
How academia's liberal bias is killing social science - Varcht
http://theweek.com/article/index/273736/how-academias-liberal-bias-is-killing-social-science
======
alextgordon
From a British point of view this reads as "How academia's bias against the
far-right is killing social science". A thoroughly ridiculous premise.

"Liberal" and "conservative" are not natural categories. Anybody can be right
or left from anybody else's perspective. The US democratic party does seem to
be more conservative than the UK conservative party, so from that we _could_
say that 98% of Americans are conservative.

It is unsurprising to me that the involvement of the far-right would lead to
starkly different conclusions in any science.

~~~
oldmanjay
There's certainly no bias inherent in your categorization of "most Americans"
because clearly you aren't just pulling numbers that fit your worldview out of
your ass, right?

Or maybe I misread and you're going for a super gooey layer of irony.

~~~
santacluster
Most Americans support either Republicans or Democrats. There are no
significant political parties to the left, and those Democrats with somewhat
left of center views are considered to be on the far left of the party.

You don't really need statistics or bias to conclude that most Americans
conservative. What part of that upsets you so much?

~~~
OvidNaso
"Most Americans support either Republicans or Democrats."

Here are disapproval ratings[1]: Republicans: 62%. Democrats: 50%

1\. [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-views-of-obama-
congres...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-views-of-obama-congress-
gloomy/)

------
wyager
A common theme of this thread seems to be "But liberals believe in science and
conservatives don't!".

This is, of course, picking out the stereotypical far-right bible-thumpin'
boot-wearin' evolution-denyin' strawman, much as American conservatives like
to pick out the weed-smoking dreadlocked hippie strawman. Most political
conservatives (by American political terminology) are not, in fact, anti-
science in any meaningful capacity.

I would also like to point out that, while HN is a very liberal crowd, it is
not representative of the general liberal (again, American political
terminology) population. For every conservative who doesn't believe in global
warming, there's a liberal who believes that GMOs and gluten cause cancer. No
political group has the claim to a monopoly on science.

Finally, if you don't think the social sciences aren't substantially liberally
biased (in the political sense, not the fictional science-appreciating sense),
you haven't spent enough time (or maybe I've spent too much time) on college
campuses in the last few years.

~~~
WhitneyLand
I don't think that is the theme here or that it is justification for down
voting multiple comments. Your last sentence talks about substantial liberal
bias. Do you mean to say substantially liberal population, or proven to lack
capacity for objectivity? The makeup of a group is quite different than unfair
practices.

~~~
wyager
>The makeup of a group is quite different than unfair practices.

That's definitely a valid point. I'm operating under the assumption that these
social scientists are not perfect, and their conclusions and work are swayed
by their (strong) personal beliefs.

------
trynumber9
So far in the comments, the Republicans have been called far-right, anti-
science, anti-academia, anti-intellectual, and some other things. No wonder
they rarely self-identify. Individual members of the Republican party are
probably any one of those or more. But nice to see such a nuanced discussion.

Let's put to rest the idea they're far right. Far right generally have strong
elements of authoritarianism, anti-democracy, and anti-integration.
Republicans are probably the loudest integration proponents and seem to demand
an unreasonably fast integration of (Spanish-speaking) immigrants. Their voter
registration efforts are not anti-democratic, many other countries have strict
voter registration requirements and are still considered fully functioning
democracies (for example, the UK which has fines for not registering and
requires a fixed address unless you want to fill out a declaration-of-
connection form). Republicans have been firmly against authoritarianism (at
least while they don't hold the executive office). The tell tale signs of far-
right are not present in the Republican party.

They've been proponents of DARPA, the national labs, and NASA. Even if some
members spew anti-science agenda, they're actions speak differently. Right now
they're crying loudly about a plan to rate universities on a set of federally
defined criteria, which would in practice limit the freedom of university's to
teach as they please. That is, in essence, a defense of academic freedom.
(They might actually be anti-intellectual, but that's not uncommon for any
populist party).

They're populist reactionaries at times, but in the end they're not the Tea
Party even if some Tea Party members are Republicans.

~~~
cbd1984
> Their voter registration efforts are not anti-democratic

They are to the extent they hit some groups harder than others, and especially
to the extent they disenfranchise those who tend to not vote Republican.

> Republicans are probably the loudest integration proponents and seem to
> demand an unreasonably fast integration of (Spanish-speaking) immigrants.

Setting an unreasonably high bar for doing something is a great way to
prohibit it.

