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Hi Danielle,

I think you make a good point that we should not forgot that individuals are all different, and hence diversity is therefor always present. Stemming from this you make the point that we tend to view diversity as various subgroups of homogenous individuals, and I agree with you that this is a narrow-minded way to conceptuailze diversity. However, without discounting the importance of individuality, I think it is key here to recognize the importance of degrees of diversity. For instance, in the NASA example, while the team selected of the top-scoring individuals was diverse in the sense that everyone of the members was unique, it is important to recognize that the degree to which they were differenct was not significant enough to promote greater productivity/creativity. Essentially I am arguing that while individual variability implies a basic level of diversity, what is central to the notion of diversity = productivity is the degree to which individuals vary. While a "homogenous" group of people are individually diverse, they remain "homogenous" in the sense that despite individual differences they are very similar on some general level.

Note: I am not trying to say we should think of people/groups of people in terms of their general similarities.  Rather I only want to suggest that the general similarities may have a greater effect within the social system.