Liberal bias and Academia

[K831]

I saw some conversation on this subject in another thread, and remembered reading this article a few months ago. I don't think it has been posted before, but I thought many here would find it interesting.

It is pretty fair, and pretty objective discussion of the topic, centered specifically around the social psych. discipline (where I started my higher education).


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/science/08tier.html?_r=3&ref=science

 

[K831]

Never mind... subsequent searches showed it has been posted. Didn't get much discussion though?

 

[elder999]

Never mind... subsequent searches showed it has been posted. Didn't get much discussion though?

It was academia that gave us the atomic bomb. Of course, they wanted a demonstration, on an uninhabited island-an appeal to "rationality."
That they were sincere, I have no doubt-that today, they'd be "liberally biased," I have no doubt.

Hell, some of them were mere inches from being out and out card-carrying socialists.

"Liberal bias" has been part of academia in this country for a long, long time.

 

[bushidomartialarts]

It's liberal spectrum, but then again many people who don't live in the US think that the most liberal of Americans fall on the "moderately conservative" notch of worldwide political thought....

 

[K831]

"Liberal bias" has been part of academia in this country for a long, long time.

Without a doubt. This particular article however, approached the notion from a rather different perspective, and with a rather different idea in terms of potential end result, than is typically seen when the subject comes up.

 

[David43515]

It was academia that gave us the atomic bomb. Of course, they wanted a demonstration, on an uninhabited island-an appeal to "rationality."
That they were sincere, I have no doubt-that today, they'd be "liberally biased," I have no doubt.

Hell, some of them were mere inches from being out and out card-carrying socialists.

"Liberal bias" has been part of academia in this country for a long, long time.

That they were sincerely in lovve with the "beautiful physics" of the bomb, I have no doubt. But I seem to recall that they had doubts of their own. Namely that there was a chance they might set off a chain reaction that would burn off the entire Earth`s atmophere in one go. (Obviously that didn`t happen, but they thought it was a possibility and still went through with it.)

 

[elder999]

That they were sincerely in lovve with the "beautiful physics" of the bomb, I have no doubt. But I seem to recall that they had doubts of their own. Namely that there was a chance they might set off a chain reaction that would burn off the entire Earth`s atmophere in one go. (Obviously that didn`t happen, but they thought it was a possibility and still went through with it.)

Yes, they went through with the testing. Altogether,they were actually a rather nihilistic bunch, though individually they had a variety of beliefs.

Today, most of them would be labeled "leftists."

They went through with the testing, and took bets on what would happen, with Enrico Fermi taking the long odds (300-1) on igniting the atmosphere. An enthusiastic American, Dr. Fermi-embraced baseball and all manner of thing American, but clearly a nihilist and a cynic. After they knew they had it, almost to a man they pleaded with the military not to use it on a population, and to use it as a demonstration instead. Of course, it didn't play out that way, anymore than it set the atmosphere on fire,just as the majority of them really didn't think it would: most of the maths didn't support that.