Monday 5 January 2015

I've discovered why there aren't any right-wing sociologists. Lefty academics are biased.

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Well pretty close to that - these are social psychologists:

Inbar and Lammers (2012) found that most social psychologists who responded to their survey were willing to explicitly state that they would discriminate against conservatives. Their survey posed the question: "If two job candidates (with equal qualifications) were to apply for an opening in your department, and you knew that one was politically quite conservative, do you think you would be inclined to vote for the more liberal one?" Of the 237 liberals, only 42 (18%) chose the lowest scale point, "not at all." In other words, 82% admitted that they would be at least a little bit prejudiced against a conservative candidate, and 43% chose the midpoint ("somewhat") or above. In contrast, the majority of moderates (67%) and conservatives (83%) chose the lowest scale point ("not at all").

And the same went for assessing grants and reviewing papers. What really saddens me in all this is that these biased lefties - 'liberals' in American-speak - are completely destroying the relevance of their discipline. When reviewing anything written by most social scientists (economics being the possible exception), you have to assume that the the research is skewed by a prejudged left-of-centre ideology.

I've said before that the sociology department that sets out to recruit a group of centrist or right-of-centre thinkers is going to clean up on breaking new ground in the subject.

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2 comments:

Junican said...

The problem is that your fellow conservative MPs in Westminster seem to be falling over themselves to perpetuate biases against their own principles. I know that Senior Ministers have a lot to deal with, but can they not see that their 'knuckling under' has a cumulative effect? Look how the persecution of smokers has become greater and greater as the Zealots have got their way time and time again.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Junican is right... erm, correct. Why does the Conservative party, which used to eschew the principle of statist interference in individuals' lives now interfere as much as - if not more so - Labour?

If it's not smokers, it's sugar-tax, or fat-control or telling people they should use no more than 5 sheets no more than three times to wipe their bum. Okay, that last one is made up; but how long will it be before it isn't, at present rates?

Radical Rodent