The Volokh Conspiracy

Of course, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention an alternative explanation for the liberal dominance in these fields. It may well be that they're not overpopulated with liberals, but rather the liberal conclusions within those fields are correct, and thus those professionals tend towards liberal. Physical sciences and their discoveries having fewer political ramifications, we logically find a smaller result within.

I just like the inclusion of the term "moderate." What sort of objective criteria were used to make these distinctions? Are they self-imposed?

Of course, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention an alternative explanation for the liberal dominance in these fields. It may well be that they're not overpopulated with liberals, but rather the liberal conclusions within those fields are correct, and thus those professionals tend towards liberal.

If this were the correct explanation, it would imply that 1) practititioners would tend to bedisproportionately liberal on issues within their field of specialization, but not necessarily those outside it, and 2) they would become disproportionately liberal on these issues only after exposure to the field and its findings. Neither is even close to being true.

What would a conservative biology professor teach? Creationism? It's just not a politics that flows well from the data. I don't know why you don't think ideology interferes with science. On the other hand, why does it matter in the humanities? Who cares whether your music prof likes Wagner's or Shostakovich's politics better?

If this were the correct explanation, it would imply that 1) practititioners would tend to bedisproportionately liberal on issues within their field of specialization, but not necessarily those outside it, and 2) they would become disproportionately liberal on these issues only after exposure to the field and its findings. Neither is even close to being true.

Perhaps you would care to elaborate on this. I have found many professors in the University setting to be, what would be considered here as, adamantly "liberal" toward their research methods in conducting a social science experiment and yet still maintain a very socially conservative standpoint on other issues. I also have met a couple of political scientist professors that got involved in teaching during the Reagan revolution and have confessed that their private political viewpoints have trended more moderate as they studied the government and poltical sytems theory more. Why such the immediate dismissal of either of these implications?

"Phys/bio sciences 45.2 47.0 7.8"

How is this balanced? In polls of self-identification, usually more people self-identify as conservative than liberal, yet the exact opposite is seen here.

Note that I also saw this firsthand, with my biochem professor ranting against Bush during a lecture on enzyme pathways. Also, it can matter in these fields too- for example a different left wing biochem prof (every one of them was pretty far left so far as I could tell) actually taught us first about how herbicides were made to target certain proteins only found in plants-- we studied the pathway and saw how it only exists in plants and therefor the herbicide could not possibly hurt humans or any other animal and very little was required to kill plants-- and then went on to give us a rant against the company and assure us that it was still a dangerous chemical and was polluting our rivers, with absolutely no factual basis to support this view. In fact, given what we'd just learned, one could only come to the opposite conclusion.

Sounds like it's time for affirmative action for conservatives in academia...

> It's just not a politics that flows well from the data.

Exactly what are political implications of Darwin's theory? Note: political, not theological.

These are my favorite threads/posts. You can almost smell the paranoia...

Conservatives love arguments from authority, it must come as quite a shot to the gut to realize that the most educated People in this country overwhelmingly think they are wrong.

Add this to the whole Israel thing and its amazing that DB can even get out of bed in the morning.

[I]t must come as quite a shot to the gut to realize that the most educated People in this country overwhelmingly think they are wrong.

I don't take it as a shot. I take it as a badge of honor.

How about this: Darwinian evolution has favored highly athletic blacks over highly intellectual blacks due to the realities of living in Africa or under subjugation here as slaves, at least through recent history. This effect is not seen in Whites of European descent to the same degree because of distinguishing social factors. This is why black reading scores in my home town (Milwaukee) are so low, and concurrently why blacks excel in professional sports.

Now, obviously I'm not supporting this idea, which is full of fallacy and assumption, but it certainly applies scientific principal to a social (and political) issue in a manner consistent with my academic experience at the University level.

Natural sciences are very susceptible to political corruption. Global warming is a great example. Ecological conservation is another.

I would argue that this is more an example of how people don't like to go out on a limb when asked to identify themselves as part of a certain group that may have social connotations they're not willing to accept. Therefore, a disproportionate number of people would claim to be "moderate," even if they lean significantly to one side or the other on most issues.

Now, to defend many of the *very* liberal professors I've had in classes falling under the history and sociology headings, many of them were excellent at promoting critical thinking skills rather than political agenda. I can honestly say I had a great experience in a History of the Vietnam War class with just such a man, and you can imagine how easily biased a class like that can be!

History and philosophy are also humanities fields. Moreover, in recent decades, the study of literature has increasingly focused on political issues.

Hey, I thought history was "social studies." What DID they teach me in school, if I don't even know proper subject taxonomy?

Yes, history ought to be taught from a variety of perspectives. And maybe architecture has a natural political element. But political analysis of fine arts and literature seems pretty deadening. Just the same, if the alternative is equal time for the flat-earthers and creationists, we'd best leave things be.

