Bias in Academia: A Call for Research
[Ugh. Sorry about the bad sentences in the below. Lack of sleep makes for poor proofreading.]
As this semester's crunch time has rolled around, and as I'm conveniently also getting 4-5 hours of sleep per night (heavily weighted toward the 4 hour end of the spectrum), posting will be sporadic for awhile, and I won't get a chance to regale you with as many of my fascinating oracular pronouncements on this topic as I'd like. I'll also have to post even sketchier ideas than usual. But better some than none, I guess.
So far as I can tell, there's no way to make any headway on the issue about bias in academia without some research. To the question 'is there excessive bias,' we can be gratified to be able to answer promptly--we don't know. The only thing that can cure this condition is research. So let's hereby call for some. (I'm told that there have already been calls for research into the question of whether there is anti-conservative discrimination in academia, but that's not the question I'm interested in. I'm interested in bias in the classroom.)
What's distressing about this situation is that some are already asserting that no such study is needed, and that no such study could be done. Neither of these claims is even close to being true. We've designed experiments to determine far more elusive answers than this one. It will, of course, be difficult, in part because there might be bias on the part of the researchers. But this isn't even close to being an insurmountable problem. It is a problem of course, and the biggest danger would be, it seems, liberal bias in the conduct of the experiment. But forewarned is forearmed, and we'd just have to be very careful that this didn't happen.
Tips for reasoning: don't exaggerate a difficulty into an impossibility.
Hell, I think I might even think about conducting such a study myself. I'm genuinely puzzled about the question, recognize that I don't know the answer to it, and don't really care which way it comes out. Or, rather: I'm so much more interested in knowing the [relevant facts of the matter than I am in anything else in the vicinity] that any other motive fades into insignificance.
Funny how so many folks on both sides become[ skeptics] so quickly when something like this comes up.
In the sense of 'funny' that means horribly depressing...
[Ugh. Sorry about the bad sentences in the below. Lack of sleep makes for poor proofreading.]
As this semester's crunch time has rolled around, and as I'm conveniently also getting 4-5 hours of sleep per night (heavily weighted toward the 4 hour end of the spectrum), posting will be sporadic for awhile, and I won't get a chance to regale you with as many of my fascinating oracular pronouncements on this topic as I'd like. I'll also have to post even sketchier ideas than usual. But better some than none, I guess.
So far as I can tell, there's no way to make any headway on the issue about bias in academia without some research. To the question 'is there excessive bias,' we can be gratified to be able to answer promptly--we don't know. The only thing that can cure this condition is research. So let's hereby call for some. (I'm told that there have already been calls for research into the question of whether there is anti-conservative discrimination in academia, but that's not the question I'm interested in. I'm interested in bias in the classroom.)
What's distressing about this situation is that some are already asserting that no such study is needed, and that no such study could be done. Neither of these claims is even close to being true. We've designed experiments to determine far more elusive answers than this one. It will, of course, be difficult, in part because there might be bias on the part of the researchers. But this isn't even close to being an insurmountable problem. It is a problem of course, and the biggest danger would be, it seems, liberal bias in the conduct of the experiment. But forewarned is forearmed, and we'd just have to be very careful that this didn't happen.
Tips for reasoning: don't exaggerate a difficulty into an impossibility.
Hell, I think I might even think about conducting such a study myself. I'm genuinely puzzled about the question, recognize that I don't know the answer to it, and don't really care which way it comes out. Or, rather: I'm so much more interested in knowing the [relevant facts of the matter than I am in anything else in the vicinity] that any other motive fades into insignificance.
Funny how so many folks on both sides become[ skeptics] so quickly when something like this comes up.
In the sense of 'funny' that means horribly depressing...
posted by Winston Smith at
9:59 AM
30 Comments:
If a university has blind exam grading, then two experimental exam answers can be prepared. Both answers must contain the same factual content and show the same level of reasoning sophistication. The only difference between the two answers must be that one answer argues for a conservative position and the other for a liberal position. If the exam papers receive statistically significant differences in grades, then you have some objective evidence of bias. Good luck writing a conservative exam paper and a liberal exam paper that objectively deserve the same grade!
