>Ability follows as a result of preference. I am a terrible architect because I chose to become a software engineer. That does not mean that if I had chosen to become an architect, I would be terrible at it. If most of the people from my hometown made the same choice, then most of us would be less good at architecting due to that preference.

See everyone I talk to about Damore only tries to defend the preference portion. This isn't the only argument Damore is making. He believes abilities, not just preferences, are distributed differently between men and women. That's what I'm asking you to defend.

>Personally I think it's almost entirely culture. I couldn't say how much is what, but it makes no difference. The point is that it undermines the incumbent narrative, which is that sexism and oppression are the only significant causes.

It doesn't really undermine anything. When we move to salads it's super obvious that almost all of the effect is cultural not biological. So some burger stores start an initiative to get women to worry less about the cultural expectations placed on them and eat a damn burger but disgruntled Wendy's employee Damore writes an internal 10 page memo explaining that women don't eat burgers because they are biologically predisposed to salads. He digs up research about the vitamins and minerals contained in leafy greens, spends a ton of time tip-toeing around what he means to say, and couches everything in "distributional" language. At the end of the day it's obvious that this memo by a layman about why women prefer salads biologically is (1) ridiculous on it's face (2) not scientific and (3) actively harmful to his employer's goals.

But put that way it's obvious why he was fired and Damore looks less like a free-speech hero and more like bigoted faux-science dweeb.