One would have thought the answer to this question was obviously Yes, but apparently it cannot now be raised in the media without risking one's job or reputation.
A Harvard Biology Graduate did a competent and scholarly review of this topic as it related to employment practices at Google, for which he was sacked:
Full James Damore Memo — Uncensored Memo with Charts and Cites
https://medium.com/.../full-james-damore-memo-uncensored-memo-with-charts-and-...
According to the Leading Article in Financial Times Aug 9 2017 p 10, this memo is "almost pure drivel, offering up a mix of fallacies, mindless reductions of popular social science and hand-waving at 'research'".
As RG seems to be the only place where such controversial topics can be discussed rationally, hopefully support can be given here to JD. On the other hand, of course, if he did get the science wrong this must also be pointed out. An unbridgeable chasm seems to be opening up between the sciences and humanities, since the latter wilfully misunderstand and misrepresent biological research. Reputable scientists are terrified of speaking out, as if they do so they are labelled as right wing nuts. On the other hand, if scientists keep quiet, it is the populists and Trump supporters who will end up setting the agenda and running society. Left-wingers need to get a grip, and not leave themselves open to easy right-wing critiques.
The attacks on James Damore have become even more bizarre and disturbing. ("Listen Google guy, it's time you googled the facts about women" Deborah Ross The Times 2 Aug. 10 p 2"). DR's main criticism is that JD did not cite his sources, despite reporting that Toby Young in The Spectator had noted that JD's memo had simple posited elementary scientific truths. Surely JD would have assumed that employees at Google were intelligent enough to realise that an internal memo was not the place to give citations, any more than they are not given in popular books? Of course, this only applies when you are relaying opinions generally held by the academic experts and not challenging them.
DR accuses JD of cherry-picking. SO PLEASE COULD WE HAVE EXAMPLES OF THIS, WHERE JD MISREPRESENTED THE EXPERT CONSENSUS. Experts, can, of course be wrong, but in the first instance the primary expert sources and reviews need to be read (not the tendentious and unreliable secondary versions of these that occur in the media), and rebutted if necessary.
And how can a Times journalist seriously believe that "no gender differences have ever been definitively established?" Thus, men are on average taller and stronger than women, highly relevant to employment in some jobs. (Do I really need to give a citation to back this up?).
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