It is my experience that many or most products of the system simply don't understand conservative thought. It's an alien language. Even if they were exposed to it, unsympathetic presentations by their profs have resulted in total mischaracterizations.
That is anecdote, and that is solely opinion.
As for some test, it's obviously impossible to observe a great number of profs for great lengths of time. As previously noted, it will be dismissed as subjective anyway.
As a quick, unthought-out solution, a look at the course catalogues offered at various colleges could shed some light.
As this interesting article about Harvard indicates, courses featuring Castro or progressive (deconstructionist?) approaches to literature might indicate something's up.
(And to my mind, do.)
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FROM wmr:
tvd, that is not an anecdote--check your dictionary. Perhaps you meant to say that it was based on ancedotal evidence.
Back in January, this conservative student's complaint got a lot of attention. The conservative blogger put the sting in the tail: "My own experience, both as a student and as a teacher, was that grading of essays is almost always about the quality of the writing and engagement with the material rather than the extent to which one agrees with the professor. I got 'A's from all of my liberal political science professors--and I certainly had a lot of them over the years."
I have to wonder how many of the students who complain of bias cannot distinguish between having their opinions vigorously cross-examined by a rigorous teacher and having them dismissed as ridiculous by a biased teacher. Just one more reason why we need some responsible research on this.
Back with the ankle-biting instead of engaging the argument, eh, Ms. Red Pen? You have completely ignored the body of my remarks.
Disappointing. You do not apply your corrections to anyone else but me, although some are far more deserving. It's obvious that it's the content, not the form, of my comments that flag me for your special attention.
One might see that as an illustration of ideological bias, the very question being considered here.
For the record, I did not use "an." You have misquoted me. I used "anecdote" as an adjective, as in "it is legend," whether the dictionary permits it or not. The meaning is clear.
But most disappointing is that such corrections are condescending, and that your intention is to diminish the validity of my contribution.
That is unfaithful to the spirit of inquiry. One hopes that you are never found on a college faculty, as I have no doubt that you would treat students with whose views you disagree in the same unprincipled way.
I have tried my durndest to avoid personalization on this board, but today I have have reached my limit, wmr.
This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.
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FROM wmr:
tvd, you complain that I "ignored the body of [your] remarks", yet you ignore the body of my comment. You say, "The meaning is clear"; obviously, at least one reader did not find it so. You say, "[my] intention is to diminish the validity of my contribution"; my only intention was to aid you in communicating your thought. And I have no way of diminishing the validity of your contribution--only you can do that.
No, tvd, it is neither the content nor the form--it is you. Your insulting manner and your overweening pride, in particular.
As I have made clear on numerous occasions, my only ideological bias is in favor of clear thinking and cogent argument, neither of which you seem capable of providing.
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What part of "that is anecdote, and that is solely opinion" did you not understand?
What part of the suggestion of looking at course catalogues did you not understand?
What part of the article I linked to did you read?
What part of correcting grammar and usage is faithful to the spirit of inquiry?
I've been wondering if you are disingenuous or simply dense. That you think you are not transparent is a bigger insult to your own intelligence than anyone else's.
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FROM wmr:
tvd, I understood it all--never said I didn't. I didn't read your link at all--I gave up on your links after WS's Schiavo post that disappeared.
The part of grammar and usage that takes as its primary concern the clarity of expression.
Now that I have answered your questions, perhaps you will answer one question of mine: why do you feel you can criticize me for "completely ignor[ing] the body of [your] remarks" when the only part of my comment which you responded to was the part which you took as a personal slight?
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Wmr, I don't know what you want from me.
You have shown me your work. Do you want to be treated as you treat others? Do you want me to take out my red pen and give you a line-by-line fisking that you would find unpleasant and that I would find even more unpleasant?
