Recognizing and Avoiding Bias



Recognizing and Avoiding Bias

Introduction

The claim that a social scientist is "biased" is rarely a neutral observation. In our culture, it can be a scathing criticism, a devastating attack on the target's credibility, integrity, and honor. Rather than coolly observing that "Professor Doe's work is biased," we are apt to spit out a phrase like "is completely biased" or " biased as hell." Such expressions of righteous indignation are generally a sure sign that some kind of norm has been violated. The sociologist Robert Merton (1973) articulated four norms of science that are widely shared in our culture ...