Does Diversity Add Value in Engineering or Just Complexity?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are not a true engineer. True engineers value humanity, perspectives, and the unquantifiable aspects of people. Real engineers see problems as opportunities; and use these problems to create more robust solutions. You insult and dishonor our profession….

Said the Woke engineer.

Said the MAGA a-hole

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. They can coexist and they have for a real long time now. What say you in these cases OP? Do you not hire a unicorn so you can form the biggest and the best good ol’ boys club known to man?

Bingo.

OP is a racist, sexist POS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. They can coexist and they have for a real long time now. What say you in these cases OP? Do you not hire a unicorn so you can form the biggest and the best good ol’ boys club known to man?

Bingo.

OP is a racist, sexist POS.

Do you lack logical reasoning? Of course they are not mutually exclusive. But if you are suggesting there is complete overlap between the two, then there is no need to hire on the basis of BOTH merit AND diversity. Hiring on the basis of merit should be enough. If there is not perfect overlap between the two (ie the real world), and you recruit under both banners, then by definition you will hire some people without merit. If you disagree with that premise (ie you think there is no world where recruiting for diversity results in non-merit hires), then you should logically be fine with hiring solely on merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. They can coexist and they have for a real long time now. What say you in these cases OP? Do you not hire a unicorn so you can form the biggest and the best good ol’ boys club known to man?

Bingo.

OP is a racist, sexist POS.

Do you lack logical reasoning? Of course they are not mutually exclusive. But if you are suggesting there is complete overlap between the two, then there is no need to hire on the basis of BOTH merit AND diversity. Hiring on the basis of merit should be enough. If there is not perfect overlap between the two (ie the real world), and you recruit under both banners, then by definition you will hire some people without merit. If you disagree with that premise (ie you think there is no world where recruiting for diversity results in non-merit hires), then you should logically be fine with hiring solely on merit.

As if it’s binary.

[Anonymous]

You need diversity of thought, experience and problem solving approaches. Some level of capability is required for engineering and you can't go below that for a team. I have a team of many engineers and 2/3 of them went to the same undergraduate program and have been exposed to the same coursework in the same way. The others bring needed difference and innovation to approaches and help with forward progression of a project sometimes.
Dei initiatives are about opportunity and looking at how people not like ourselves can contribute.
We are only now looking at how certain medicines affect women and people of color for goodness sakes. And how heart attacked present completely differently in women. How digital cameras and photography base settings do not account for darker skinned people in compositions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. They can coexist and they have for a real long time now. What say you in these cases OP? Do you not hire a unicorn so you can form the biggest and the best good ol’ boys club known to man?

Bingo.

OP is a racist, sexist POS.

Do you lack logical reasoning? Of course they are not mutually exclusive. But if you are suggesting there is complete overlap between the two, then there is no need to hire on the basis of BOTH merit AND diversity. Hiring on the basis of merit should be enough. If there is not perfect overlap between the two (ie the real world), and you recruit under both banners, then by definition you will hire some people without merit. If you disagree with that premise (ie you think there is no world where recruiting for diversity results in non-merit hires), then you should logically be fine with hiring solely on merit.

As if it’s binary.

It is binary unless you believe that there is complete overlap of all merit and all diverse candidates. Are you saying that every diverse candidate you hire also meets merit requirements? If so, great! No need to separately hire for diversity. You can just hire only merit based people, and ignore diversity requirements, and you'll end up with the same pool. Or you could hire just diverse people, ignore merit requirements, and end up with the same pool.

Obviously that is not true. So then you must agree that, if you recruit under both merit and diversity, you are hiring some diverse people without merit, and some merit people who are not diverse.

[Anonymous]

I've heard this issue raised from university professors. In canada, alot of universities require professor candidates to explain in their applications how their work furthers DEI goals. And professors are required to make ongoing commitments and statements to these goals. And the question arises about how a pure math researcher's work is supposed to advance DEI goals. And even if you can think of some theoretical ways to answer that question, should those really be driving forces for hiring in a math department?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure why merit and diversity are mutually exclusive. They can coexist and they have for a real long time now. What say you in these cases OP? Do you not hire a unicorn so you can form the biggest and the best good ol’ boys club known to man?

Bingo.

OP is a racist, sexist POS.

Do you lack logical reasoning? Of course they are not mutually exclusive. But if you are suggesting there is complete overlap between the two, then there is no need to hire on the basis of BOTH merit AND diversity. Hiring on the basis of merit should be enough. If there is not perfect overlap between the two (ie the real world), and you recruit under both banners, then by definition you will hire some people without merit. If you disagree with that premise (ie you think there is no world where recruiting for diversity results in non-merit hires), then you should logically be fine with hiring solely on merit.

As if it’s binary.

It is binary unless you believe that there is complete overlap of all merit and all diverse candidates. Are you saying that every diverse candidate you hire also meets merit requirements? If so, great! No need to separately hire for diversity. You can just hire only merit based people, and ignore diversity requirements, and you'll end up with the same pool. Or you could hire just diverse people, ignore merit requirements, and end up with the same pool.

