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From: jbf@ccieng5.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: RE: Sex Differences - Math
Message-ID: <445@ccieng5.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-May-84 00:03:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: ccieng5.445
Posted: Tue May 22 00:03:29 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 26-May-84 09:47:05 EDT
References: <1940@rlgvax.UUCP>
Organization: CCI Central Engineering, Rochester, NY
Lines: 24

>A higher variance ... if one were to hire top mathematicians, they would
>all be men.	(paraphrased)

All is a bit strong.  It is true that if men and women had the same average
Math ability, but the men had the higher variance, the top (as well as the
bottom) would be predominantly male.  However, if there is just one woman
in the population whose ability exceeds that of the lowest man chosen, you
have lost in restricting your sample to men.

Of course, the higher variance would give you no improvement if you used
sex as a hiring criterion (at least in average skill of the people hired --
it might be worth your while to hire 4 or 5 bozos to get one really
outstanding employee (ie, it may not be in your interest to maximize
"average skill")).  On the other hand, a slight difference in means
between the groups would give sexual discrimination some positive value; but
it still loses badly compared to a more pertinent measurement.

Jens


-- 
"Some people are eccentric, but I am just plain odd"
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