academia
“How to recognize and avoid embedded values biases”
The appearance of certain words that imply pernicious motives (e.g., deny, legitimize, rationalize, justify, defend, trivialize) may be particularly indicative of research tainted by embedded values. Such terms imply, for example, that the view being denied is objectively valid and the view being “justified” is objectively invalid. In some cases, this may be scientifically tenable, as when a researcher is interested in the denial of some objective fact. Rationalization can be empirically demonstrated, but doing so requires more than declaring some beliefs to be rationalizations, as in Napier and Jost (2008), where endorsement of the efficacy of hard work – on one item – was labeled rationalization of inequality.
This is from an article (here is the full pre-print pdf) by a number of social scientists on the lack of intellectual diversity in academia (the excerpt can be found on the bottom of page 13). I would suggest that referring to oneself as a political “centrist” or “pragmatist” is also a giveaway of embedded values bias. Just think about how that affects your perception of other points of view!
Pages 25-27 have great stuff on intelligence (so does NOL!), but the authors missed an opportunity to point out that when liberals use IQ arguments to explain such a heavily Left-wing presence in academia, they are simply invoking the same argument used by conservatives to support all sorts of racist mumbo-jumbo. (Pages 30-34 deal with the hostile climate and outright discrimination that conservatives face in academia, so it might be charitable to view these sections as making my point for me.)
Some ramblings on intellectual diversity (in universities and in libertarianism)
I’ve been reading through the ‘comments’ threads this weekend and especially my dialogues with Dr Amburgey (he’s at the University of Toronto’s prestigious business school). Amburgey describes himself as a “pragmatist” or a “centrist” but nevertheless has been a fairly stalwart defender of the Obama administration (except on its egregious violations of our civil liberties) and a blistering critic of the GOP’s right-wing. Reading through our dialogues (something I wish more readers would get involved in), I believe I have found the Left’s glaring weakness in today’s world: It’s de facto intellectual monopoly in Western universities today. Aside from wanting to gratefully thank him for his support and encouragement in our project via the ‘comments’ threads, I thought I would elaborate a bit upon this notion of a lack of diversity within academia.
Intellectual diversity is almost entirely absent in the US academy today. A Georgetown University Law Professor, Nick Rosenkrantz, pointed this out as far as law schools go, but is this dearth of diversity a bad thing? I would argue that ‘no’ it’s not if you’re on the Right, and ‘yes’ it is if you’re on the Left.
Universities have long been a bastion of Leftist thought (I note that this is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if diversity is important to you, for reasons I hope to explain below). Universities are also amongst the most conservative organization in societies (think of what it takes to navigate through the labyrinth of requirements in order to become a member of the professoriate). This is not a coincidence. Leftist thought has, since the advent of socialism in the 18th century, been characterized by it’s conservatism (especially its paternalism). It’s rhetoriticians just disguise it as progressive.
At any rate, Rosenkrantz points out that the Supreme Court of the US (SCOTUS) has five conservative judges and four Leftists, which is extremely unreflective of the law school professoriate. The point made by Rosenkrantz is that law students may not be getting an education that accurately reflects how the real world works.
In essence, law students are getting straw man arguments when it comes to conservatives and libertarians instead of actual conservative and libertarian arguments. This is true, and it’s reflective of the social sciences and of business schools as well. Such an arrangement has served the American Right extremely well over the past three decades, too.
Consider this: If your organization is dedicated to teaching students about this or that, and you only give them half the story, who or what is going to explain the other half? What I’ve found is that nonconformist students (conservatives and libertarians) are very good at taking in the lessons that are taught by Leftists (including their straw men) and supplementing them with their own readings on conservative and libertarian thought. Now contrast this with the conforming student. The one who eats up everything the professor teaches and takes it as more or less the Truth.
Outside of academia, where the battlefield of ideas is much less focused, and has much more money at stake, which student do you think is likely to have an edge intellectually-speaking? The student who read all he was supposed to and then some extra to account for different perspectives, or the student who read all he was supposed to and took it as more or less the Truth?
Many universities have been slow to catch up with other organizations that have recognized the benefits of not only cultural diversity but of intellectual diversity as well. If the Left wants to mount any sort of counter-attack in the near- or medium-term future, it would do well to open up to the idea of having more actual, intellectual diversity on its faculties.
Leftists often claim that they are losing the battle of ideas because of money (or lack thereof) but this is absurd on its face, and the longer Leftists try to win by this line of reasoning, the deeper will be the hole out of which they will inevitably have to climb.
There is also the argument that Leftists don’t really have an argument. They simply have reactions to new ideas being created and put forth by libertarians (and to a lesser extent, conservatives here in the US, who are heavily influenced by libertarian ideas).
While there is no diversity in academia there is obviously plenty of it outside. I think this shows a healthy “macro” picture, to be honest.
