MCATs, Affirmative Action, and DEI, Oh My

[Bomb#20]

I'd say there are two things to consider.

The negative cost to the nation over AA is negligible. The benefit of increasing inclusion of people within industries and professions has benefited the country. Unemployment for whites is still notably lower than for blacks. White people survived! Someone wants to argue that is immoral, they can take that up with a philosopher.

AA was necessary in part due to the self-perpetuating impacts of racism. Just look at the NFL. How many black QBs? How many black head coaches? That isn't active racism, that is perpetuation of former racism within the football ladder. I refuse to believe blacks can't handle the QB position (that doesn't require running the ball, has there been a single black Joe Montana?) or be a head coach. Yet, somehow, these two positions are very uncommon. The ladder in the 1960s for blacks was cut off and people could only get so high up. Just adding the rungs back doesn't make it a piece of cake to get to the top. Plenty of other people already there, it got crowded.

Oh. My. God! An argument for AA containing no ad hominems, strawmen, math errors, reality avoidance, or conceptual intellectual suicide. Thank you for showing the world it can be done!

 

[Toni]

But I’m actually less bothered by AA/DEI itself than I am by the argument always being about minorities getting positions they didn’t fully earn on merit.

That's the whole idea of AA/DEI though.

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. ...

And that's a perfectly coherent argument for racial gerrymandering. But a school or a profession is not a bleeding legislature. People don't become students or doctors or whatever in order to represent anyone.

The notion that an Asian with an MCAT of 509 who gets turned away for being Asian from the same school that delightedly snaps up a Native American with a 509 MCAT has received "fair treatment", and is "represented" because the school accepted some other Asian with a 515 MCAT, is absurd on its face. The guys who got in represent no one but themselves; and claiming the guy who got rejected on account of his race was treated fairly because of what color some other guy is is an utter betrayal of the whole concept of fairness.

Of one must choose between two candidates with the same MCAT score, why shouldn’t the one who is from a group with less representation be admitted?

Make the case.

Make the case that MCAT plus GPA should be the only things that count.

As I’ve said, I know people who are quite intelligent t n the science way, with stellar GOAs and MCAT scores who dud not get into Ned school because they were not particularly good at the people portion of the job. I like them, abd respect them but no one who knew them thought they’d be good doctors despite everyone being blown away by their brilliance.

 

[laughing dog]

But I’m actually less bothered by AA/DEI itself than I am by the argument always being about minorities getting positions they didn’t fully earn on merit.

That's the whole idea of AA/DEI though.

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. ...

And that's a perfectly coherent argument for racial gerrymandering.

I understand why you would think it is a coherent argument for racial gerrymandering. But it isn't.

But a school or a profession is not a bleeding legislature. People don't become students or doctors or whatever in order to represent anyone.

Fascinating your focus ignores the "fair treatment" part, and misrepresent the "fair representation part".

The notion that an Asian with an MCAT of 509 who gets turned away for being Asian from the same school that delightedly snaps up a Native American with a 509 MCAT has received "fair treatment", and is "represented" because the school accepted some other Asian with a 515 MCAT, is absurd on its face. The guys who got in represent no one but themselves; and claiming the guy who got rejected on account of his race was treated fairly because of what color some other guy is is an utter betrayal of the whole concept of fairness.

Is your example fact based or simply hypothetical?

 

[Emily Lake]

I don't - I think standardized testing is the best we can reasonable do. Anything else is adding subjectivity into the mix in a way that can be exploited, and that also creates a perception of favoritism and special privileges.

So, you don’t think an objective test could be devised to reasonably predict the “ability to treat patients”, but a standardized test is the best we can do?

I swear sometimes youse guys really, really, truly don't read for comprehension.

I don't think an objective test exists that can tell you which applicants to medical school will be the best at treating patients after having completed medical school and residency. I also don't think an objective test exists that can tell you which applicants to an engineering school will be the most successful engineers after having completed all of their schooling.

