In my experience, the professors I work with are some of the most self-aware people I know who are constantly concerned with not passing their biases along. Though I'm in linguistics and nobody really gives a shit what goes on in that department. I think the liberal lean of academia can be summed up through the simple facts of life: those who would rather do mentally stimulating work in a range of rarely applied fields for a mediocre salary are generally not fiscally conservative. As westnob already pointed out, a conservative would probably scoff at the prospect of going in debt for 8 years in order to (maybe) get a job in which you are not likely to even make six figures. There is a distinction we should make between hard and social sciences, though. In my experience, you would be much more likely to find a conservative professor in the hard sciences.
Since you're unwilling to offer specifics, I'll just say my experiences were significantly different than you characterize the "reality" of academia to be.
Actually, you're telling S2 what they should have done, if that's the case. Quite the opposite of what you claim.
I'm just going to say right now, I don't understand what part of academia you're all talking about. My own bias is "Academia means hard sciences; biology, chemistry, physics, math." Would you expect their own political bias to affect their teaching? "Omg the biology teacher who has studied evolution is against the tax system, therefore he is teaching about epigenetics!" or "Blessed Reagan, the chemistry teacher who studied the bonding of carbon nano-tubes now wants his opinion on immigration to be included in electron cloud theory!" Obviously the experts in economics are going to be out making money, or they already retired from making enough money and do w/e they want. This might happen to be teaching at a university. Do you mean history, do you mean writing? "Holy W Bush, his opinion on abortion is going to skew his belief that Pablo Neruda's poetry became more about communism in Chile" Do you mean social sciences, which are basically a bunch of vague ideas that could easily be skewed and are called "soft sciences" for a reason? Because they don't have any definitive proof and answers with so many open variables. If you're worried that the psychology and sociology professors are tainting the pliable youth of america, then you may be right. Now they will take those great psychology degrees and conquer the world with all the jobs they land!
Exactly. And it's the social sciences where biases can radically alter the conclusion. You can fake some stuff in the natural sciences (climate research, for example), but in the end the data will win out.
I was being facetious, but thanks for proving my point. In my experience, social sciences have evolved enough to account for biases. There is a large enough peer review system that anyone including an actual bias will be weeded out. For the record, social justice isn't a bias.
Wow, that runs completely opposite to my personal experience. The ideology behind it, and how it impacts studies and debate, is most certainly a bias.
If anything, it's the opposite of what you contend. Social sciences have evolved to cement biases. Peer review is an echo-chamber. That's the entire point of the article linked in the OP. As for your comment that "social justice" not being a bias, are you being facetious again?
As far as I can remember, the only characterization that I made was that grad school is voluntary and that you can change schools/advisors if you want. Is that what you disagree with? barfo
It has nothing to do with convincing. It's boring to try to have discussions with you. You enjoy playing little games rather than engaging in an exchange of ideas. To each his own. Vaya con Dios.
I was asking you what you meant. That's not "playing little games". I suspect you didn't mean anything at all, so you are now throwing up a smokescreen. But whatever, dude. I'm sure we'll meet again. barfo
What's the ideology behind social justice? Liberalism? Sorry, I should have specified. Social justice isn't a bias in social science. I would imagine in economics it would be. I would argue that social science today has at its core some elements of seeking equality and social justice. Critical theory is certainly accepted as a practice. This may be the "cementing" of bias you refer to. Social science was largely a sham 60 years ago, and since it has gained reputability it has also gained a critical stance. However, this doesn't mean ALL social science is geared like this. It's just a lot more common and acceptable today than it was 20 or 30 years ago when the field was relatively undeveloped.
Just curious, what experience do you have with the peer review system? Have you submitted papers to a peer review journal?
"Bullshitting is a life skill." - my father I'm a sociology major and while the professors do mean well they are also clearly biased. You can't rule out the TAs though, they're the ones who grade the papers and they're often wild cards. Some want to really bust your ass and prove that they're academically challenging. Some are clearly just there to get the requirement and do as little work as possible. I've had some who are pretty good about being non-biased but others really eat it up when you repeat their ideas back to them in a paper. Any moron can tell that you can get an A or B just by spewing the shit you learn back to the TA/prof. Its been like that for basically my whole academic life. If you're morally inclined to stick to your ideals and not pander to get the grade I get that too. But like others have said, you've got to fake it till you make it everywhere in life. Get in, get the job done, and go home and do and say whatever the f*ck you want. Its sad that people with these biases do have influence but its also sad that we're saddled with two moronic political parties. IMO the bigger issue is the political structure in the U.S. which breeds a culture of gang warfare. You're either on one side or the other and everything turns into a Reps vs. Dems issue and everyone comes away looking like a fucking moron. You can't escape it in many areas of society and academia is no different. Everything is made into a conservative vs liberal thing.
