Do academics account for their own biases?

[Sug]

Everyone is full of shit and knows nothing. Despite that they think they know everything.

Issue resolved, maybe, wait for sure...

Let's put this whole concept into context, what we think we know now will look like complete ignorance 100 years from now. People used to think salt was gold, now you get it free at McDonalds.

 

[PapaG]

It's unfortunate, but there's some truth in what barfo says. When my wife got her Masters and a couple of her friends their PHD's to one degree or another they had to appease the profs and if that meant, to them, a somewhat disingenuous thesis that was the way it was going to be. Typically profs delight in showing off their authority and demanding what they want and not what the student has to offer in the advancement of their field. Welcome to the world of academia.

I was going to do a senior thesis for a pre-law course about how Title IX had impacted the lives of many wrestlers around the country. I had called at least a dozen of top wrestlers, some who had lost their scholarships in the past 5 years, to see how their lives were affected by it.

Going into my advisory meeting with the prof, who happened to be a feminist, I was armed with phone conversations and data. 5 minutes into my presentation, she said that it probably wasn't a good idea.

Instead, I ended up writing a 20-page pile of crap that was sourced from the New York Times, USA Today, and my own university (among other sources, including phone interviews) on how Title IX was such a fantastic law, and how many women were now on the track to college. I received glowing reviews, and eventually the paper was published as "proof" of Title IX's impact on gender equality.

So, I wrote a paper that was the opposite of what I wanted to write, and I did it all for a grade that helped get me into law school. Yee-fucking-haw.

I do still consider this episode one of the best learning experiences in my life, and it has led me to being my own boss. If I fail or if I succeed, it's on me, and not on the whims/beliefs/values/conspiracy theories of somebody else.

 

[jlprk]

Welcome to the world of academia.

It's not just the world of academia. It's the entire work world. Bob Dylan says it's even bigger, it's cosmological.
-------------
You may be a state trooper, you might be an young turk
You may be the head of some big TV network
You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame
You may be living in another country under another name.

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride
You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side
You may be working in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair
You may be somebody's mistress, may be somebody's heir.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

 

[PapaG]

The rational person, in that situation, finds a new adviser.
Fighting unwinnable battles when there are viable alternatives is not "doing the right thing". That's "doing the stupid thing". Surely they teach you that in the military? If they don't they should.

barfo

Yes, it's that simple, isn't it? What's your educational background, barfo? It probably didn't matter, though, because I'm guessing if anything, you tended to be to the left of your "adviser".

 

[barfo]

Not when the goal is the search for truth. The point you're missing is that academicians don't even realize they posses biases; they have their worldview reinforced by living in an echo chamber.

Are you speaking of the student, or the professor? The professor is a lost cause - he's got tenure and no reason to change his worldview.
The student can still save himself. You can search for the truth at any university, working under any professor. You don't have to do it with a professor who fundamentally disagrees with your approach.

Of course, for the student there is always the possibility that the professor is right, and the student is wrong. Just because you believe you are right (or righteous) doesn't mean you are.

I'd suggest if you are enough of a moron to keep working for a prof that doesn't believe in your work, you have decent odds to be enough of a moron to be wrong about the subject matter too. Although those are two rather different types of moron, so there's also good odds you are only one of those sorts of morons rather than both. Too bad the student is usually unaware of which type of moron he might be.

barfo

 

[maxiep]

Are you speaking of the student, or the professor? The professor is a lost cause - he's got tenure and no reason to change his worldview.
The student can still save himself. You can search for the truth at any university, working under any professor. You don't have to do it with a professor who fundamentally disagrees with your approach.

Of course, for the student there is always the possibility that the professor is right, and the student is wrong. Just because you believe you are right (or righteous) doesn't mean you are.

I'd suggest if you are enough of a moron to keep working for a prof that doesn't believe in your work, you have decent odds to be enough of a moron to be wrong about the subject matter too. Although those are two rather different types of moron, so there's also good odds you are only one of those sorts of morons rather than both. Too bad the student is usually unaware of which type of moron he might be.

barfo

Thanks for your suggestions. How many graduate degrees do you possess? You seem pretty sure of your position and the realities of the modern university, so certainly you can add how you came about these opinions.

 

[barfo]

Yes, it's that simple, isn't it?

Yes, it is that simple.

What's your educational background, barfo?

I got me some degrees and shit.

It probably didn't matter, though, because I'm guessing if anything, you tended to be to the left of your "adviser".

I wasn't inclined to write anything political, so it didn't really matter.

barfo

 

[jlprk]

Academia is no different from the work world, the military, religion, etc.

You gotta serve somebody.

When some in the academic world try to make it better than the real world, conservatives belittle such attempts as a utopian ivory tower. But when it goes against you guys, you try to have it both ways.

