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

Bias and Scholarship - Part 1: What is Tolerance?

This blog begins a series on academia. Many claim that there is bias in scholarship. To tackle this question we first have to think about what is meant by bias. A good way to do that is to define the concept of tolerance.
The first quality of tolerance is that to tolerant something, or someone, you have to have disagreement. The Baptist practices tolerance for the Methodist only if there is disagreement with the Methodist. If the Baptist believes that all Protestants are brothers and sisters in Christ then "tolerating" the Methodist does not mean much. Tolerating the Catholic, Muslim, and Atheist is much more relevant. In fact, the more you disagree with a position or person the more tolerance you need.
I point this out because often the measure we use for tolerance assumes that there is disagreement, when that may not be the case. For example, questions about attitudes towards homosexuality are only measures of tolerance if a person disagrees with that lifestyle. For a political progressive, questions about attitudes towards Christian fundamentalists are more telling.
But does tolerance indicate agreement? For the political progressive to be tolerant of the Christian fundamentalist, he/she does not have to agree with that person's religious beliefs. But he/she can not use those beliefs to discriminate against the fundamentalist in ways that are not warranted. What do I mean by that? A political progressive may decide not to date the fundamentalist because of their different outlooks on life. To make such a decision is not being intolerant since on this issue the religious, and possible political, difference matters. But if the political progressive refuses to hire the fundamentalist as an accountant then I would argue that there is intolerance. A person's religious beliefs does not influence how well he/she can count.
What this means in academia is that sometimes bias, or intolerance, is warranted. But it is only warranted if the intolerance about is relevant to the task at hand. A Marxist may be "intolerant" of the ideas brought by a free-market advocate. That intolerance can legitimately come out in criticism of a book written by the free marketer. However, the religion, sexual preference, race, and sex of the free marketer is irrelevant to how the Marxist should treat him/her. Refusing to promote, hire or accept someone because of religion, sexual preference, race or sex is clearly a sign of intolerance.
The challenge in academia is when to be discerning or even "intolerant" of certain perspectives and individuals and when to learn to accept those ideas and people. Furthermore, this is not just about the intolerance of a single or a few academics. It is also important to think about systematic ways that bias can play itself out in academia. If there is a trend of intolerance in academia, then we have more serious problems than the proclivities of a few scholars. Investigating these potential problems is what I like to do in the next several blogs.



Sincerely,



Trouble-Maker