16 Comments

Less than 10% of engineers are women; And 50% of engineering managers are women.

90% of Human Resources (the most influential department) are women, and HR constantly berates engineers (90% male) with the mantra: "There are too many male engineers.... "

Women it seems.. complain more.

- Suspect it's the same in other fields.

Expand full comment

The whole premise that doctors "treat" 80-year-olds is flawed. These patients don't cease to have Alzheimer's or Dementia, their Ischaemic Heart remains diseased, COPD doesn't reverse. Geriatricians at best provide diagnoses, perhaps palliative care. Men or women doctoring is better, flick a coin, you will get one or other result.

Expand full comment

Brilliant analysis Briggs! Change a few nouns, and this summation could, (and probably SHOULD), be applied to much of the so-called "research" published in the last few decades.

We seem to be nearing that pinnacle of perfection, peak stupid. Headlines in many, if not most professional journals, scream in 24 point, "men are women!", "cow farts are destroying civilization", or "this or that designated victim group is being discriminated against". And then go on, at great length, to "prove" that point - with precisely the same logic you deployed in your oh-so-amusing example.

The authors of some of those articles, do explain, in a brief footnote, in a small font, at the bottom of page thirteen, that the whole study is based on "adjusted" data, and assumptions about assumptions. But many do not.

Expand full comment

But doesn't this fly in the face of the idea that men do everything better than women- including being women themselves?! Another circular firing squad notion from woke minds.

Expand full comment

A female doctor working for the Providence not for profit hospital chain is more likely to call you a conspiracy theorist, sedate you and battery you. Doing it with a drug that can cause respiratory distress, rare pulmonary edema and very rare coma and death. But that's not making a fair comparison since the hospital chain didn’t treat with a male doctor in a side by side comparison.

Expand full comment

Thanks Briggs.

Two of my favorite parts: “Yet women doctors are paid less than men, on average, and less likely to be promoted”. I know we’ve been over this many times but it never ceases to fascinate.

And two: “in their favor”. That is kind of you but not much of a defense.

Expand full comment

Don't confuse them with facts.

Expand full comment

I have a more unscientific theory.

If you compare the mortality and readmission for female doctors versus male doctors, the two numbers are *highly unlikely* to be identical. And because the differences are so small, who the hell cares?

Expand full comment

Does it say what the doctors' specialties are? Because I imagine a male cardiologist would have a higher complication/death rate than a female family doctor. I've also read that female doctors tend to choose areas of medicine that are less stressful & have a better work/life balance. For obvious reasons, they also pay less than high risk, high stress, more demanding specialties.

Expand full comment

Of course, they could have used the study simply to argue that woman are as good as men at being doctors, which would have served women and honesty far better. But we always have to include some grievance and the superiority of oppressed classes or the study won't meet woke requirements.

Expand full comment

Great exposure of the many ways statistics lie.

Expand full comment

The there is this study debunking the idea that black babies survival is higher with black doctors than white doctors. White doctors were given the more extreme cases of low birth weight preemies so higher mortality naturally follows. Could it be that in general more women (who weren’t promoted for reasons unknown) and thus did not have the expertise to deal with the most severe cases received patients less likely to die in their care.

Anyone who does studies like this to arrive at a predetermined political outcome should be stripped of any future government funding to do studies.

Expand full comment

I think we did that one (before I had Substack):

https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/32324/

Expand full comment

0.5% difference. Amazing. It's clearly shows women are better (let's assume these are real numbers).

Expand full comment

Agree that it is 'amazing'. And my bride would definitely agree that "women are better". But your assumption that "these are real numbers".....

Expand full comment