Rosemary for Remembrance

The Guardian has done a remarkably sloppy story on the guy who issued the Manbro Manifesto on why women and minorities get too much workplace consideration.

Some lowlights:

The guy (I am deliberately not mentioning his name) makes the claim that because he's on the spectrum he's not capable of considering the reactions to his deeds and changing course. (Was his interview with the “alt-right” personality Milo Yiannopoulos an error? “It’s hard to say,” he replies. “I don’t really know what the long-term consequences of any of my actions are.”) He's not a moral agent because autism. My friends with autism disagree, strongly. They spend time and effort contemplating the weird behavior of allistic people and trying to adapt to them. They don't say "Well, I have autism, so if you complain about something I did, that's your problem."

The guy in one paragraph argues that because he's on the spectrum he does detailed research. In another para, he says that he didn't bother researching the photographer who offered him a free photograph.

Two days later, Damore went to meet Peter Duke, a photographer who had offered him a free “professional shoot” to replace the poor quality images being used by the media. Duke brought a T-shirt on which Google’s logo had been rearranged to form the word “Goolag”, which Damore put on; he also posed with a cardboard sign Duke gave him, with the slogan “Fired for truth”.

It was only later, Damore says, that he discovered Duke is known as “the Annie Leibovitz of the alt-right” for his sympathetic portraits of far-right activists and conspiracy theorists.

The reporter says

Leaked posts from Google’s internal message boards show that some of Damore’s most vocal critics were mid-ranking managers. “It has cost me at least two days of productivity and anger, and I am not even the target of its bigoted attacks,” said one manager, declaring he would never work with Damore again. Another said: “I intend to silence these views. They are violently offensive.”"

She doesn't seem to grasp that most of the vocal critics are managers because their direct reports are complaining.

The reporter -- and here I want to pound my head against the wall -- offers a "some scientists say X, some scientists say Y" approach to research on gender differences without bothering to check what the dominant scientific opinion is. This tends to promote fringe views: see, for instance, the public perception of global warming.

Here's one of the quotes that makes me angry:

Richard Lippa of California State University, whose work the engineer cited, tells me it contained a “reasonably accurate” summary of the research on psychological differences between men and women. “I think there are ways of arguing against James Damore, from political viewpoints, for ideological reasons, and you can criticise the science, too,” he says. “But the immediate response – ‘This is fake science’ – I don’t think that is doing any of us justice.”

Well, of course Lippa thinks he's giving a "reasonably accurate summary", because the dude is quoting his own work. Quoting Lippa on the reliability of his own point of view is a spiral into a black hole.

However, the methodologies and assumptions underlying these claims have proven highly controversial. Many psychologists would take issue with Damore’s interpretation of personality traits he associates with women, such as “agreeableness” and “neuroticism”.

This is bullshit. Don't tell me "highly controversial" and "many psychologists". Do some @#$@#$ independent research and try to find out what the dominant schools of thought are.

Damore bristles when I accuse him of cherry-picking studies that support his view and ignoring the mountains of evidence that contradict it. “Even if I presented both sides equally, the very fact that I presented the ‘evil’ side would have caused controversy.”

This is not autism. This is the standard response, allistic or autistic, to being told you've said the wrong thing. "Well, people would have been mad at me even if I'd been fairer!" It doesn't address "Did you do a balanced evaluation of all the facts, or did you read only the sources that supported your point of view? This is plain old being an asshole.

Just ... that guy uses the "Don't blame me, I'm on the spectrum argument" simultaneously with "Because I'm on the spectrum, my point of view is right", and the reporter doesn't challenge either.

People who are on the spectrum, if I'm stereotyping, being rude, or outright bigoted, please tell me, and I'll apologize and fix it.