Anyway, run a poll of all persons principally employed in handling words and ideas (rather than handling organizations and money) and then see if your self-reported political IDs are out-of-line.

bittern,

Who cares whether your music prof likes Wagner's or Shostakovich's politics better?

For what it's worth, the race/class/gender emphasis in today's music scholarship is large. And in the case of the two composers you mention, where it's damn near impossible to talk about the music without getting into the politics, "your music prof"'s own political views could conceivably matter quite a bit.

"History is usually considered a social science. "

Not by those of us who actually DO it.

We don't seek general laws.

I can't imagine making good use of historical inquiry without considering different political viewpoints. So I agree with Ilya's concern there. On the other hand, it's rather difficult to make effective use of biological science if one is hindered by a conservative viewpoint. Don't see why Ilya said it doesn't matter. Finally, I'm so much a philistine that I still don't see what it matters what happens in music scholarship. Please explain.

Even in business classes, where ideology perhaps matters more than in the hard sciences, it probably matters less than in the social sciences and humanities.... only a minority of business courses focus on public policy issues with an ideological valence.

I think when looking at business classes one can argue that there are plenty of latent ideological claims, both in what is taught and what is not taught. How many business schools offer classes in the ethics of third-world development, to complement classes in, say, Global Strategic Marketing? To teach how to run a profitable business without examining very real questions like whether doing so is actually a net social loss due to externalities is, I think, a very real ideological bent.

I'm not sure I agree that humanities classes provide more room for ideology. Are we really concerned that foreign language instructors are teaching a "liberal" version of French or Arabic? Perhaps the concern is in poetry interpretation classes, but I'm not sure that poetry has much "influence on both academic research and classroom instruction on politically charged issues." Overall I'm not sure there is more ideology in humanities than in computer science. (If you don't think programming contains any political or ideological decisions, I recommend Lawrence Lessig's masterpiece "Code".)

I suspect that you're probably correct that social sciences classes are more likely to provide room for a professor to engage in ideological commentary. I took a look through the course catalog at Arizona State University to get a better sense than just a hunch. But while there are classes like Sociology 415, "The Family", which probably have a fair amount of room for ideology if the professor chooses to inject it, there are also statistics classes and classes teaching how to conduct statistically unbiased polls. And then there are classes like Marketing 402, "Consumer Behavior", that are basically social science classes in a business context--and so should be susceptible to the same problems of professor biases, however large or small those problems are. I don't have any good way to get numbers out of this (I think you'd have to look at syllabi to figure out whether a given class is merely empirical or has a policy bent) but I don't think the difference is as clear-cut as you make it out to be.

The somewhat less lopsided overall figure (about 4-1 liberal-conservative ratio) is reached only because of the relatively balanced nature of "health sciences," physical/bio sciences, comp sci/engineering, and business faculties.

Unless I am misreading the poll, the physical/biological sciences are skewed towards the liberal end of the spectrum, not balanced. Perhaps that liberal swing is a reaction to the perception that the worst abuses against the natural sciences are from the right (social darwinism, creationism, etc) .

In the humanities, the errors are on the liberal end, but since academics are often the guilty parties, they're hardly going to swing to the right in reaction.

Rather than being balanced, the preponderance of "moderates" in comp sci/engineering, and to a lesser extent the health sciences, might simply suggest a lack of interest in politics.

I'm unclear why ideology "matters" more in one discipline then the other. Given that those surveyed roughly split on the role of their personal beliefs in the classroom (table 24). Among those that were strongly neutral -- they should never reveal their views -- (see the text, not the table) , they were 4 times more prevalent in the hard sciences than the soft areas, but only a minority was strongly neutral whatever the discipline. Does it matter less if your physics professor begins every class saying "The Iraq war is immoral" or if your comparative politics professor does it?

On the other hand, it's rather difficult to make effective use of biological science if one is hindered by a conservative viewpoint.

I don't see why a conservative viewpoint would hinder you in biology anymore than a liberal one would. Yes, some people for religious reasons deny evolution. That, however, is not a necessary attribute of conservative political ideology. By the same token, some liberals deny the reality of many genetic differences between the sexes. In any event, I doubt that either of these make much difference in biology unless the research in question specifically focuses on evolution or gender differences.

By the same token, some liberals deny the reality of many genetic differences between the sexes.

And, don't forget, global warming, ecology, pollution, pharmacology, nutrition... and others. Of course, these will only be affected if the person is seriously radical and unwilling to see facts as facts. This occurred in the Soviet Union (think Lysenko), but this is an extreme example.

However, ideology combined with a true echo chamber - where the dissenters are berated, ignored and locked out - can be very dangerous. It isn't there yet, by any stretch, in academic biology, but it is a concern.

The most basic distinction between conservatives/libertarians and liberals concerns the problem of theft.

