stop wasting time heaping shame and seek better education for the poor.

A poor black girl growing up in the ghetto next door to a poor white boy; Both are equally disadvantaged. Yet, the black girl has government aid available from education grants to housing assistance that the white boy will be denied based solely on his sex and race. Identity politics lets any who don't fit their narrative fall through the cracks; Some even claim it's OK because it's "revenge" for past wrongs (which the poor boy never committed). It's sick. To end sexism and racism we only have to give equal opportunity and aide to any who are in need regardless of race, sex or creed. Preferential treatment of any kind, no matter how much it seeks to right past wrongs will create more wrongs of its own.

Not a popular opionion, but...

[rmdingler]

Lie, damn lie, or statistic; these companies are being forced to engage these topics by the increasing social pressure to appear "fair handed."

If you imagine that you are tired of hearing about it as a reader or tech employee, just imagine how it might be for the people whose job it is to make this bettter at the supposedly forward thinking tech giants.

How are those numbers coming, Jim?

Well, we've hired as many somewhat qualified people as we can find, and it's still not enough. Can we count the cafeteria employees again this year?

Do you want a diversity hire?

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Google hires people based on talent. Women and minorities are under-represented in the technical and engineering community. That is a fact of life. Until more women and minorities CHOOSE to enter this field, getting a "diverse workforce" would have to mean you exclude more qualified white males in order to hire less qualified minorities and women.

Think about that for a moment. Suppose hospitals did things this way? If you need critical brain or heart surgery, do you want your surgeon to be one of the best in his or her field, or one that was a "diversity hire"?

Until you're comfortable with the second option, this "diversity" idiocy needs to stop. It's one thing to exclude perfectly qualified candidates because they're female or minority. It's another thing to make that the primary reason you're hiring them instead of making sure they're the best qualified for the job.

Re:Do you want a diversity hire?

[tehcyder]

You are perpetuating the myth that companies have some sort of quota for women/blacks/whatever they they "have" to fill.

The truth is that, in the absence of evidence that (say) black lesbians are inherently incapable of doing "X", you would expect that the number of your employees who are black lesbians is roughly in line with the proportion of black lesbians in society as a whole. If not, it means there is some sort of unconscious bias going on.

The problem with a lot of tech people is that they think their jobs are this mysterious "X" that for some reason only white males can do, and that tech companies therefore have some sort of exemption from behaving like everyone else.

Re:Pop culture mental fugue

[morgauxo]

"Google is being evil here"

Uh, Yah... they are being real evil.

They should fire a bunch of white people and hire a bunch of non-white people based solely on the color of their skin.

That would make them not evil.

Re:Pop culture mental fugue

[Anonymous Coward]

I clicked the link hoping for actual evidence, but I got more speculation.

To answer the questions posed at the post linked, what's happening is that gender lunatics along with other special interest groups are simply hammering tech right now with the equivalent of "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

As far as racial issues, hoo boy. Yes, there are quite real problems here, but the problems are at the K-12 stage, not at the workplace. If these groups were serious about changing things, they'd be out in communities trying to help families realize value for education and to get schools in impoverished neighborhoods more funding and better resources.

I am far more receptive to the overall race issue. We can't expect centuries of slavery and Jim Crow laws to just magically sort itself out. BUT: tech companies and workers can do nothing about it, short of donating to some initiative that fits what I wrote above. If there is no evidence that these companies are discriminating against actual applicants, what the fuck are you asking them to do?

What I need to change my mind are some actual demographic data. How many black applicants with this GPA from X college applied and were hired vs. how many white or Asian applicants with the same GPA from same X college applied and were hired? That's how you generate reasonable suspicion of racism. Without knowing how many black applicants who at least on paper appear to be equal to their white and Asian colleagues, even knowing the number of employed blacks is meaningless to me.

Then there's the gender lunatics.

My first question, although it would amount to a rounding error, concerns trans women. How are trans women reported? Do we go by lived gender (i.e. name's changed, on HRT)? Do we go by bottom surgery status? Do we go by birth certificate gender, which, depending on the state of birth, cannot be changed even after bottom surgery? Or do we go with the feminist view as stated by Janice Raymond and the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (i.e. trans women are not only rapists because they're men, but also metaphysical rapists because they have the audacity to have the same body parts as women)?

So, ok, rounding error aside, but I'd like to segue into the real point that the preponderance of trans women who are in tech raises the question of why are there very few cisgendered women who go into tech? Sure, I'm being a hypocrite here because I don't have the demographic data to back up my assertion, but visit any gallery of successful trans women. Sysadmins! Programmers! EEs! DBAs! More sysadmins and programmers!

There is no economic disparity in childhood between daughters and sons, unlike the race issue.

Do you have a good theory we can use to explain this?

Gender lunatics across the board from feminists to MRAs all take a shit on trans women. Yet, you'll find trans women in tech. Why? What is the difference here between cisgendered and transgendered women?

-- kurenai.tsubasa (not bothering to register this account here because fuck beta)

Re:Pop culture mental fugue

[ArmoredDragon]

Its relevant to knowing if their hiring practices are biased for or against people with a certain skin colour, for example...

No, it's not. To do that, you'd need an analysis that includes much more than just who is working there now. Two huge variables you're leaving out:

1) How many minorities actually applied for a job there?

2) Of those, how many were actually qualified?

Go take your zero knowledge SJW outrage to twitter and/or wordpress where it belongs.