Compromising Scholarship: Religious and Political Bias in American Higher Education

2 Historical and Social Bias within Academia

25 CHAPTER TWO Historical and Social Bias within Academia I remember a time when my image of scientists was that of old white men with grey hair that spent all their time in the laboratory . I guess today we would call them nerds. It was also my perception that these men were only interested in the truth, and that as such, they were open to any possible findings of their research. Since then, I have obviously come to realize how wrong I was with my assumptions about scientists’ age, race, and sex. I am glad to have been wrong about those assumptions. But now that I am in academia, I also realize how wrong I was about the objectivity of scientists as well. I am not, of course, the first person to realize this. There is a large body of academic literature that has explored the impossibility of objectivity in scientific inquiry. The types of biases that may influence academics do not just occur. They develop within a given social and historical context. Before I explore the location of social biases within academia, it is important to assess the nature of the academic community and issues surrounding the social and historical development of academic inquiry. 26 || compromising scholarship Biases in Scientific Inquiry Epistemology is the study of knowledge. Scholars in this field argue that we have certain social biases that shape how we understand what we think we know. These biases reinforce themselves over time and make it difficult for us to gain an objective understanding about reality. For example, a person may be convinced that individuals in a certain occupation, such as auditors, tend to be mean people. This idea may arise from the fact that every time a person encounters an auditor, the auditor is rather insensitive to the concerns of that person . Furthermore, this hypothetical person may hear from friends and family members about other unpleasant experiences they have had with auditors. Over time, all of this information convinces a person about the meanness of auditors. However, these experiences are the result of social forces that have shaped a person’s ideas about auditors. In reality, this person does not know if auditors are any more unpleasant than other individuals, but that person’s experiences seem to confirm this as social fact and so the person accepts it. In fact, it is often because an individual has already developed a stereotype about the meanness of auditors that he or she will discount contradictory data. Thus any pleasant experience the person has with an auditor is seen as the exception that proves the rule. Likewise, scientists also bring in their own presuppositions into their studies which may or may not comport with reality. This bias may convince scientists to emphasize certain findings that support those presuppositions while they minimize the importance of other findings that work against those presuppositions. Marx has sometimes been credited with the initial development of epistemology. His arguments about false consciousness imply that our economic conditions often convince us to accept a certain set of social beliefs, regardless of whether those beliefs are true. Thus our knowledge is socially constructed rather than based on a logical assessment of the social reality around us. Mannheim (1954) built on Marx’s work with his argument that ideas are bound to a certain social position in society. Marx dwells on the economic conditions that permit the development of philosophies that will allow historical and social bias within academia || 27 society to evolve, but Mannheim is not restricted to claims about our economy. He contends that many different social forces such as occupations and status categories also help to shape the ideas emerging within a certain culture or subculture. The implication of his work is that acquisition of knowledge is also conditioned by the social structures surrounding scientists. Academics, like members of other occupations, are shaped by social forces that make some ideas accessible to them, while other ideas are beyond their perception . Thus, scientists are not objective seekers after reality; rather, they document a reality as shaped by the social dimensions that influence those participating in scientific inquiry. At its core, epistemology implies that we are unable to make logical and objective assessments of our social surroundings, because social forces produce biases in the way we acquire our knowledge. Yet theoretically, this is where scientific inquiry should be able to help us get past such...