> Even if some members spew anti-science agenda

No. An anti-science agenda is policy. You can't be accepted as a Republican
unless you go against science on at least climate change, for example.

~~~
trynumber9
Fair enough with the first two.

> An anti-science agenda is policy. You can't be accepted as a Republican
> unless you go against science on at least climate change, for example.

There are many examples of sitting republicans such as Mark Kirk, Bob Corker,
Michael Grimm, Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, Chris Smith, John Thune, Rodney
Frelinghuysen and likely more who are are card-carrying Republicans, elected
as Republican and acknowledge 'at least climate change'. It's not mandatory.

------
forkandwait
Forgive me, but I firmly believe that the social sciences are very little more
than ideology and power struggle dressed up in the scant bit of data and
successful experimental prediction available, leavened with lots of faulty a
priori reasoning. This goes for both economics, which toes a rightist
capitalist line consistently, and for the leftist weanie disciplines of
sociology and anthropology. Everybody is tied up in maintaining business power
or getting funding for questionable social programs, respectively. Yuck.

------
zzzeek
> For example, a study that sought to show that conservatives reach their
> beliefs only through denying reality achieved that result by describing
> ideological liberal beliefs as "reality," surveying people on whether they
> agreed with them, and then concluding that those who disagree with them are
> in denial of reality — and lo, people in that group are much more likely to
> be conservative!

Do we refer to such ideological liberal beliefs as, "Was the President born in
the United States or Kenya?" "Is global warming real?" "What is the age of the
earth?"? I'd like to know what "ideological liberal beliefs" are being
referred to here. Because a Kenyan imposter president, global warming the
"greatest hoax" ever perpetrated ([http://www.abebooks.com/Greatest-Hoax-
Global-Warming-Conspir...](http://www.abebooks.com/Greatest-Hoax-Global-
Warming-Conspiracy-Threatens/13919853332/bd?cm_mmc=gmc-_-gmc-_-PLA-_-v01)
written by current US Senator James Inhofe), and a 6000-year-old earth are
currently mainstream conservative beliefs.

~~~
Featurecreep
This doesn't refer to conspiracy theories or extremist views. If any group is
made up of people who think the same way, look at the world the same way or
experience the world in similar ways, they tend as a group to ignore other
points of view which may be valid. It's why we need diversity in all its
forms.

~~~
Vivtek
Even to the extent of affirmative action for the intentionally anti-diverse,
apparently.

------
vixen99
Bias in the social sciences? 'In one survey they conducted of academic social
psychologists, "82 percent admitted that they would be at least a little bit
prejudiced against a conservative [job] candidate.". Plenty more examples in
the paper.

I guess some conservatives might suggest that the 'social sciences' form a
kind of club for leftwing liberals, funded by the taxpayer.

~~~
lotsofmangos
The social sciences have always been politicised for all sides. The trouble
with the area isn't that it is liberal or conservative particularly, is that
it is just generally full of woolly bias in all directions.

------
skmurphy
Opening paragraph clearly frames the challenge:

I have had the following experience more than once: I am speaking with a
professional academic who is a liberal. The subject of the underrepresentation
of conservatives in academia comes up. My interlocutor admits that this is
indeed a reality, but says the reason why conservatives are underrepresented
in academia is because they don't want to be there, or they're just not smart
enough to cut it. I say: "That's interesting. For which other underrepresented
groups do you think that's true?" An uncomfortable silence follows.

------
blueflow
Science and Conservatism are partially exclusive. Science includes questioning
knowledge, while conservatism means to keep (conserve) the current.

I still don't like how the article values that in a negative way.

~~~
vixen99
'Science and Conservatism are partially exclusive'. Your view is naive because
it's uninformed as in 'conservatism means to keep (conserve) the current.'. Oh
please, start with Burke and do some reading. Tons to do, evidently.

~~~
MisterBastahrd
Because modern "conservatism" has anything to do with Burke's version. You
have a future in comedy.

------
dmritard96
Would love to see the stats on underrepresentation and which group they are
sampling to ascertain the truthful population representation. I wouldn't be
surprised if the number of 'conservatives' \- whatever/whoever that is, is
actually smaller than one might perceive via US politics.

Its funny how narrow minded this perspective feels in general. One it assumes
that people belong to one of two camps, and two, it assumes that there are two
relevant camps.

------
WhitneyLand
Weak sauce. The paper seems to be looking for non-objective liberally biased
judgements. The problem with that is that discriminating between objective
measures and value judgements can be done without descending into conspiracy
theories. It's appropriate to question objectivity, please continue to do so.
But start by first building a strong evidence base and methods to identify
problems independent of politics.

------
CompanyLaser
Perhaps it has to do with the fact that conservatives have very little
original thought to contribute to the field these days beyond what's already
been long established by old school thinkers. The progress I see happening
today is in the way far left: actor network theory (Latour), speculative
realism (Harman), McKenzie Wark, and so on

------
laitanner
[http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001588](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001588)

~~~
timtas
It's worth noting that the author of this humorous post does not really assert
anything. He implies that Republican views are objectively wrong without
giving any support to that assertion or even naming any specific views. The
only effect is to manifest his own political affinity.