So which is it? Should academia be free of the real world and be a utopian ivory tower? Or should it be as biased as the business world, subject to the whim of the boss?

 

[Eastoff]

Well, that's quite an arbitrary figure. How about the percentage of academics that make over the median US household income of $49k? Wouldn't that be a more accurate measure of where the money is?

Average salaries alone, pre-grants, seem to be ~$78k at UO.

http://ir.uoregon.edu/sites/ir/files/OUSpeers0708_by_School.pdf

Whoa, you mean the average income is less than 100k$? Why aren't there tons of money hungry republicans jumping all over that opportunity? And it only takes 8+ years to get there? I can't imagine why they have a liberal bias.

 

[barfo]

Thanks for your suggestions.

I didn't mean them as suggestions for you! I meant "I suggest" in the sense of "I would argue that".

How many graduate degrees do you possess?

I'm not sure if I possess them, or if they possess me. I'll avoid answering the question explicitly (I'll stipulate that your g-penis is bigger than mine, however big yours is) but I will say that if I had it to do over again I'd hope I could gain that wisdom another way. In hindsight, it's kind of inefficient. But then I didn't know at the time what I needed to know, so some searching was called for.

You seem pretty sure of your position and the realities of the modern university, so certainly you can add how you came about these opinions.

Well, I spent a lot of years, 15 or so, hanging about various campuses. It is the case that I've spent much less (but not zero) time with academics over the past 20 years, so if things have changed significantly there is a possibility I might not be aware of it. I'm counting on S2 to let me know if that's the case.

barfo

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

Not when the goal is the search for truth. The point you're missing is that academicians don't even realize they posses biases; they have their worldview reinforced by living in an echo chamber.

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.

 

[maxiep]

I didn't mean them as suggestions for you! I meant "I suggest" in the sense of "I would argue that".



I'm not sure if I possess them, or if they possess me. I'll avoid answering the question explicitly (I'll stipulate that your g-penis is bigger than mine, however big yours is) but I will say that if I had it to do over again I'd hope I could gain that wisdom another way. In hindsight, it's kind of inefficient. But then I didn't know at the time what I needed to know, so some searching was called for.



Well, I spent a lot of years, 15 or so, hanging about various campuses. It is the case that I've spent much less (but not zero) time with academics over the past 20 years, so if things have changed significantly there is a possibility I might not be aware of it. I'm counting on S2 to let me know if that's the case.

barfo

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.

 

[PapaG]

I didn't mean them as suggestions for you! I meant "I suggest" in the sense of "I would argue that".



I'm not sure if I possess them, or if they possess me. I'll avoid answering the question explicitly (I'll stipulate that your g-penis is bigger than mine, however big yours is) but I will say that if I had it to do over again I'd hope I could gain that wisdom another way. In hindsight, it's kind of inefficient. But then I didn't know at the time what I needed to know, so some searching was called for.



Well, I spent a lot of years, 15 or so, hanging about various campuses. It is the case that I've spent much less (but not zero) time with academics over the past 20 years, so if things have changed significantly there is a possibility I might not be aware of it. I'm counting on S2 to let me know if that's the case.

barfo

Actually, you're telling S2 what they should have done, if that's the case. Quite the opposite of what you claim.

 

[maxiep]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/02/unbiasing-academia/70955/

Trying to be more conscious of one's own bias, and even to attempt to work against it, should not be such a hard task for people as brilliant, open-minded, and committed to equality and social justice as I keep hearing that liberal academics are. So it doesn't really seem like so much to ask.

 

[Eastoff]

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!

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

The problem is that people in social science sometimes have great influence.

 

[maxiep]

The problem is that people in social science sometimes have great influence.

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.

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

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.

 

[PapaG]

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.

Wow, that runs completely opposite to my personal experience.

For the record, social justice isn't a bias.

The ideology behind it, and how it impacts studies and debate, is most certainly a bias.

 

[maxiep]

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.

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?

 

[barfo]

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.

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

 

[barfo]

Actually, you're telling S2 what they should have done, if that's the case. Quite the opposite of what you claim.

My advice is worth every penny you paid for it.

barfo

 

[maxiep]

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

Yawn.

 

[barfo]

Yawn.

Yeah, that was convincing...

barfo

 

[maxiep]

Yeah, that was convincing...

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.

 

[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

 

[TradeNurkicNow]

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.

What's the ideology behind social justice? Liberalism?

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?

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.

 

[Eastoff]

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.

Wow, that runs completely opposite to my personal experience.

Just curious, what experience do you have with the peer review system? Have you submitted papers to a peer review journal?

 

[Run BJM]

"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.

 

[maxiep]

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/259354/more-political-bias-academia-veronique-de-rugy