> His claim was that women are statistically less likely to be interested in computer science. He said nothing about ability.

Sorry, you're mistaken here. (1) Damore said "I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes". (2) Damore made references to women being less able to cope with leadership positions due to anxiety (3) Studies show ability, interest, motivation and external environment are not mutually exclusive independent things like you might think. Read some of Carol Dweck's research on this for more.

> He gave lots of numbers. 20% is about the percentage of female computer science graduates. Targeting anything above that would necessarily require discriminating against men.

'in the USA' is missing from your sentence.

In China, 40% of faculty are women, and graduate numbers are similar. The largest democracy in the world, India, also has a similar story, close to 50% of graduates.

Google hires across the world, not just in the USA.

> I don't see any mention of race in the memo. When Damore is talking about "diversity" he always is talking about gender diversity.

It's there, look again. And you don't get the unique right to interpret the true meaning behind Damore's words. He specifically references race-related hiring policies as unfair off the back of a discussion about gender.

> I've been asked to edit my comment to make it less argumentative. Could you do the same for yours? Calling someone you disagree with "intellectually dishonest", etc, is not good taste.

I consider my comment pretty factual. Intellectual honesty has a specific meaning; the 'intellectual' isn't just there as filling. It's a method of problem solving that among other things explicitly disconnects your personal beliefs from the pursuit of the facts. I was explaining that Damore's actions were not consistent with intellectual honesty, as implied by the commenter I replied to.

Damore leapt over a vast chasm to get from 'biological' differences to HR policy. He could be right about every single thing in his memo and it still wouldn't be intellectually honest because the evidence provided doesn't explain the observable facts.

Why did representation of women in computing drop suddenly in the 1980s? Why does the USA have 20% (and falling) women CS graduates and India have closer to 50%? Why are 10% of US CS faculty women and in China 40% CS faculty are women? Why do girls interested in computers during childhood suddenly drop their interest?

It ultimately doesn't matter what his thought process is, perhaps I should have left that aspect out. Until Damore can answer those kinds of questions, leaping straight to HR policy is intellectual dishonesty. Unless I'm missing something that's an indisputable fact.

...and we haven't even opened the Pandora's Box that is less biased hiring techniques, but perhaps that's for another time.

[Edit: missed a bit:]

> In any case, this is how all debates work. People present evidence for their beliefs and the other side responds with refutations and evidence for theirs. There is nothing wrong or intellectually dishonest about this.

This is how debates work on topics that aren't emotive. In this case, Damore promoted stereotypes of lower ability (yes, ability), and explicitly claimed that Google is lowering the "bar" to allow diversity candidates in.

That effectively tells his colleagues hired through those programs that they don't deserve to be there, and that he wants fewer people like them hired in future.

That's never going to happen like a discussion of whether the button should be #4285F4 or #3285F4. It's a threat to peoples future prosperity, and the prosperity of their familes, daughters, etc. That conversation requires empathy and trust. Instead, Damore came out guns blazing, with accusations of bias and extremism. He triggered a threat a response.

Nothing he's done makes him inherently a bad person, he had some mistaken views and was clumsy about engaging, but he made a big mistake and left no alternative for this to be a disciplinary matter. I hope he learned this lesson, but given his engagement with MRAs and his new "Fired for Truth" branding I suspect he hasn't.