Universities were once independent (from state influence) organizations and that independence helped contribute to a culture that has given the West what it has today. If universities – with their rules and regulations and traditions – lose their place as bastions of Left-wing ideology, what would take their place? Think about it: The university, because of its extremely conservative traditions, actually tempers the thought of socialists, and if they come under assault then hardcore Leftism will simply find another way to manifest itself. Left-wing literature professors are one thing. Left-wing demagogues are quite another.
This ties in quite well with my other observation, in ‘comments’ threads not found here at NOL, that libertarians tend to be anti-education. Many of them justify this reactionary stance because of the de facto monopoly the Left has, but I think this reactionary stance has more to with the broader libertarian movement’s own intolerance of intellectual diversity.
The recently launched liberty.me community is a good example of this. I think about libertarianism’s recent reactionary nature in this way: Libertarianism got hot after Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential run. It got so hot that a small but very visible movement was sparked. After the initial success, though, the movement inevitably fell back into one of cliques, clichés, and group-think mentality for a great number of people excited by Paul’s message. Most people who became involved in libertarianism read one or two books recommended Paul and his acolytes. This process further entrenched them, but from there on out this large segment of the libertarian quadrant simply stopped exploring ideas and engaging in dialogue with intellectual adversaries. ‘Statist’ became a derisive term.
These new online communities have been created for the libertarian who seeks comfort in the presence of others like him, whereas consortiums like NOL (and those found on our blog roll) are a place for us to continue the pursuit for truth and the battle for hearts and minds in an open and competitive environment. As a libertarian I think these circle-jerks that crop up serve a useful social function, but I have to wonder aloud how much learning actually occurs in those places.
Some interesting links on post secondary schooling
A Conservative Defense of Tenure
This article raises the important point that tenure is a form of compensation, and one that can reduce budget pressure. It also raises the point that tenure allows a more open-ended approach to schooling which, in my mind, frees teachers and students to engage in genuinely educational but non-measurable activities. At the end the author writes, “we conservatives are especially alive to what is lost when we transform all of our institutions according to the logic of the market.” I agree that conservatives (properly understood) are not pro-market, but as a pro-market libertarian, I also agree with him on the value of tenure. Really what it boils down to is that education (the result we hope students will attain in schools) really is unmeasurable and so can’t be neatly provided in a market or a bureaucracy; schools can be provided on a market, but there is an important civil-society element to them.
From Tennessee, a Solution for Mission Creep
One of the core insights of economics, simple though it appears, is apparently not understood by schools (or even economics departments): everyone doing the same thing is unproductive. Diversity (no, not diversity of melanin content) is the basis of gains from trade, and product differentiation is the way to advance oneself. But what schools tend to do is try to imitate “better” schools by doing a worse version of the same thing. Imagine if restaurants did this; McDonald’s would sell budget foie gras, Applebee’s would sell slightly better foie gras in a kitschy atmosphere, and the only places you’d actually want to eat foie gras would (still) be the same restaurants that sell it in the world we actually live in.
The state of Tennessee has set up an incentive structure that ties funding to measurable outcomes, but makes that funding contingent on a school’s Carnegie rating. The effect is that trying to move up the prestige ladder will result in reduced funding unless a school is actually able to deliver results. “Take one of the state’s regional colleges, Austin Peay State University. If it tried to become more like Middle Tennessee State University by awarding doctorates, Austin Peay would very likely lose 4 percent of its state funds.”
Competency-Based Degrees: Coming Soon to a Campus Near You
If more institutions gravitate toward competency-based models, more and more students will earn degrees from institutions at which they take few courses and perhaps interact minimally with professors. Then what will a college degree mean?
It may no longer mean that a student has taken predetermined required and elective courses taught by approved faculty members. Rather, it would mean that a student has demonstrated a defined set of proficiencies and mastery of knowledge and content.
Sounds good to me! Although, as the author points out, we’re still left with the problem of how to evaluate students. It makes sense to allow someone to test out of an accounting class, but certification of competency isn’t the whole story for a liberal arts program.
If you want to learn skills, then a technical college with a competency-based degree makes a lot of sense. If you’re looking for an immersive environment that expands your appreciation for philosophy, art, and deep thought then you’re dealing with something unmeasurable. A BA from Wesleyan should communicate that you’ve experienced something like that, but that’s a different product than what most students are looking for (a piece of paper to help them get a good job). This goes back to the conflation of education and schooling. I’m not sure that credentials for liberal arts even makes sense; a better measure of a student’s success in lib arts would be the books and essays they write.
