A interesting NYT article I saw linked to in your inside higher ed link.
Social Scientist Sees Bias Within
SAN ANTONIO — Some of the world’s pre-eminent experts on bias discovered an unexpected form of it at their annual meeting.
Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s conference, where psychologists discuss their research on racial prejudice, homophobia, sexism, stereotype threat and unconscious bias against minorities. But the most talked-about speech at this year’s meeting, which ended Jan. 30, involved a new “outgroup.”
It was identified by Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia who studies the intuitive foundations of morality and ideology. He polled his audience at the San Antonio Convention Center, starting by asking how many considered themselves politically liberal. A sea of hands appeared, and Dr. Haidt estimated that liberals made up 80 percent of the 1,000 psychologists in the ballroom. When he asked for centrists and libertarians, he spotted fewer than three dozen hands. And then, when he asked for conservatives, he counted a grand total of three.
“This is a statistically impossible lack of diversity,” Dr. Haidt concluded, noting polls showing that 40 percent of Americans are conservative and 20 percent are liberal. In his speech and in an interview, Dr. Haidt argued that social psychologists are a “tribal-moral community” united by “sacred values” that hinder research and damage their credibility — and blind them to the hostile climate they’ve created for non-liberals.
“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”
Dr. Haidt (pronounced height) told the audience that he had been corresponding with a couple of non-liberal graduate students in social psychology whose experiences reminded him of closeted gay students in the 1980s. He quoted — anonymously — from their e-mails describing how they hid their feelings when colleagues made political small talk and jokes predicated on the assumption that everyone was a liberal.
Right but unlike gays those nasty non-liberal minded students clearly deserve it! Amirite?
I'm sorry GLaDOS but while distortions of the map are important and probably what we should talk about it, I agree with Lammers from the OP here. We should not dismiss the human cost of this situation for the minority of students with non-liberal views.
What most impressed him about the issues raised by the study, Inbar said, is the need to think about "basic fairness."
You seem to have quite good research skills, do you have any advice for someone trying to find out if academia has considered something already? Especially if that someone doesn't know that much about the field in question.
Ah I fear I misunderstood you and took "produces" rather too literally. Don't forget that STEM fields are attractive to those who want to climb socially but lack the graces because of their upbringing.
Obviously they retain few of those who go to become mathematicians.
In general, nothing is more difficult than not pretending to understand.
--Nicolás Gómez Dávila, source
We just care a lot more about the the views of the Brahmin than your second class of people.
Than you for catching the typo. Also I find it refreshingly honest that you acknowledge reality of this.
Which class of people has the larger microphone? Which class has the money?
Yes they by definition don't control the media or academia, their material resources aren't trivial but it is impossible for them to coordinate, since any organization they create to defend their interests will be subverted or marginalized.
Which class produces mathematicians?
The class produces its fair share of mathematicians. In absolute numbers I'd say more than the upper classes.
People talking about how low status Glenn Beck is need to realize that numerically far more people take Glenn Beck seriously than Kurzweil. Just because the Brahmin (Moldbug's terminology) hate him, dosen't mean he isn't influential and popular in among the class of people who find themselves vulnerable to be mislead to react badly to the Singularity.
You do realize he is speaking in favour of the singularity and SIAI? Also if you haven't noticed there are plenty of right wing people on LW.
I've heard a top poster here mention that 1950s America was Communist. :)
The question now becomes what is Glenn Beck's username on LessWrong?
Your link seems like a bad idea considering I'm seeing people throwing tantrums and mass down voting certain users. Considering your nick I'm a bit suspicious that you are a troll.
Edit: I should clarify, I don't find anything wrong with the content written by Lynn, just that some people go instantly into political mode if they see links to a political site, even when the article is by an expert in his field.
Linking some other relevant writing by Lynn would have been preferable.
2nd Edit: Reading the whole article I find nothing wrong with it, the besides politically motivated whining about the site hosting the article I see no good reason to down vote this link. Retracted.