Careful with your terminology [LWN.net]

Careful with your terminology

Posted Oct 2, 2007 6:20 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091)
In reply to: Wikipedia at its worst by evgeny
Parent article: To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

You will notice that the referenced article is not about "IQ", but about mathematical reasoning. When using these culturally loaded terms in a scientific frame so that we can distinguish between prejudices and legitimate differences, rigor is crucial.

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Careful with your terminology

Posted Oct 2, 2007 11:56 UTC (Tue) by evgeny (subscriber, #774) [Link] (1 responses)

> When using these culturally loaded terms in a scientific frame so that we can distinguish between prejudices and legitimate differences, rigor is crucial.

I did suggest we might use different definitions - to which you extremely politely replied "you are bordering the obtuse."

With linguistic issues aside, do you accept that (i) certain intellectual abilities (in this specific case, abstract math) might differ significantly between the representatives of the two genders and (ii) these abilities might be crucial for a success in certain FLOSS projects? You know, at least as _hypotheses_ that may merit civilized discussion instead of shouting "liars" and all kinds of "*ists".

These 13-year boys and girls are now around 37 - more or less the average age of e.g. LKML, if multiple photos from all kinds of kernel summits are indicative.

Now, one can go to great length discussing whether these differences are at the genetic level or somehow socialized (those dolls... I wonder why no parent sued the manufacturers of these toys resulting in dumbing down their daughters - and that in the US, known for successful multi-million absurd cases!). There are _scientific_ works on these subjects as well. But these are extremely off-topic. Not to mention that an absolute majority, if not 100% of us are not specialists in the field.

Whatever the actual causes of the disproportions are, any attempt to "actively" bring in an abstract "equality" are doomed. The best we can do (and I believe most of us are doing it anyway) is to fight against any sign of _direct_ discrimination and try hard to avoid prejudicing.

Let us operate with _facts_, clearly label _assumptions_ and _personal_ experiences as such, and be tolerant to opinions which break taboos (even when you honestly believe this is an axiom and not a taboo).

Careful with your terminology

Posted Oct 2, 2007 17:21 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (guest, #15091) [Link]

I did suggest we might use different definitions - to which you extremely politely replied "you are bordering the obtuse."

You did suggest your own alternate definition for the same term, "IQ", which has a perfectly defined meaning already. I only replied the quoted sentence when you tried to use as explanation of your alternate definitions a wikipedia graph about normals which you can find in the corresponding article. Sorry if I'm being pedantic, but as I explained it is especially important to use the right terms in this area.

I accept your suggestions (males are more profficient at some abilities than females, and those may be crucial for certain FOSS projects), but I don't think they are very likely -- or relevant. As to the rest, all you say is perfectly reasonable and I think we mostly agree.