The author is concerned with the current state of affairs in social sciences where hiring and tenure decisions are based on a cumbersome publication process resulting in new research being kept unavailable until it has finally survived the publication process. But there’s an unexploited opportunity: have outside experts evaluate unpublished manuscripts and assign grades. These grades can be used for faculty evaluation, but they can also reduce transaction costs on the publishing end. Instead of a round robin, manuscripts (or articles) are evaluated once, and publishers compete for publishing rights. “The new slogan for upward academic mobility would be ‘produce or perish.’… Publishing was yesterday’s problem, vetting is tomorrow’s.”
What’s Peer Review and Why it Matters
WELCOME MBA STUDENTS. IF YOU NEED A BREAK, IF YOU FEEL LIKE SCHOOL AND WORK ARE GETTING TO YOU, TAKE A WALK THROUGH MY BLOG. YOU WILL BE AMAZED, PLEASED AND SHOCKED. WELCOME.
JD
Global warming update: In its 2007 report, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that 40% of the Amazonian rain forest could be gone in a short time because of climate change. The source cited is not peer-reviewed. Its authors are a public policy analyst, that is, an advocate, and a journalist at the Guardian of London. Neither is a scientist. The main thing is that they did not even try to get their piece published in a real, scholarly, and therefore peer–reviewed journal.
Reliance on sources that are not peer-reviewed is forbidden by the UN Panel’s own rules. The fact that the IGPCC violated its own rules does not imply an evil intent but carelessness or zealots’ quasi religious enthusiasm. (I keep telling you that climate change is a religion.) I ask myself: How long would I continue to patronize a car mechanic who told this level of untruths?
The story was in the Telegraph, a UK left-wing newspaper, on January 25th. This came up after the 300+ mistake I talked about before, about the time it will take for Himalayas glaciers to melt down. (It’s 300 years longer than announced by the Panel, according to the correction given by the Panel itself!)
You can find everything including linked to references in the “ Watt’s Up With That” site. Continue reading
Sexual Harassment, Sex, Politics, and Herman Cain
Herman Cain, the GOP candidate who both speaks the conservative talk and is good-looking is the subject of accusations of sexual harassment. It was bound to happen sooner or later because Democrats, the only authorized party of oppressed minorities, cannot allow a successful member of the largest oppressed minority to give the lie to their lies. The particular nature of the attack was also predictable. Liberals are not sophisticated by and large. Plus, half of the Democratic Party used to be in the Jim Crow South. There are collective memories: Black men in general have a trouble controlling their sexual urges; it’s a well-known fact.
Do I think there were sexual harassment complaints against Herman Cain when he was a powerful, highly visible official of an association? I wouldn’t be surprised if there were. I would be surprised instead if there were a single man corresponding to that description anywhere, anytime in the past thirty years against whom there were no such complaints at all. They go with the territory. Create new grounds to blackmail and there will be more blackmailers.
Do I think he did it? Yes, I do. I mean by this that Herman Cain almost certainly engaged repeatedly in behavior that someone somewhere would call sexual harassment. And since juries can be fickle, unpredictable, it’s rational (although detestable) for companies to settle. It’s especially tempting if they can settle on the cheap: $10,000 is “five figures.” I also mean something you all already know about sexual harassment but that you may have forgotten because of the pounding of dozens of years of political correctness. Continue reading
Sasquatch and Liberal Academe
I have spent thirty years in academia as a teacher and as a scholar. If you count the embarrassingly long periods I was a student, it adds up to much more time. After retiring, I am full of thoughts and ideas about academia. I feel almost no remorse at all but there is a lot of regret in my heart. It’s regret about what I did not do, mostly. Much of it is regret about the times I kept my mouth shut. I also feel retrospective curiosity. Strangely, the curiosity is growing with the years from my last day in academia. Much of the curiosity is about the following issue:
Why do very intelligent, cultured, well-informed people do and say strikingly stupid things?
Before I spout off anymore about academia, I must make clear my position about Sasquatch, the elusive, giant northern American forest ape. It’s sometimes quite unscientifically referred to as “Bigfoot,” or “Big Foot.” Worry not, the two lines of pondering in this essay will soon merge, I can assure you. At any rate, I think there is no Sasquatch. I am sorry that is what I think. I hope I am wrong. I would be glad to turn on a dime on that one, as soon as the evidence warrants.
I have a former colleague, a man younger than I who is a full professor in the best school of one of the best universities in the world. The man is pretty much an academic star. By the way, I am well-placed to know that his stardom is well deserved. It’s not always true of academic stardom. Some academic stars have skillfully manipulated themselves into their reknown on the basis of absurdly inflated modest intellectual achievements. Often, it’s absurdly inflated, thin achievements associated with a super-normal capacity for being seen at academic conferences. (I could name names but this time around, I won’t.) I can’t resist a digression here: It used to be said that Stalin became dictator of the Soviet Union because he would stay after the meetings to sweep the room when the Bolsheviks were illegal. The very fact that it’s possible to fake scholarly star quality at all is a potent sociological commentary on academia in itself. Continue reading
Notes On Liberty 