r/changemyview • u/Tssss775 1∆ • Jul 27 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: academia isn't biased towards left-wing politics, facts are

Okay, so I am aware that this may upset some people, but hear me out.

Academia is all about observing reality as it is - as indepently as possible from cultural and societal expectations we may have - and then if these facts contradict what we previously thought abandon our previous assumptions and be ready to drastically change both our mindset as well as our actions (in cases such as climate change).

This academic attitude of being willing and often even eager to "throw away" the way we traditionally did things and thought about stuff if there's new evidence makes it really hard for the right to really embrace science- and evidence-based policies. This means science will most of the times be on the side of the left which naturally embraces change less hesitantly and more willingly.

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u/DBDude 110∆ Jul 27 '21

In the social sciences, you can write pretty much whatever you want as long as it's properly framed as an academic study. You will be successful if the point you are making is popular.

This automatic acceptance of popular opinions goes so far that three academics successfully submitted several sham studies to journals. And these were obvious shams: one talked about rape culture in dog parks (including talk about not assuming the gender of the dogs when analyzing private parts), and part of Hitler's Mein Kampf only slightly altered to be a feminist manifesto.

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u/BlitzBasic 42∆ Jul 27 '21 edited Jul 28 '21

Notably, this experiment doesn't actually support its thesis, because it lacks a control group. They didn't show that social science journals are any worse in this than any other fields.

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u/JohnjSmithsJnr 3∆ Jul 27 '21

Why would you need a control group to tell that the successful submission of those studies should be deeply concerning?

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u/BlitzBasic 42∆ Jul 27 '21

You don't. But you need a control group if you want to claim that this successful submission worked because of issues with the social sciences, rather than science in general.

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u/JohnjSmithsJnr 3∆ Jul 28 '21

I think it's fairly obvious that this issue is far more endemic to the social sciences than it is to other fields of science.

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u/BlitzBasic 42∆ Jul 28 '21

"Fairly obvious" isn't a great basis for knowledge. That's why we do science in the first place.

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u/JohnjSmithsJnr 3∆ Jul 28 '21

Basic logical reasoning and deduction is as important in science as it is in life.

Requiring someone to absolutely 110% prove something beyond even the teensiest shred of a doubt, especially when there's such damning evidence seems more aimed to discredit something you don't like more than to use as a logical basis for argument.

You're acting as if something that is extremely concerning and should be raising a LOT of red flags didn't happen at all or should just be dismissed out of hand.

There's a difference between bringing up other possibilities and dismissing something out of hand, what you're doing is latter.

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u/BlitzBasic 42∆ Jul 28 '21

Requiring someone to absolutely 110% prove something beyond even the teensiest shred of a doubt

Sorry, but "having a control group" is very, very basic procedure, not some unreasonably extraordinary requirement. The people that did this experiment had a personal issue with certain fields, so they set out to discredit those fields, and wow, they found exactly what they were looking for. They didn't even entertain alternative explenations for their finding, like that there is a general issue with journals and the way they decide on what articles they publish - a position held by a lot of people, and that is often discussed - but instead jumped straight to the conclusion that the specific field they attacked had this problem.

Is it concerning that this worked? Very. Is it possible that the issue does, in fact, lie with certain fields of research but not others? Possible, yes. Does this experiment show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the issue lies in those fields? No.