I have never in my life learned what to do in this situation.
It's my experience that what you do to me today you will do again and again if I let this slide today, here, now.
So, shall I just scorch your earth and say the things that charity has forbidden me to say?
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?
I do not think I should scorch your earth, for my sake and for yours. Yet if you demand it, perhaps I show you a greater kindness and mercy to give you what you're asking for.
Scorched earth or clean slate. Tell me what you want from me. The game we've been playing is over. It demeans us both.
Guys,
Underpinning this attack on Goldberg and the comments that follow seems to be a belief in the 'pursuit of financial rewards' theory for the relative lack of conservatives in academia:
http://abstractfactory.blogspot.com/2005/04/in-which-jonah-goldberg-performs-feats.html
Assuming your working hypothesis (academia leans liberal) is borne out by research, Winston, I would find this explanation a plausible one.
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FROM wmr:
tvd--
You ask what I want from you; how about an answer to my question?
If you think you are capable of fisking me, go ahead.
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PISTOLS AT DAWN!
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FROM wmr:
Matt C--
That's great! I haven't laughed so hard since I saw the April Fools headline "Bush Denies Using Performance Enhancing Drugs".
If I need a second, can I call on you?
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Very well, wmr. I didn't respond to your post because you are not interested in truth, only argument, as you have written previously.
And argue you do, with never an end in sight.
The body of your post was anecdotal or speculative, and therefore beneath comment. And just as you didn't read the link I posted for some lame and lazy excuse, you didn't even read your own, which showed a bias in the posing of the test question.
The next time you present a fact will be the first, as you have shown that philosophically, any burden of proof is like cancer to you. You are disposed to nothing but being contrary, and since you are unfamiliar with the prevailing arguments and refuse to educate yourself about them, your remarks are worse than unhelpful, they are corrosive to the spirit of inquiry.
And even the most dense or disingenuous would realize why I responded to the part which misquoted me, a misquotation for which I am not likely to read an apology.
Your contention that you seek to "aid" me even as you insult me is laughable. You wrote that at least one person did not find my meaning clear. That person could only have been you, yet your next post protests that you did indeed understand.
That is patent falsehood, and for you to think anyone would swallow such nonsense is astounding.
Keep in mind I'm only trying to "aid" you, to make you a better member of the reality-based community. You do not even recognize your own bias, which is at the heart of the actual discussion at hand.
Is Jonah Goldberg relevant to the question?
I find Maureen Dowd equally snarky and devoid of actual facts, but I would not judge any issue of substance by her insipidity.
FROM wmr:
tvd--
For simplicity, I'll stick to your order of presentation.
I have never said that I am "not interested in truth, only argument". My words, which I did not save and which are now lost with the rest of the Haloscan comments, were roughly "I do not search for truth; I search for good evidence and good arguments." You didn't pursue this, but I will now assert my conviction that if one searches as I suggest, finding the truth will take care of itself. I am interested in truth, but I prefer my roundabout way of getting there.
You are correct that I do argue interminably; my wife has complained of this repeatedly. I think that's why she doesn't mind the time I waste doing this sort of thing on-line.
As to my link in the sixth comment, my point was in the material I quoted and IMO was made all the stronger by the rest of the column.
The burden of proof rests with the person who makes a claim. If I recall correctly, it was you who said (lost Haloscan comment again) that you google until you find a true idea and then present it to the rest of us without argument or support because true ideas stand on their own—it's up to us to accept or reject them. THAT is shirking the burden of proof and that is when I started paying more attention to your comments. You are right in saying that I have made few claims. I do prefer to ask questions. That's how I've been trying to get you to take up the burden of proof for your claims—and it's been pretty hard work.
If you doubt some claim of mine, ask a question.