As economist Walter E. Williams says: when you dig deep into your pocket to help someone less fortunate, that is charity. But when someone else reaches deep into your pocket and gives your money to their special interest groups in return for votes, that is not charity; that is theft.

Conservatives tend to want to keep the original Constitution, which was written, among other things, to protect citizens from a rapacious government - while libs have become ravenous parasites on the productive members of society, insisting that Big Government isn't big enough, and that if we only pass another spending bill and create another eternal, ever-growing and unaccountable bureaucracy, then the rights of "the poor," [or the special interest group du jour], will finally be protected. But of course as soon as the new law is passed, they immediately have their hand out for more, more, more. Because, you see, it's never enough.

But who represents the rights of the citizens who are not in a favored special interest group? Who protects them from an ever-enlarging, ever-encroaching, ever more taxing government? Does anyone?

So we've arrived at the current situation, wherein potential mothers are blithely promised $5,000 of taxpayers' money for simply dropping another baby, and where a vast new medical care bureaucracy, at a giant expense [in a country where no one is denied medical care] is promised, at the unwilling expense of the taxpayers who will be told that they must pay more every year because, given the fact that the government has no competitition, there is nothing that will limit its demands once the huge new bureaucracy has been created.

It's pandering at its very worst to promise the earnings of working citizens in order to buy votes. If libs were discussing how to solve problems without stealing ever more money from the citizenry, I would be happy to assist, and to discuss how we can most effectively accomplish their goals. But in fact, their primary motivation has little or nothing to do with actually helping anyone. The true goal is to separate the citizens from ever more of their earnings. In other words: theft.

I'm a sociology professor with a lot of connections to management science (one of my co-authors is in management science, my advisor used to teach in a b-school, I currently have a grant from an NSF management science program, I read and cite management journals, and in fact I'm spending much of tomorrow visiting a business school). Long story short, I agree with SeattleSolicitor, management is a social science with all that this implies. If you want to know what I mean, read a few random articles from ASQ, AJS, and AER and you'll notice that they are more similar than they are different. The only real difference between b-schools and letters and science departments of economics or sociology is that b-school professors teach more professional students and fewer undergrads.

"It doesn't matter much whether a professor believes that their political views should be kept out of the classroom if those views aren't relevant to the subject he or she teaches anyway."

Exactly--so why is this debate happening at all? That is, since a professor's personal views, whatever they be, are NEVER relevant to the subject taught, even if the subject taught deals in politics / ideologies to a great degree, and the professor knows this and doesn't inject their own views into the discussion but nevertheless allows the class to struggle with multiple views as a form of critical thinking and evaluation where that is relevant to the course, what's the problem? Why even argue about this?

Oh, right, now I remember... we seem to be assuming that a professor can't be trusted to leave her personal opinions at the door when she teaches. And where did that assumption come from? Is it not simply a fine example of confirmation bias at work--one hears the nasty anecdote of the crazed prof who went on an anti-Bush tangent in class, and that anecdote of a single, shitty moment in one professor's career (or, at worst, a sign of a single teacher out of line, not an entire profession) confirms what one already believed without any data to back it up?

Most of the arguments i'm seeing in these posts hang on two things only: the myriad anecdotes of such-and-such crazy professor who poisoned the class discussion or lecture by airing his own views (whether they were relevant to the discussion at hand or not), and (2) the apparent data confirming the hunch that most profs are lefties. The first is insufficient for drawing any conclusions beyond those related only to those profs specifically--they are, after all, ONLY anecdotes.

As for the second point and the apparent confirmation that most profs are left-leaning...SFW? The only reason it could possibly matter that most profs are lefties is if you honestly believe that they genuinely fail to exercise restraint in the classroom, in the planning of courses &selection of textbooks, and (least importantly of all) in the conduct of their research. This is from a leftie who tiptoes around ever saying anything politically charged in his classroom, and who has noticed same in most classes (I don't even know what most of my profs political positions were during my undergrad, nor did I suspect that it ever mattered.)

Just wanted to vote in favor of the prevailing view on this thread: there's no reason a professor's ideology ought to matter in any subject.

I took a lot of social sciences / history / humanities classes at uni, and I don't think I could tell you any of my professors' politics.

To the extent it does matter - and I think it may, outside of the classroom - I don't think it's evidence of much besides the fact that teaching and research is a vocation that appeals more to liberals than conservatives.

Where's the study of the conservative bent in investment banking and the extent to which it warps economic policy? Oh I remember - who cares? It's just the way it is. Go be a professor if it bothers you, and I'll go be an investment banker... or not.

The study also includes a table of party affiliations, which may be a more useful indicator of ideology than the table posted by Ilya (Table 8, p. 34).

Some of the numbers there look reasonable to me. Just speculating, but:

The near-absence of Republicans in biology might reasonably be explained by the party's stance on evolution and stem-cell research.

