> Suggesting a thing as a possible factor and explicitly stating a thing is a factor are two different actions.

I wrote that you "alleged that there may be discrimination against women in university education". Saying instead that you "suggested [discrimination against women in admissions] as a possible factor" is just rephrasing the same thing. I posted evidence that refutes your suggestion, which absolutely is relevant to this conversation.

> It seems like a reasonable person would understand this concept - that statistics at one level are not evidence of an argument, in either direction

So you're saying you also have no evidence that bias works against women, because "statistics at one level are not evidence of an argument, in either direction"? If we have no evidence of bias against women, then why is it justified to explicitly discriminate in favor of women? Almost every justification for affirmative action in hiring women I've heard has been that discrimination is necessary to counteract bias against women.

How is someone going to prove that women face bias when statistical arguments are invalid? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if we continue down this line of reasoning (or lack thereof) it's going to boil down to statistics magically becoming relevant again when they indicate bias against women.

> Numerous studies have shown that bias exists. This is not generally argued by anyone but the most ardently privileged.

These studies better not rely on statistics... :)

> I mean, you do agree that bias did exist, right? Like, slavery, women disenfranchised. Those things happened and bias was the cause, right? So if it did exist, when exactly did it cease to exist?

Slavery did exist, but that is overwhelmingly on the basis of race. This comment chain has so far been about women. This smells like whataboutsim.

Women's disenfranchisement ended a century ago. By now women make up the majority of university graduates. Premiere technology universities like MIT, Harvey Mudd, Cal Tech, and Carnegie Mellon admit women at significantly higher rates than men - often more than 2x. At my company, we hire female tech graduates at over twice the rate of men. We're setting a quota (despite this being probably illegal) to make our company's tech workforce 33% women even though women make up 20% of Does this sound like bias against women?

> No, there is literally zero evidence.

I'm sorry but if you really did read through all the sources I posted, then at this point I really do feel that you're being willfully ignorant in writing this. I can respect people who don't find the evidence convincing, but to say that "there is literally zero evidence" immediately after being presented several pieces of evidence is a very strong indicator that you're not participating in this discussion with good faith. But to give you the benefit of the doubt I'll assume you are and will address your last point:

> Your interpretation of various cultures and evidence that men are not genetically identical to women is not evidence that men have a genetic aptitude/predilection towards STEM.

You're right, showing that all cultures and societies have disproportionately larger male graduates in STEM does not, in and of itself, prove that men have any sort of genetic predisposition. But it does prove that society and culture is not a strong factor regarding the low representation of women in STEM. Every society has a lower percentage of women in STEM. From the North America, to Europe, to Asia, to Africa, to South America. Rich countries and poor countries. Secular countries and religious countries. So culture and society does not have a strong effect of women in STEM. There is some correlation between gender equality and women's participation in STEM - but it's the opposite of the prevailing narrative; the data suggest that more women go into STEM when countries are misogynistic. So, I guess we could roll back women's rights to boost female participation in STEM but that's probably not a good idea.

Now, we've ruled out culture as a determining factor in why women have low participation rates in STEM so what else could it be? There's really only a couple ways to explain population-wide differences, the proverbial "nature vs. nurture" question. And we've ruled out nurture, so that leaves nature as a feasible cause. And again, I posted several other pieces of evidence including evidence that shows that men and women have different predilection towards people vs. things immediately after birth.