But if you have some objective test or measure that you believe will do so, I'm all ears, and entirely open to the idea.

A substandard (by your own admission) test should be used

Substandard compared to what? What other objective test is a better measure?

because it avoids the perception by some of favoritism and special privilege,

Yes. We should avoid the perception of favoritism and special privilege. I really didn't expect that to be met with objection.

rather than use expertise and experience that is working?

What expertise and experience are you referencing, that when used prior to admitting a student to medical school, works really, really well at determining which potential students will make the best real world doctors?

 

[Emily Lake]

This actually makes me wonder something. If the problem is preferential treatment, then why does the discussion seem so overwhelmingly concerned with preferential treatment when the beneficiary is Black or Hispanic? White applicants lose positions to other White applicants all the damn time, and some of those people absolutely got an advantage that had nothing to do with being the most qualified person in the room. Legacy status, family connections, referrals, who you know, institutional connections, etc.

Someone else loses that seat or job when that happens too. Yet nobody sees a rejected White applicant and immediately starts wondering which other White guy stole his spot through connections or preferential treatment.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ... Yes, they do. Perhaps marginally less so in initial hiring, but when it comes to promotions, they absolutely do.

But let the person who got the opportunity be Black, Hispanic, or Asian, groups that together make up roughly 38% of the population, and suddenly everybody wants to know whose spot the ‘handout’ supposedly cost.

Let me provide you with an illustration that might shift your perspective. Assume that the hiring agent has made public announcements that they are dedicated to increasing the portion of their workforce that is white, and that having a higher number of white employees is both good for their business and good for society as a whole.

When a white person gets a cushy and lucrative position... don't you think the black and hispanic people who applied for the job might be suspicious of whether that white guy was actually better than them at the job? Or whether they may have been less capable, but had the desired skin color in keeping with the employer's stated objective?

Having more black or hispanic or pick-your-group-of-interest people in a field is not at all a problem. Having employers and universities have a stated objective of intentionally increasing their portion of pick-your-group-of-interest people is the problem.

I agree that things like AA/DEI are a pretty ridiculous and clumsy way of dealing with racism. America has historically been much better at trying to manage the effects of discrimination than actually bringing the hammer down on the people doing the discriminating. Hell, look at Reconstruction. We fought an entire Civil War, then turned around, pardoned a bunch of Confederate thugs and watched many of them walk right back into positions of political power.

So instead of consistently slapping discriminatory behavior with the book, we eventually ended up with policies that basically say, “Okay, since we're not interested in stopping those people from discriminating, let's put something discriminating on paper to give black people a fair shot.”

IMO, AA/DEI is treating the symptom instead of the disease. But I’m actually less bothered by AA/DEI itself than I am by the argument always being about minorities getting positions they didn’t fully earn on merit. Especially considering all the white women enjoying its benefits.

I think AA served a beneficial purpose when it was first introduced, but I don't think it's really necessary any more. At this point, DEI (the modern incarnation of AA) is counterproductive - it ends up calling into question the capabilities of minorities and women hired by a company waving a DEI flag. There's no way around people questioning whether those who were hired or promoted are objectively the best, or whether it's just politically or socially convenient.

 

[Bomb#20]

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. ...

And that's a perfectly coherent argument for racial gerrymandering. But a school or a profession is not a bleeding legislature. People don't become students or doctors or whatever in order to represent anyone.

The notion that an Asian with an MCAT of 509 who gets turned away for being Asian from the same school that delightedly snaps up a Native American with a 509 MCAT has received "fair treatment", and is "represented" because the school accepted some other Asian with a 515 MCAT, is absurd on its face. The guys who got in represent no one but themselves; and claiming the guy who got rejected on account of his race was treated fairly because of what color some other guy is is an utter betrayal of the whole concept of fairness.

Of one must choose between two candidates with the same MCAT score, why shouldn’t the one who is from a group with less representation be admitted?

Make the case.

