Diversity, Equality: Pick One

Instapundit points to an article by several prominent scientists about gender and race differences with respect to diversity hiring.  This is because of the Google engineer who pointed out the absurdity of Google's diversity and PC obsession.  (Yes, now fired.)  Here's the money quote:

This dogma relies on two core assumptions:

•  The human sexes and races have exactly the same minds, with precisely identical distributions of traits, aptitudes, interests, and motivations; therefore, any inequalities of outcome in hiring and promotion must be due to systemic sexism and racism;
• The human sexes and races have such radically different minds, backgrounds, perspectives, and insights, that companies must increase their demographic diversity in order to be competitive; any lack of demographic diversity must be due to short-sighted management that favors groupthink.

The obvious problem is that these two core assumptions are diametrically opposed.
Let me explain. If different groups have minds that are precisely equivalent in every respect, then those minds are functionally interchangeable, and diversity would be irrelevant to corporate competitiveness. For example, take sex differences. The usual rationale for gender diversity in corporate teams is that a balanced, 50/50 sex ratio will keep a team from being dominated by either masculine or feminine styles of thinking, feeling, and communicating. Each sex will counter-balance the other’s quirks. (That makes sense to me, by the way, and is one reason why evolutionary psychologists often value gender diversity in research teams.) But if there are no sex differences in these psychological quirks, counter-balancing would be irrelevant. A 100% female team would function exactly the same as a 50/50 team, which would function the same as a 100% male team. If men are no different from women, then the sex ratio in a team doesn’t matter at any rational business level, and there is no reason to promote gender diversity as a competitive advantage.

This apparently originally appeared on Quilette, which is now dead.

No wonder Google fired him:

He then went on to the University of Illinois, where he graduated in 2010 in the top 3 percent of his class with a degree in molecular and cellular biology, according to his CV.He graduated as a James Scholar and was given the Bronze Tablet, the highest awards given to graduates, he said.

Damore also pursued his Ph.D. in systems biology from Harvard University in from 2011 to 2013, according to his Linkedin profile. He is listed in the alumni section of the Harvard Systems Biology Ph.D. program, but Harvard told Wired that Damore did not complete his Ph.D. He did complete a master’s degree in systems biology in 2013, Harvard told Wired.

Quilette was indeed a victim of a DDoS attack; progressives showing their contempt for free speech.  Why am I not surprised?