Bias and Scholarship - Part 4: What does the evidence say?

Okay, so there is the possibility that there is a bias against political and religious conservatives in academia. A lot of people have claimed that they have proved this bias but they really haven't. They usually cite some isolated incidents or the fact that academics are less likely to be political or religious conservatives than the general public. Neither is evidence of academic bias.
But I recently tested this possibility with a survey of academics. In that survey I asked them whether a potential candidate's religious or political belief mattered when hiring a faculty member. I found a variation between scholars in different scientific disciplines, but in all of them a significant number of academics were less likely to hire someone if they were a Republican and even less likely to hire an evangelical or fundamentalist. For example, about 30 percent of the chemists are less likely to hire a candidate if they find out the candidate is an Evangelical Christian. This zooms up to 60 percentage when I looked at anthropologists.
This fits our definition of intolerance. Political and religious conservatives are being unfairly treated when their political and religious beliefs should not matter. There is no reason why a Republican or evangelical cannot perform the work of a scientist. Yet I found evidence that individuals with those beliefs operate at a disadvantage when they seek a job as a science teacher. So to answer the question, yes there is bias in academia and I have found systematic evidence of it. If you are interested in reading more about my research then you can get the book at http://www.baylorpress.com/en/Book/235/Compromising_Scholarship.html.
Sorry about the book plug but it will be the last from me for a while. No more books coming out soon. But the major point is that science is not an unbiased endeavor. Certain people, and thus certain ideas that come from those people are not fully scientifically tested. There is not room for me to go into all of the implications. Needless to say that I am less certain about what is presented as scientific knowledge than I was when I started this research. We who are in the sciences should take seriously the fact that this bias exists and work to make sure that no scientist is judged on a criteria other than the viability and strength of his/her ideas and research.

Sincerely,

Trouble-maker