The reason that is important for group differences to be studied and known is because the group level is where discrimination (and accusations such) seem to be studied.
If someone wants to hire the tallest 50% of the population to be fruit pickers and fairly evaluates every member of the population resulting in a 90% male workforce, how can they defend themselves against accusations of discrimination? In such an instance, it would be important to understand the height differences in male and female populations.
What about the most intelligent 5% of the population being best suited for STEM fields? With fair evaluations would that result in even splits across sex (or race, for that matter)?
Even with self selection, people are going to select into roles they are best suited for.
Does the Jamacian ACTN3 gene variation result in more Olympic gold sprinters, or is it a result of racial discrimination?
Articles like this on HN and the interest in studying differences between different groups is at least partially a direct result of pressure and accusations of discrimination based on sex/race distributions of groups.
I agree, ideally evaluating each person should be done on an individual level. I also think evaluating issues of discrimination should be done on an individual level.
If someone wants to hire the tallest 50% of the population to be fruit pickers and fairly evaluates every member of the population resulting in a 90% male workforce, how can they defend themselves against accusations of discrimination? In such an instance, it would be important to understand the height differences in male and female populations.
What about the most intelligent 5% of the population being best suited for STEM fields? With fair evaluations would that result in even splits across sex (or race, for that matter)?
Even with self selection, people are going to select into roles they are best suited for.
Does the Jamacian ACTN3 gene variation result in more Olympic gold sprinters, or is it a result of racial discrimination?
Articles like this on HN and the interest in studying differences between different groups is at least partially a direct result of pressure and accusations of discrimination based on sex/race distributions of groups.
I agree, ideally evaluating each person should be done on an individual level. I also think evaluating issues of discrimination should be done on an individual level.