How academia's liberal bias is killing social science
theweek.com
theweek.com
"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.
A bit like how the trots tried to take over the labour party from the hard left
I'm not sure if I can bring up specific issues without this thread turning into a political mud fight, but the UK Conservative party is mostly OK about climate change being a real thing, abortion and gay marriage. Even their worst-case dismemberment of the NHS would be far more socialist than "Obamacare".
On the economic side of things, it seems that America tends towards classical liberalism (i.e. conservatism), for it lacks any kind of social democratic or socialist thought. When is the last time you heard a major American party call for something to be brought into public ownership?
But this is exactly my point. While it seems to me that there are very few on the left in the US, I am but one data point. Right and left, liberal and conservative are completely meaningless as descriptions of anything.
Or maybe I misread and you're going for a super gooey layer of irony.
I admit because of turnout we can't claim to know about the opinions of non-voters. But it's safe to assume that most Americans are either Democrat, Republican or somewhere in between.
You don't really need statistics or bias to conclude that most Americans conservative. What part of that upsets you so much?
Here are disapproval ratings[1]: Republicans: 62%. Democrats: 50%
1. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-views-of-obama-congres...
here in Canada our "right wing" government would be on most issues to the left of US democrats --- certainly Obama
in any case these left-right classifications are unhelpful at best
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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... written by current US Senator James Inhofe), and a 6000-year-old earth are currently mainstream conservative beliefs.
It turns out, what the subjects were supposedly "denying" were not even statements of fact. They were slogans that convey attitude. As such, what the study tested for is properly called political correctness.
And no, we don't need diversity in all its forms. We can do without the moronic, hateful and extremist.
I guess some conservatives might suggest that the 'social sciences' form a kind of club for leftwing liberals, funded by the taxpayer.
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.
I still don't like how the article values that in a negative way.
What we call "liberalism" is not substantially more willing to question its beliefs than what we call "conservatism".
People who fall under the American political label "liberal" are almost as ideologically entrenched as those who fall under the label "conservative"; they just happen to stick to a slightly more modern set of arbitrary beliefs.
The people who really question the current political environment are almost always labeled as ideological extremists, which American liberals certainly are not.
Now, as for science, it seems to me that liberals are just as liable to believe in the stereotypical anti-GMO anti-gluten pseudoscientific rhetoric as conservatives are to believe in the stereotypical anti-evolution anti-climate-change pseudoscientific rhetoric.
literally. What about a Latin dictionary instead of Burke?
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.