Too Long; Didn't Read
In this week’s mashup episode of <em>Scandal: Silicon Valley</em>, <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/8/7/16110696/firing-google-ceo-employee-penned-controversial-memo-on-women-has-violated-its-code-of-conduct" target="_blank">James Damore, a newly-fired Google engineer</a>, wrote a 10-page memo arguing that the company’s efforts to improve diversity were misguided. Damore based his thesis on ideas from Evolutionary Psychology and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits" target="_blank">Big 5 personality traits</a>, arguing, in essence, that because psychological differences exist between men and women (true), these are therefore bound to biology (tenuous), and therefore explain differences between men and women in their interest and subsequent representation in the field of computer science and programming (no evidence provided, and ahistorical — see below).