You may well be more familiar with the prevailing arguments, but I have to say that I don't see evidence of it in your writing. And for the record, the spirit of inquiry seems to be holding up OK, as far as I can tell. But you are more familiar with the Higher powers, so I could easily be wrong about that.
If this is an attempt to answer my question, then it appears that you have misunderstood what I was asking. To repeat what I said before, you complained that I ignored "the body of [your] remarks" in a comment that ignored the body of my remarks. My question was not "why did you respond to that part?" and it was not "why did you ignore the rest of what I said?" My question was and still is "why do you feel entitled to criticize me for having done what you are now doing?" Or in other words, "why are the standards for me different from the standards for you?"
I did not misquote you because I did not quote you at all. That is a claim; now I take up the burden of proof: the one set of quotation marks in my comment set off material from the linked item, not from you. Conclusion, claim is justified. See how it works.
I see no insult in my comment(#6 again); the insults, if such they are, came in my next comment, after your little fit of pique. "Even as" (see: quotation marks) is thus demontrably false. You are laughing under false pretenses.
Yes, I was speaking of myself, but I see no contradiction in understanding something which is not clear. If I hadn't thought I understood it to some degree, how could I have proposed another way of saying it? If I hadn't understood it at all, I would have asked you what you were trying to say. And the fact that something is comprehensible as it stands is not a reason to stop working on making it clearer. You as much as admitted that your usage of the word may be a stretch from normal usage: "whether the dictionary permits it or not."
I don't understand your last sentence. Please be more specific in spelling out the bias "which is at the heart of the actual discussion at hand."
"I will now assert my conviction that if one searches as I suggest, finding the truth will take care of itself."
But you do not search. You merely argue things on their face, and blame your own lack of understanding on the speaker.
You have set up your system of inquiry that what you find agreeable is unquestioned; by applying uncompromising rules of process to threatening ideas, you will always be able to defeat that which you do not wish to believe. The process can never be perfect because man is not perfect.
This makes for a guaranteed win for the status quo as you embrace it, but it is the heart of sophistry; destroy not the idea but the presentation, or failing that, the person.
You see truth as a byproduct of process, but you elevate the means above the end. That is not the spirit of inquiry, and as you set the game, truth can never be produced, not even by accident.
There is not a philosopher or a single thought that has survived all question.
Take the trouble to click on the link I provided. If you have anything intelligent to add besides your customary contrariness, perhaps I will respond.
But it's not my duty to remediate your laziness or serve as an unpaid therapist. Answering a question is always a courtesy, not an obligation.
And perhaps one day you'll discover that courtesy also dictates the initial challenger yields the final rebuttal to whoever received the challenge, so that life can move on.
I say all this only to aid you in your quest to stumble into the occasional truth, which you will likely find the means to deny anyway.
Best,
"Is Jonah Goldberg relevant to the question?"
Not exactly, although perhaps I wasn't clear about what I thought one should get out of that link. As I said, the thrust of the argument made against Goldberg by the blogger and commenters would serve as a very plausible explanation of the higher number of liberals than conservatives in academia - if indeed that is the case, as most evidence has shown thus far.
However, that may not be exactly Winston means when he calls for research to determine if "there excessive bias". I suppose that the presence of more liberal than conservative professors would not necessarily create "excessive bias" or even "bias" at all.
There seems a great need for the definition of terms and setting of standards. I'll leave that up to someone with real abilities in the area - in other words, not me.
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FROM wmr:
tvd--
I'm disappointed. I really expected better from you, tvd.
You threatened me with scorched earth and now you're frantically withdrawing in a cloud of unfounded accusations, mumbling about courtesy.
You say, " ...perhaps I will respond." and "Answering a question is always a courtesy, not an obligation." I call BULLSHIT. You chose to engage in a philosophical discussion and in such a discussion, responding and answering questions are NOT optional. If you can't live up to your responsibilities, you should find another line of endeavor.
You say, "[I] see truth as a byproduct of process", but it appears that you have not even read what you quoted from me. I said finding the truth will take care of itself if one uses this approach. Surely, even you can see the difference between "truth" and "finding the truth".
