Jonathan Haidt considers whether an
entirely biased social science is
capable of reliability:
Truth
is a process, not just an end-state. The Righteous Mind was about the obstacles
to that process — confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, tribalism, and the
worship of sacred values. Given the many ways
that our moral psychology warps our reasoning, it’s a wonder we’ve gotten as
far as we have, as a species. That’s what’s so brilliant about science: it is a
way of putting people together so that they challenge each other and cancel out
each others’ confirmation biases and tribal commitments. The truth emerges
from the interaction of flawed individuals.
But something alarming has happened to the academy since the 1990s: it has been transformed from an institution that leans to the left, which is not a big problem, into an institution that is entirely on the left, which is a very big problem.
Nowadays there are NO conservatives or libertarians in most academic departments in the humanities and social sciences. The academy has been so focused on attaining diversity by race and gender (which are valuable) that it has created a hostile climate for people who think differently. The American Academy has become a politically orthodox and quasi-religious institution. When everyone shares the same politics and prejudices, the disconfirmation process breaks down. Political orthodoxy is particularly dangerous for the social sciences, which grapple with so many controversial topics (such as race, racism, gender, poverty, immigration, politics, and climate science). America needs innovative and trustworthy research on all these topics, but can a social science that lacks viewpoint diversity produce reliable findings?
But something alarming has happened to the academy since the 1990s: it has been transformed from an institution that leans to the left, which is not a big problem, into an institution that is entirely on the left, which is a very big problem.
Nowadays there are NO conservatives or libertarians in most academic departments in the humanities and social sciences. The academy has been so focused on attaining diversity by race and gender (which are valuable) that it has created a hostile climate for people who think differently. The American Academy has become a politically orthodox and quasi-religious institution. When everyone shares the same politics and prejudices, the disconfirmation process breaks down. Political orthodoxy is particularly dangerous for the social sciences, which grapple with so many controversial topics (such as race, racism, gender, poverty, immigration, politics, and climate science). America needs innovative and trustworthy research on all these topics, but can a social science that lacks viewpoint diversity produce reliable findings?
Based on the evidence, the answer is
yes, as a social science that lacks viewpoint diversity produces findings that
are reliably insane. At this point, the term "social science" has
become an oxymoron akin to "military intelligence" or "new Star
Wars movie".