I didn't offer an opinion about who should be admitted; I simply pointed out why LD's characterization of the idea of AA/DEI cannot possibly be correct. If a student is rejected on account of his race then the goal is evidently not to be fair to him; ergo, since he is a person, the goal is evidently not to be fair to "all people". That's not to say he shouldn't be rejected -- maybe being fair to somebody else is more important than being fair to him, or maybe some consideration other than fairness should take priority. Morality is complicated and "Just be fair to everyone." is not necessarily an optimal algorithm for pursuing it. But when one decides to deprioritize fairness, it isn't honest to claim the idea is to promote fair treatment of all people.

That said, your framing of the issue has a couple of obvious problems. First off, why must one choose between two candidates with the same MCAT score? The school could accept both, or neither. And as for your proposal, that's not a matter of "should". "Ought implies can", as the saying goes. The school cannot admit "the one who is from a group with less representation". Both groups have exactly the same representation in the school: zero. People are not represented in a medical school. People are represented in a legislature. People go to medical school to become doctors, not representatives. Calling a minority "underrepresented" is language abuse; it's an equivocation fallacy designed to smuggle in the premise that medical schools should work like legislatures without explaining why they should.

If what you mean is, "why shouldn’t the one who is from a group with fewer other members enrolled per capita be admitted?", that doesn't really provide a decision procedure. Both students are from groups with fewer other members enrolled per capita. People can be divided up into groups in trillions of ways. Everybody is a member of innumerable groups of people none of whom have ever gotten into medical school. To claim a school should admit the student from a group with fewer members enrolled amounts to claiming that you should be put in charge of ruling on which categories matter and which don't.

Make the case that MCAT plus GPA should be the only things that count.

I'm not going to go around this loop with you yet again. Stop strawmanning infidels.

 

[Emily Lake]

No—it’s a lot of observation and experience with premed students in class alongside me.

AFAIK, Asian students have never ‘ automatically been assigned’ poor personality scores because they are Asian.

Just for consideration... what decade were you a premed student? What was true 20 years ago isn't necessarily true now... doubly so for 40 years ago.

We're all getting on in years around here, and I think we sometimes forget how long ago we were in school.

 

[Emily Lake]

Yeah, that's the real obstacle for Americans to get affordable health care.

It's not a small obstacle. We have way, way, way too many specialists than we need as a population, and nowhere near the generalists we need. It's a part of why costs are so high.

Private equity using hospitals and doctor groups as profit-generating investment vehicles is another obstacle.

 

[laughing dog]

I don't - I think standardized testing is the best we can reasonable do. Anything else is adding subjectivity into the mix in a way that can be exploited, and that also creates a perception of favoritism and special privileges.

So, you don’t think an objective test could be devised to reasonably predict the “ability to treat patients”, but a standardized test is the best we can do?

I swear sometimes youse guys really, really, truly don't read for comprehension.

I don't think an objective test exists that can tell you which applicants to medical school will be the best at treating patients after having completed medical school and residency. I also don't think an objective test exists that can tell you which applicants to an engineering school will be the most successful engineers after having completed all of their schooling.

“Yes” is a simpler answer to the question

A substandard (by your own admission) test should be used

Substandard compared to what? What other objective test is a better measure?

You agreed there was no objective test that would predict success in treating patients, yet yiu want to use one anyway.

because it avoids the perception by some of favoritism and special privilege,

Yes. We should avoid the perception of favoritism and special privilege. I really didn't expect that to be met with objection.

rather than use expertise and experience that is working?

What expertise and experience are you referencing, that when used prior to admitting a student to medical school, works really, really well at determining which potential students will make the best real world doctors?

No idea, I am not an experienced admissions person for a medical school.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But it's not the second half.

Now it's a new game, new players. Why should they be punished for the previous game they had no part in? You are punishing completely innocent people for having the wrong parents. The Constitution specifically prohibits this.

Denial of the generational effects of racism.

1) The Constitution still prohibits it.

