from Hacker News

Half of the female STEM faculty in the US were hired over more qualified men

by atlacatl_sv on 1/3/22, 5:41 AM with 20 comments

• by phs318u on 1/3/22, 6:33 AM

  Took me twenty seconds to click through and determine that the concluding sentences of the abstract in the first link Domingos uses to prove his point, actually does the opposite.

  "This suggests that preference for women among identically-qualified applicants found in experimental studies and in audits does not extend to women whose credentials are even slightly weaker than male counterparts. Thus these data give no support to the twin claims that weaker males are chosen over stronger females or weaker females are hired over stronger males."

  To me this reads like they concluded that affirmative action (bias towards women among identically qualified candidates) is not occuring at the expense of merit.

• by WheelsAtLarge on 1/3/22, 6:11 AM

  Maybe (though, it's hard to believe) and this is mainly click bait. But we have had centuries of women excluded from education and work only because of their gender. At some point things need to start to get straitened , this is one way of doing it.

  As long as they can do the work, hire them!

• by sanp on 1/3/22, 6:14 AM

  Can we also check what proportion of male faculty was hired over other more qualified men (or women)?

• by ggm on 1/3/22, 5:48 AM

  "Qualified" requires qualification. Domingos obviously feels he is the arbiter of qualification but a faculty is a delicate thing. I think CP Snow pointed out a college has to last beyond the life of the current senior encumbents and a dullard with few jokes, but who knows how to pass the salt quietly might be more important than a genius with temper tantrums sometimes. You need a fertile mix. Suitability, the idoneous candidate, is a non trivial question.

  The important question is not "who is more highly qualified" it's contextual: at the payscale we hire for, and the roles we need filled, from the abundantly capable candidates who do we actually... WANT.

  I don't have a role in hiring any more, but from qualified candidates I've hired for diversity and I'd do it again without question. I know of companies who hire alternating men and women to maintain equity. They're successful. Domingos appears to want to imply this cannot be true or equitable.

  If it's measured solely by grant applications and peer review publishing, remember bad actors score highly in both. Perhaps Domingos forgets the pastoral quality of staff in a department? Does he think this has no importance? Women students need women faculty to become successful.

  In the 1960s and 1970s the compsci field was not skewed as much as it has been since. Why is this?

  I am told by Iranian friends, reliable ones, that 75% of students in engineering are women. What would Domingos expect faculty ratios to be, in Iran?

• by atlacatl_sv on 1/3/22, 5:42 AM

  I don't agree with the professor; I'm looking for input from the HN community on Pedro Domingos's comments.

• by s1artibartfast on 1/3/22, 6:24 AM

  I think the critical question is what is an acceptable rate to try to achieve equality, and what are you willing to sacrifice to achieve it. There are tradeoffs that can be made, and must be made if affirmative action is the tool selected to achieve change

• by filoeleven on 1/3/22, 6:41 AM

  Twitter posts should be held to a much higher degree of scrutiny to be put on the front page. Especially ones which don’t link to anything. Flagged.