Well, he also seems to be attacking a second group that does exist (those that say that there are less women in science because they are less likely to have high math ability), mostly by mixing them up with the first, imaginary, group.
Which makes a kind of instrumental sense, in that advocacy of this position aids the first group by innocently explaining away gender inequalities. (I think it's obvious that most people don't distinguish well, in political situations, between incidental aid and explicit support.) Also, if evaluating individual intelligence is costly and/or inevitably noisy, it is (selfishly) rational for evaluators to give significant weight to gender, i.e. discriminate. And given how little people understand statistics, and the extent to which judgments of status/worth are tied to intelligence and to group membership, it seems inevitable that belief in group differences will lead people to discriminate far more than would be rational.
Which makes a kind of instrumental sense, in that advocacy of this position aids the first group by innocently explaining away gender inequalities. (I think it's obvious that most people don't distinguish well, in political situations, between incidental aid and explicit support.)
Can't this be said of just about all straw men ? Yes, setting up a straw man may be instrumentally rational, but is it the kind of thing we should be applauding ?
Say we have two somewhat similar positions:
This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.