2) Said generational effects have not been demonstrated. What you are seeing is socioeconomic, not racial.

Racism doesn't cause socioeconomic issues? Historians around the world are laughing at you.

Sure it can. But that's not the right question, you are assuming all socioeconomic issues are racism, but the success of Asians says otherwise.

Please quote me where I said the bolded.

It's implied in what you are saying.

If you are not assuming all socioeconomic issues are racism then citing socioeconomic issues as evidence of racism makes no sense.

 

[Emily Lake]

And herein lies the problem that a lot of us have with the left. You want things to happen but you don't actually want to incur the costs, instead pushing them off onto some other so you can pretend they disappear.

Better than refusing to address problems at all, then whining that no one has solved them already. If there's a problem financing the construction of new homes, there's likely a whole array of solutions to that problem, if you're thinking critically about it rather than double-locking your door and pretending community issues only happen in bad neighborhoods.

How about... limiting the ability of foreign corporations to buy US land, homes, and apartment buildings, then jacking up the prices to provide profits in other countries by exploiting US citizens? Shifting away from property taxes as a form of local revenue? Controlling gentrification in urban areas so it doesn't make existing housing unaffordable for the people who live there? Encouraging companies to move to less urban areas, where the cost of living is lower and they can provide employment opportunities to a lot of lower income people who don't happen to live in cities?

Hell, I might argue that simply stealing a hotel from some rich person and converting it to low cost studio apartments with a shared laundry room and cafeteria facility would be a better idea than forcing banks to lend money that's not likely to be paid.

 

[Emily Lake]

Because of the large N. When we "assume normality" we don't mean perfectly normal, just close enough.

Large N does not necessarily mean Normal. I deal with very large samples on a regular basis, and I assure you that health care utilization is not even remotely Normal. Most auto claims more closely resemble a pareto distribution, and IIRC most warranty claims are weibulls. It's been a long time though, so I might have them misattributed.

 

[ZiprHead]

But it's not the second half.

Now it's a new game, new players. Why should they be punished for the previous game they had no part in? You are punishing completely innocent people for having the wrong parents. The Constitution specifically prohibits this.

Denial of the generational effects of racism.

1) The Constitution still prohibits it.

2) Said generational effects have not been demonstrated. What you are seeing is socioeconomic, not racial.

Racism doesn't cause socioeconomic issues? Historians around the world are laughing at you.

Sure it can. But that's not the right question, you are assuming all socioeconomic issues are racism, but the success of Asians says otherwise.

Please quote me where I said the bolded.

It's implied in what you are saying.

If you are not assuming all socioeconomic issues are racism then citing socioeconomic issues as evidence of racism makes no sense.

No one said all socioeconomic issues are attributed to racism.

 

[Emily Lake]

My worst teacher in the weeding classes was male (also had a stroke).

 

[Bomb#20]

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. ...

And that's a perfectly coherent argument for racial gerrymandering.

I understand why you would think it is a coherent argument for racial gerrymandering. But it isn't.

If you say so.

But a school or a profession is not a bleeding legislature. People don't become students or doctors or whatever in order to represent anyone.

Fascinating your focus ignores the "fair treatment" part, and misrepresent the "fair representation part".

Says the guy who then immediately quotes me not ignoring the "fair treatment" part.

As for the "fair representation" part, show your work. In what way have I misrepresented it?

The notion that an Asian with an MCAT of 509 who gets turned away for being Asian from the same school that delightedly snaps up a Native American with a 509 MCAT has received "fair treatment", and is "represented" because the school accepted some other Asian with a 515 MCAT, is absurd on its face. The guys who got in represent no one but themselves; and claiming the guy who got rejected on account of his race was treated fairly because of what color some other guy is is an utter betrayal of the whole concept of fairness.

Is your example fact based or simply hypothetical?