If one destroys the presentation, then it is up to the claimant to bring forward another presentation—burden of proof.
Let me remind you that you too are human; several of your complaints apply to you as much as they do to me.
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I dunno, Mr. Carroll. All I got was that liberals are brilliant, caring, honest, non-materialistic, scientific and scrupulously rational. Conservatives are stupid, fascist, selfish and greedy, irrational lying scat-munchers, Jonah Goldberg wets the bed and his mother is a drunk.
But we already knew all that. ;-)
I'd like to add that left/right in the sciences is far less important than in the humanities. The sciences are less vulnerable to being colored by a professor's ideology.
The apparent overwhelming break in the humanities, if it exists ;-), affects the very foundations of civil society. If there's discrimination against conservative teachers, well, that's a shame. But if only one view of human existence is being taught, that's a far more troubling matter.
This is the core issue that I believe is getting buried. I don't have a problem with weird courses deconstructing Western thought. I do have a problem that the 5000 years of human history and thought preceding this age not being taught at all.
Per the article about Harvard I posted, surely no one wants indoctrination substituted for education.
BTW, Instapundit just put this up, a sort of right-leaning version of the Abstract Factory article.
Self-aggrandizingly, I'll pronounce my opinion that although equally snarky, it's far thoughtful and undeniably more polite.
Regardless, I believe a look would be useful in an anthropology field trip sort of way for those who dine exclusively on Atrios and the like. We would not want my poor expression of conservative thought, or even Jonah Goldberg's, to be your only exposure to it.
tvd,
If you'd read beyong the ad hominem attacks and insults, you'd have found comments like the following:
"...as an ME I fill out lots of surveys about salary. Try the asme, or salary.com, and, why here's a whole bunch of links: http://www.paysurvey.com/alaengr.html That was hard. Engineering prof's are paid very well because they have to be lured out of taking well paying private sector jobs. That's with all of the vacation time."
Which was the point I originally tried to make - amid all the bluster on both sides is I think the solid theory that conservatives self-select themselves out of academic jobs.
Hell, just working for a DC thinktank pays a hell of a lot better than teaching at a college, even an elite one.
But you seem to want to remain in your defensive crouch, as if you have a need to preemptively head off any kind of attack on conservative thought. I believe that good ideas, liberal or conservative, sell themselves. And if the arguments against your beliefs are all weak and petty, what should you have to fear from them?
When was the last time I argued below the belt?
Actually, this is probably a better example of a commenter there hypothesizing along the lines to which I alluded:
"I do think there is something to the compensation angle and it is that academically successful "lefties" are (on average) more willing to work for less than academically successful "righties". It would seem to me a "social scientist" (e.g., sociologist, economist) could study if there is a different tolerance for lower compensation by self-identified liberals."
Back from a web-less weekend in Chapel Hill, I find a thriving discussion with lots of good ideas.
Thanks and will throw in my $0.02 asap.
Mr. Carroll, please forgive me for having a little fun. My comments were more directed to those here gathered than to the political cosmos.
I promise not to write "vile" or "reprehensible," which are staples of the lefty blogs, usually used in conjunction with "Republicans" or "Bush."
I think the Goldberg idiocy per the sciences distracted from the core question of the humanities.
I've noticed that professors in general are more interested in a captive audience for their particular worldview than in educating, Self-fulfillment over cash money.
I hear that. I would be a rock star for far less money than I make now.
So is narcissism at the core of liberalism? It certainly is in rock stardom. Is that why liberals are so attracted to the academy?
Sorry, wmr, that's not what I sat down to write. The process just led me there, y'know? Come to think of it, the contrast between the two Goldberg-subject websites could not be more clear.
The liberal one was chock full o'moral self-worship and denigration of its enemies. Who more needs to construct a moral admirability than he who has none?
