Guest post by Steve Hoffman, CEO of Founders Space & Author of Make Elephants Fly
Google’s firing of James Damore is big news in Silicon Valley. Damore was an engineer at Google when he wrote a 10-page memo claiming that women are not ideal for some engineering and management positions because of biological reasons. He said Google was wrong in trying to increase the number of female engineers and managers.
The memo caused a huge uproar on both the left and the right. But let me be clear: there is no scientific evidence supporting any biological difference that makes females less capable engineers and managers. Damore is simply dressing his political point of view in pseudo science. This is typical of the right-wing ideologs. They use phony science to push their agenda.
Trump and the right wingers in America have used pseudo science to deny that carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change. Now they are extending the same underhanded tactics to gender equality. Similar tactics have been used to refute Darwin’s theory of evolution and claim homosexuality is a lifestyle choice (not genetic).
The sad thing is that many people fall for this garbage science. As a society, we must be vigilant in exposing any attempt to corrupt science in order to push ideological and religious agendas. This type of perversion of the truth winds up hurting everyone.
It’s all of our responsibility to stand up and denounce these falsehoods whenever they appear. I am doing my part by writing this, and I hope all of you will do the same. Don’t let the James Damores of this world spread their hatred, lies and prejudice.