Both -- it's a hypothetical specific example of what's implied by the statistical facts. A Native American with a 509 MCAT is 1.0 standard deviation above the average admitted Native American, so he's very likely to be accepted. An Asian with a 509 MCAT is 0.9 standard deviations below the average admitted Asian, so he's very likely to be rejected.

 

[Emily Lake]

But I’m actually less bothered by AA/DEI itself than I am by the argument always being about minorities getting positions they didn’t fully earn on merit.

That's the whole idea of AA/DEI though.

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. Nothing in its precept is about anyone getting position that they didn't earn fully on merit.

Thus my earlier point about white women being beneficiaries of DEI, and, yes, affirmative action as well. Yet I haven’t seen anyone jumping out of their seat complaining every time a white woman benefits from those policies. Guess it went over his head because... well... he just never considered that.

The company I work for is 70% female. 66% of the executives are female.

We have a "women's empowerment club" as part of our corporate DEI initiative.

I got weird looks when I said that based on our employee composition, we probably need a "men's empowerment club" instead.

 

[Emily Lake]

You agreed there was no objective test that would predict success in treating patients, yet yiu want to use one anyway.

No, I want to use standardized tests for admission to medical school, as the best currently available metric for who will be most likely to complete the coursework necessary and graduate from medical school.

It has never been a measure of predicting success in treating patients.

 

[Emily Lake]

Both -- it's a hypothetical specific example of what's implied by the statistical facts. A Native American with a 509 MCAT is 1.0 standard deviation above the average admitted Native American, so he's very likely to be accepted. An Asian with a 509 MCAT is 0.9 standard deviations below the average admitted Asian, so he's very likely to be rejected.

Only if you assume Normal distributions with no skew and you also assume different thresholds on the basis of race.

I don't have any information right now that leads me to conclude that both of those are factual. I do, however, understand the risk and the perception of the latter.

 

[laughing dog]

No, it is not the whole idea of AA/DEI. The idea of the two is to promote fair treatment and representation for all people, especially historically underrepresented minorities. ...

And that's a perfectly coherent argument for racial gerrymandering.

I understand why you would think it is a coherent argument for racial gerrymandering. But it isn't.

If you say so.

I did.

But a school or a profession is not a bleeding legislature. People don't become students or doctors or whatever in order to represent anyone.

Fascinating your focus ignores the "fair treatment" part, and misrepresent the "fair representation part".

Says the guy who then immediately quotes me not ignoring the "fair treatment" part.

As for the "fair representation" part, show your work. In what way have I misrepresented it?[

Sorry, I flipped the two. You ignored the fair representation and misrepresented fair treatment.

The notion that an Asian with an MCAT of 509 who gets turned away for being Asian from the same school that delightedly snaps up a Native American with a 509 MCAT has received "fair treatment", and is "represented" because the school accepted some other Asian with a 515 MCAT, is absurd on its face. The guys who got in represent no one but themselves; and claiming the guy who got rejected on account of his race was treated fairly because of what color some other guy is is an utter betrayal of the whole concept of fairness.

Is your example fact based or simply hypothetical?

Both -- it's a hypothetical specific example of what's implied by the statistical facts. A Native American with a 509 MCAT is 1.0 standard deviation above the average admitted Native American, so he's very likely to be accepted. An Asian with a 509 MCAT is 0.9 standard deviations below the average admitted Asian, so he's very likely to be rejected.

It cannot be both. Your conjectures are not fact. Which make your hypothetical examples interesting mental exercises but totally pointless as facts.

 

[laughing dog]

Both -- it's a hypothetical specific example of what's implied by the statistical facts. A Native American with a 509 MCAT is 1.0 standard deviation above the average admitted Native American, so he's very likely to be accepted. An Asian with a 509 MCAT is 0.9 standard deviations below the average admitted Asian, so he's very likely to be rejected.

Only if you assume Normal distributions with no skew and you also assume different thresholds on the basis of race.

I don't have any information right now that leads me to conclude that both of those are factual. I do, however, understand the risk and the perception of the latter.

It is s fact that normal distributions have no skew.