Obviously that is not true. So then you must agree that, if you recruit under both merit and diversity, you are hiring some diverse people without merit, and some merit people who are not diverse.

Again, merit is not binary.

Seems like you have never been involved in the hiring process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've heard this issue raised from university professors. In canada, alot of universities require professor candidates to explain in their applications how their work furthers DEI goals. And professors are required to make ongoing commitments and statements to these goals. And the question arises about how a pure math researcher's work is supposed to advance DEI goals. And even if you can think of some theoretical ways to answer that question, should those really be driving forces for hiring in a math department?

Is it really a “driving force” or just one of many considerations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard this issue raised from university professors. In canada, alot of universities require professor candidates to explain in their applications how their work furthers DEI goals. And professors are required to make ongoing commitments and statements to these goals. And the question arises about how a pure math researcher's work is supposed to advance DEI goals. And even if you can think of some theoretical ways to answer that question, should those really be driving forces for hiring in a math department?

Is it really a “driving force” or just one of many considerations?

If you do not have a good answer to that question, you generally won't get hired these days. Most candidates fudge something. But it's a mandatory commitment before getting hired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need diversity of thought, experience and problem solving approaches. Some level of capability is required for engineering and you can't go below that for a team. I have a team of many engineers and 2/3 of them went to the same undergraduate program and have been exposed to the same coursework in the same way. The others bring needed difference and innovation to approaches and help with forward progression of a project sometimes.
Dei initiatives are about opportunity and looking at how people not like ourselves can contribute.
We are only now looking at how certain medicines affect women and people of color for goodness sakes. And how heart attacked present completely differently in women. How digital cameras and photography base settings do not account for darker skinned people in compositions.

Perfect evidence of the kool-aid in this post. And no, we are not. We have extensively studied women (and men) in medical research. For decades and decades. And we learn from it, as we always do. There is no agenda.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing. Diversity is the new modern religion/ideology (or kool-aid depending on your views) for certain people. You see it in their tones on this thread, firmly believing in the sanctity of diversity without a single shred of evidence it delivers the benefits they claim (amazing engineering coming out of, say, Japan or China, which are hardly diverse, so the idea that diversity for the sake of diversity gives you better ourcomes is more akin to religious beliefs than anything factual or truthful). And we all know what is really meant by diversity here. It's not more Asians or nowadays South Asians, who incidentally have had large presences in American engineering in the last 50 years. If we are being truthful, diversity mainly means the right quota of blacks, and in a profession like engineering, more women. Does it meaningfully make the outcome better? No. Does it make people feel better? Yes. Just like religion.

The current anti-DEI push has laid to rest any pretense of DEI getting in the way of hiring qualified people. The administration has hired wildly unqualified candidates who meet their ideological requirements under the pretense of being anti-DEI.

Word

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's the thing. Diversity is the new modern religion/ideology (or kool-aid depending on your views) for certain people. You see it in their tones on this thread, firmly believing in the sanctity of diversity without a single shred of evidence it delivers the benefits they claim (amazing engineering coming out of, say, Japan or China, which are hardly diverse, so the idea that diversity for the sake of diversity gives you better ourcomes is more akin to religious beliefs than anything factual or truthful). And we all know what is really meant by diversity here. It's not more Asians or nowadays South Asians, who incidentally have had large presences in American engineering in the last 50 years. If we are being truthful, diversity mainly means the right quota of blacks, and in a profession like engineering, more women. Does it meaningfully make the outcome better? No. Does it make people feel better? Yes. Just like religion.

100%

You say there is amazing engineering coming out of Japan and China that are "hardly diverse" but 1) it depends on what kind of engineering you are talking about, for one thing, 2) you don't know that they aren't compensating for a lack of some kinds of diversity by strategically building teams that have other kinds of diversity (like bringing in people with completely different kinds of industry backgrounds, or using personality testing to build teams that promote communication/competition for good ideas), and 3) Americans live in a diverse society so if you're talking about building things for the American market, they should probably be designed/engineered/built by teams that understand that whole market if you want them to come out of top.

I can sorta see your point for certain commercial end items but that’s a subset of manufacturing. And for even commercial end use items, that’s a subset of the process. So, yes, for that subset of subsets, you would want to make sure you can evaluate what your full range of customers might want. Not sure engineers, no matter what their background is, are the best group for that though. Diverse or not, they’re still engineers.

That's a strange position to hold, many other industries perceive that problem-solving improves when you have a more diverse team instead of a less diverse one.

+1

[Anonymous]

They do the visa programs so they can pay them much less.

[Anonymous]

I would think the more inclusive a workplace is, the more likely they are hiring the best people. Imagine if you were hiring for a role and you threw out the resumes of everyone whose last name was in the second half of the alphabet. Why would you do that? Why would you want to do that?