The large number of Republicans in finance and accounting might be explained by the career path in these fields, which often leads through private industry or at least commonly includes contacts with private industry through consulting arrangements.

The near-total absence (2%) of Republican English professors is startling.

In other fields, grant-seeking professors (like me) may naturally tilt toward the party of larger government. There are (at least) two different ways of looking at this: (1) these professors have their noses in the government trough, or (2) these professors believe that it is important for their government to support the field of research to which they have devoted their entire professional lives.

"There is a whole shelf of literature on unconscious political bias in the way that people evaluate information about political issues."

Yes, there certainly is. But, so far as I know, that research on the whole demonstrates this bias in the general population, not just professors. That means, then, that there is as much unconscious bias in operation among students as among professors--little wonder the conservative student may feel alienated even in the case that the lib. professor has done as much as he consciously can think of to prepare an even-handed lesson. That student can then "skew" what is perhaps an effectively even-handed lesson into one containing "a clear liberal bias" simply because it dares to include a liberal viewpoint (though at the same time it also includes a conservative viewpoint and neither is given more time, credible supporting discussion, etc., over the other). This cuts both ways: the liberal student, upon finding herself in a course taught by a conservative prof whose colors shine through despite his best efforts to remain even-handed, can skew that prof's instruction into a "conservative dogma backlash" that's poisoning her poor little mind. Boo-hoo.

Political bias, however, isn't the only bias--the simple bias of an instructor not liking a student (for any number of reasons--don't participate in class or act as "class clown" too frequently, take your pick) influences how that instructor behaves towards and evaluates that student's actual work. I'm afraid the only way you'll win this war on the "biased" professoriate is to hire robots over human beings.

And unless you're willing to go that route, I don't really see a feasible alternative. I don't suspect that enacting some party affiliation quota among departments would be a practical solution; matter of fact, I'm not even sure that's healthy, practical or not. I suspect the larger problem is not one of whether we have more conservative or more liberal professors representing academe; rather, the larger problem is the insane degree to which the general population itself has become politically polarized, with ever more demonization of the "Other", whether that 'other' for you is a Republican, a Muslim, an immigrant, etc. If you really cannot engage with someone long enough to be capable of listening to and accurately reporting back that person's views in such a manner that the person feels they are really being listened to, then you're already lost, liberal or not. And it's that lack of listening rhetoric (to borrow Booth's term) that's the underlying problem, not how many conservative profs you have or how often the students think their own views are underepresented in a classroom.

I honestly believe that professors are, in general, much more conscious of their biases than is the general population--you don't spend 2-8 years in graduate school without learning how to evaluate sources for bias and ultimately realizing that you yourself are a biased source. Having realized this, I expect most professors do what they can to consciously prepare lectures, syllabi, and all the rest to be as even-handed as they can make it where they see politics playing an issue in their subject. I don't really know what more we can ask of them, though I'm open to suggestions.

Bartleby: "As for the second point and the apparent confirmation that most profs are left-leaning...SFW? The only reason it could possibly matter that most profs are lefties is if you honestly believe that they genuinely fail to exercise restraint in the classroom, in the planning of courses &selection of textbooks, and (least importantly of all) in the conduct of their research."

Yes, Batleby. That is precisely what I believe to be the case in a discouragingly large number of cases. A simple look at online syllabi for my main teaching subfield--US Diplomatic History--revealed to me that many profs use ONLY Revisionist authors for their texts. One doesn't NEED to shout one's views from the podium every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Limititng the readings to one historiographical perspective is a safe way to channel undergrad students into the "correct" school of thought.

And your sense that profs have learned to evaluate and control their own bias in grad school seems to: (A) ignore the way one survives in an PhD program; and (B) seriously underestimate the degree to which academic leftists can convince themselves that their positions are in fact smarter, better, and more virtuous than those of, say, me.

The overwhelming predominance of one shade of the ideological spectrum creates a self-reinforcing feedback-loop.

To add an anecdote: During my first on-campus interview, I was asked by the faculty committe, point-blank, to name the current affairs magazines that I read on a regular basis. I did not think it wise to mention "National Review." And they were impressed that I couldn't come up with the name of the "Weekly Standard." So I got the offer.

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bbbeard makes a good point -- surveys of ideology are crude, but as the authors point out, these are questions that are used in other leading surveys of ideology. This is better than coming up with new questions since the responses would not be comparable with other populations. If you used other questions, the authors would have to do new national polling (very expensive) in order to tell if academics' ideologies differed from the public or other previously polled groups.

The authors of this study are far more sophisticated than most since they did factor-analysis of the responses. Other studies frequently fail to do this. Also, they wanted to avoid relying only on self-identified categories (e.g., 'I'm conservative'; yes, but only compared to your Maoist colleague).