Gee, this is great. You've straightened me out. Thanks to you, I have achieved a new level of insufferability.
I think there's plenty of moral self-worship and denigration of enemies to go around:
"The business has less room for the DU / MoveOn nutbags."
"My old man is a UC Berkeley trained engineer (BSME 1950s) Endowed a chair at Berkeley. Invented stuff that probably saves 10,000 lives a year.
And he's a Republican. So, Brad DeLong, fuck off."
"Most leftists that I have personally known (outside of work) never really cared about coming up with feasible solutions to problems. It's all about principles and being pure in their ideology. It's doesn't matter if their ideas are not implementable, only that they allow them to feel that they have the moral highground."
"Nothing brought more distress to me than to try to teach statistics to "social science" types to whom anything more complex than simple sums brings tears to their eyes. It was always interesting to note that those who couldn't hack the program were usually liberals."
"The real reason why there are so few conservatives in academia is that there is so much more money available elsewhere, so only those who feel a need to coddled and be coddled (liberals) with try to extend the "college years" forever."
No moral judgements there, LC.
A cut above the references to poopoo and peepee on the other site, I think.
But please regard the above as preface. I hate scatology as argument, pro or con.
I admitted it was snarky. I admit I'm snarky. That's the only fun we'll get out of all this, Mencken-like.
I found school, the last refuge of the left, surpassed as a non-reality-based community only by EPCOT. A liberal arts education provides no food, no shelter, nor protection from the Bad Guys.
Still, its value is to inform us about ideas on how we should live.
As we are a democracy, our schools should serve us all alternatives, so that the citizenry can make its call.
That would include Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke. (I hesitate to mention that Bible thingee.)
Skipping over them for Sartre and Derrida and Jane T. Christensen is not a liberal arts education.
That is my core point. The rest was snarkiness.
(And no, you have never argued below the belt. Cheers.)
tvd,
You'll get no truck from me about the relative non-applicability of some disciplines to "real life" problems, except for the nebulous benefit of "training the mind" or "exercise in thinking" (philosophy and higher order mathematics come to mind as two good examples). It seems to me they just produce a more generalized depth and elasticity of thinking, rather than the narrow, specific problem-solving training of say, engineering or operations research.
That being said, I also agree with you about the importance of the "Western canon", not the least because I subscribe to admittedly subjective belief that one should be familiar with the history of the society and culture that produced his or her present one. But I don't think that it and the modernists and post-modernists are incompatible. In fact, "skipping over [Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke] etc. for Sartre and Derrida and Jane T. Christensen" would no more make sense to me than skipping over Newton for Einstein.
I can't imagine getting anything of substance out of Sartre without having read those like Descartes and Hume. Or let me put it this way: I think one can get a great deal more out of the deconstructionists and post-modernists having read the "original" material which were the intellectual precursor (or foil) of their ideas.
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FROM wmr:
As I read it, Vodkapundit's basic point is that "The overwhelming number of engineers whom I've encountered (at least those who voluntarily express political opinions; I don't go around asking) are conservatives who vote for Republicans."
DeLong's point--again, as I read it--is that scientists and engineers in academia who aren't Republicans have reasons for their political choice which grow out of their work. This has nothing to do with the actual numbers of Republican or Democratic engineers.
"What does it all mean? Very little, other than the simple fact that" even a good engineer can grab the wrong end of an argument.
Going back the Goldberg column, I was struck by this, in the second paragraph: "American universities are dominated by non-registered Republicans on their faculties." If this were true, all the GOP has to do is mount a strong drive to encourage the fainthearted to come out of the closet and register. Then American universities would be dominated by registered Republicans.
Snark, insult, and scatology have no logical weight. Let's follow the example Winston set in his analysis of the Brooks column and look first at the logical relations between the statements in each column.
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FROM wmr:
Ooops, my bad. Here's the link to Goldberg.
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FROM wmr:
Michael Berube has also had an interesting experience with David Horowitz.
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