3 ms·

You wrote: > Isn't iterative improvement what all science is about? Yes and no. There's more to science, but iterative improvement is a large part of it. My

You wrote: > Isn't iterative improvement what all science is about? Yes and no. There's more to science, but iterative improvement is a large part of it. My issue with psychology (and other soft sciences, e.g. sociology, economics) isn't so much its striving to find answers, but its adopting a one-sided worldview before that striving, thereby coloring their findings with that one side. Look at what you wrote--'I know it [psychology] is typically viewed as a 'liberal' field'. That's because it IS a liberal (well, a politically Progressive) field--its instructors, its researchers, its practitioners largely are self-admittedly liberal (and further Left on the political spectrum.) And when they hire, they hire like-minds.[1] (Which is a thing humans do--no one wants to work with people they... dislike... for some reason.) And so, because they've no opposing worldview in their ranks to say 'no', well... can their findings be trusted? [2] [1] A commentary on the perceived political homogeneity at the University--https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/the_value_of_ideological_diversity_among_university_faculty_draft.pdf https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/the_value_... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26785836/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26785836/

waboremo 3y ago
From your first link: >One study found, for example, that a third of social psychologists admitted that they would be unwilling to hire a known conservative to the faculty, and nearly half thought that their colleagues would be unwilling to hire such a person.33 Subsequent work suggests that those findings are not limited to psychology, and that conservative scholars might have a similar willingness to discriminate against liberals.34 On the whole, there does not appear to be a robust pipeline of conservatives desperate to get into academia. This is substantially different from what you are suggesting, this idea that there is a natural bias when it seems to be a supply problem (and a dismissal of academia entirely, as the article links together the larger conservative push against higher education). Can't hire that which does not exist or believes your field is a farce.
- ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
  I don't think that's the takeaway at all. There's a supply problem for women in STEM and our response has been to investigate every potential cause while investing in scholarships and outreach. If we found out that 33% of STEM employers were unwilling to hire women, we'd say, "Aha, that explains the supply problem. Let's fix that." I can't fathom spending tens of thousands of dollars to enter a highly competitve field where a third of employers will rule you out outright (and presumably more will discount you against other candidates). Even if conservatives aren't interested for other reasons, the presence of a supply problem does not rule out bias. There is evidence of substantial self-reported bias, so there's probably bias.

waboremo 3y ago

From your first link: >One study found, for example, that a third of social psychologists admitted that they would be unwilling to hire a known conservative to the faculty, and nearly half thought that their colleagues would be unwilling to hire such a person.33 Subsequent work suggests that those findings are not limited to psychology, and that conservative scholars might have a similar willingness to discriminate against liberals.34 On the whole, there does not appear to be a robust pipeline of conservatives desperate to get into academia. This is substantially different from what you are suggesting, this idea that there is a natural bias when it seems to be a supply problem (and a dismissal of academia entirely, as the article links together the larger conservative push against higher education). Can't hire that which does not exist or believes your field is a farce.

ToValueFunfetti 3y ago
I don't think that's the takeaway at all. There's a supply problem for women in STEM and our response has been to investigate every potential cause while investing in scholarships and outreach. If we found out that 33% of STEM employers were unwilling to hire women, we'd say, "Aha, that explains the supply problem. Let's fix that." I can't fathom spending tens of thousands of dollars to enter a highly competitve field where a third of employers will rule you out outright (and presumably more will discount you against other candidates). Even if conservatives aren't interested for other reasons, the presence of a supply problem does not rule out bias. There is evidence of substantial self-reported bias, so there's probably bias.