Bias and Scholarship - Part 3: Bias against who?

There is a ton of research (Okay maybe only 1900 pounds and not a full ton) that documents how education creates more tolerance. For reasons that I will not go into now, I have my doubts about such research. But even if education alleviates intolerance we have to remember some of the aspects of intolerance I discussed in the first blog in this series. We can only be intolerant against something we disagree about. Education may "create" tolerance more by giving us arguments about the worth of what was once considered deviant rather than help us to accept that which we disagree with. But this does not mean that education makes someone a more tolerant person if he/she still is unfairly biased against people and ideas that he/she disagrees with.
This has important ramifications as it concerns academia. Since, by definition, academics are highly educated, then we should expect them to be very tolerant - if we believe the previous research on education. The ability of academics to honestly assess the ideas of groups they disagree with is tied to their ability to avoid allowing their bias to influence their judgement. So we have to know how academics react to ideas and groups that they disagree with. Do they assess such ideas and groups are their own merits or do they practice an unfair bias?
There are reasons to believe that the groups that academics are bias against are political and religious conservatives. The foundation of our modern scientific institution developed in conflict with the dominant religion of its day - Catholicism. Scientific exploration also tends to promote progressive change, which goes against political conservatism. So if we really want to know if people in academia have bias we should not be asking them about homosexuality or affirmative action. We need to know what they think about groups they disagree with which would be political and religious conservatives.
Ahhhh but here is the problem. It is not fair to expect people in academia to accept the ideas of political and religious conservatives. What if the ideas of those conservatives are wrong? What we have to see if they unfairly reject those conservatives. Only a measure of whether those conservatives are not treated fairly can assess whether there is unfair bias in academia. This could be the sort of bias that can call into question the veracity of academia. In the final installment of this series I will discuss how such a possibility can be tested and what the results of those tests are. Until then may your 2011 be a wonderful time for you.



Sincerely,



Trouble-maker