Scott Alexander critiques a study claiming gender bias in GitHub, pointing out methodological flaws and media misrepresentation of its non-peer-reviewed findings. Longer summary

Scott Alexander critiques a study about gender bias in GitHub pull request acceptance rates. He points out several issues with the study's methodology and interpretation, including the lack of peer review, ambiguous statistical significance, and potential confounding factors. He also criticizes media outlets for misrepresenting the study's findings, exaggerating its conclusions, and failing to mention its non-peer-reviewed status. Scott emphasizes that the study actually shows women's pull requests are accepted more often overall, and that the observed bias against women in one subgroup is small and possibly not statistically significant. He expresses concern about how such studies are used to promote a narrative of widespread sexism in tech. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander debunks the idea that Trump's supporters are disproportionately white, revealing that Bernie Sanders actually has much whiter support, and uses this to challenge common narratives about race and politics. Longer summary

Scott Alexander analyzes the media narrative that Donald Trump's supporters are disproportionately white, showing it to be unsupported by polling data. He then reveals that Bernie Sanders, not Trump, has a much higher ratio of white to non-white support within his party. Scott uses this to illustrate two points: 1) 'white' in political discussions often means the 'Red Tribe' rather than literal race, and 2) low minority representation in a group doesn't necessarily indicate racism. He suggests that Sanders' lack of minority support might be due to him being seen as a 'weird intellectual signaling-laden countercultural movement', similar to other groups with low minority representation like atheists or BDSM enthusiasts. Shorter summary