My experience with STEM and Business professors is that they are fairly neutral, which is what we would expect from an evidence based logic driven perspective.
Yes that tracks, and note economics was the closest to center in this research. If you are working on things where the outcomes depend on models, data, and falsifiable claims, having an objective view is a requisite - if you don’t have it, analysis degrades quickly, errors compound, and the work stops being reliable or useful. And in something like computer science you see if something actually worked immediately.
You really need to stop misinterpreting studies. This study was on SOCIAL SCIENCES which is not, as you claim, "academia". Many college students go their entire college career not taking classes in social sciences.
And it is an open question about whether studying these topics makes someone more progressive, or if more progressive people choose to study these topics. You dismiss that part entirely, but it really is an open question of causality. You can't just *hand wave* details that are inconvenient for your narrative.
I am not misinterpreting anything, and have spent 2 decades doing research and analysis work. The study itself is straightforward to interpret, what’s being discussed here is largely a matter of emphasis of what I personally found interesting, which is really the point of reading a blog vs just asking an AI to tell you what it thinks. As always, I encourage readers to review the source material directly, agreement is optional, and reasonable people can interpret and expand on the same material in different ways.
One other thing, I don't dismiss social sciences as if they’re a small or marginal slice of academia. Fields like economics, sociology, and psychology represent a substantial portion of academic research, teaching, and enrollment and have outsized influence in culture. Many students have small requirements even in unrelated fields (this is good tbh). Still, while they aren’t the entirety of academia it's a domain I’m specifically am interested in and have spent extensive time learning about. Physics, math, and similar fields tend to look more ideologically mixed. A good question we could ask is how could we have social sciences be more this way.
On the causality point, that distinction is fair: it is also an open question whether studying certain fields shifts political orientation or whether pre-existing orientations influence field selection. But that caveat applies to interpreting direction of causality, not to whether the observed distributions or patterns within those fields exist in the first place. It also doesn't mean we still shouldn't strive for more balanced views regardless.
You cannot generalize from part of academia to all of academia and claim that you're objectively evaluating the facts. You misinterpreted the scope of the study, that is clear from this post.
You also misunderstand the causality point. If studying those subjects does, in fact, make someone more progressive then you shouldn't expect balance because the subject itself creates imbalance.
My point is that social sciences are a large and meaningful part of academia, not a trivial one, and are relevant enough that patterns within them are worth discussing rather than dismissing as outside the scope of “academia.” But perhaps the title of this post is pesky to you, was hoping the actual content made this clear since it's outlined, with specificity what we were talking about.
On the causality point, I understand what you’re saying, but you’re treating it as if it’s purely a one-way effect. Even if studying a field has some influence, it’s not the only factor - selection effects and social dynamics within departments matter too. Once a field develops a dominant viewpoint, there can be strong incentives to conform, which can reinforce and amplify that imbalance over time. Huge in this particular field. So it’s likely not a simple “the subject causes the ideology” explanation, but a mix of selection, training, and institutional culture.
More broadly, I think it’s valuable to keep an open mind on this topic. Greater heterogeneity of perspectives in social sciences is generally healthy for the field. Thinkers like Jonathan Haidt, for example, have shown how bringing in different viewpoints can improve understanding and lead to more robust insights. Encouraging more heterodox voices is something that benefits academia as a whole, which I'm trying to do again today.
But it's not true! Social Sciences are at most 20% of faculties, making this statement from the post clearly untrue: "When the research outputs of your professors are 90% ideologically aligned and that alignment is hardened over decades, you don’t need to formally indoctrinate anyone." It's not just the title, it's the conclusion you derive through the entire piece.
I'm not drawing a conclusion about causality, I'm saying we don't know. We don't know. You are trying to reason through something that we don't understand and I'm saying we just don't know.
To your final point, since we don't know about the causality piece we don't know if more balance is better or worse on these topics. That's the problem with trying to apply "common sense" to complex, multi-dimensional problems. It doesn't work.
Always appreciate the comments btw - and to clarify, I am of course just talking about people in these fields, I thought that was implied here. Also just to add - I do think it may be both as simple, and also ofc as complicated, as taking inspiration from what areas that have less bias do. I don't know that it's easy, but def worthwhile
My experience with STEM and Business professors is that they are fairly neutral, which is what we would expect from an evidence based logic driven perspective.
Yes that tracks, and note economics was the closest to center in this research. If you are working on things where the outcomes depend on models, data, and falsifiable claims, having an objective view is a requisite - if you don’t have it, analysis degrades quickly, errors compound, and the work stops being reliable or useful. And in something like computer science you see if something actually worked immediately.
You really need to stop misinterpreting studies. This study was on SOCIAL SCIENCES which is not, as you claim, "academia". Many college students go their entire college career not taking classes in social sciences.
And it is an open question about whether studying these topics makes someone more progressive, or if more progressive people choose to study these topics. You dismiss that part entirely, but it really is an open question of causality. You can't just *hand wave* details that are inconvenient for your narrative.
I am not misinterpreting anything, and have spent 2 decades doing research and analysis work. The study itself is straightforward to interpret, what’s being discussed here is largely a matter of emphasis of what I personally found interesting, which is really the point of reading a blog vs just asking an AI to tell you what it thinks. As always, I encourage readers to review the source material directly, agreement is optional, and reasonable people can interpret and expand on the same material in different ways.
One other thing, I don't dismiss social sciences as if they’re a small or marginal slice of academia. Fields like economics, sociology, and psychology represent a substantial portion of academic research, teaching, and enrollment and have outsized influence in culture. Many students have small requirements even in unrelated fields (this is good tbh). Still, while they aren’t the entirety of academia it's a domain I’m specifically am interested in and have spent extensive time learning about. Physics, math, and similar fields tend to look more ideologically mixed. A good question we could ask is how could we have social sciences be more this way.
On the causality point, that distinction is fair: it is also an open question whether studying certain fields shifts political orientation or whether pre-existing orientations influence field selection. But that caveat applies to interpreting direction of causality, not to whether the observed distributions or patterns within those fields exist in the first place. It also doesn't mean we still shouldn't strive for more balanced views regardless.
You cannot generalize from part of academia to all of academia and claim that you're objectively evaluating the facts. You misinterpreted the scope of the study, that is clear from this post.
You also misunderstand the causality point. If studying those subjects does, in fact, make someone more progressive then you shouldn't expect balance because the subject itself creates imbalance.
My point is that social sciences are a large and meaningful part of academia, not a trivial one, and are relevant enough that patterns within them are worth discussing rather than dismissing as outside the scope of “academia.” But perhaps the title of this post is pesky to you, was hoping the actual content made this clear since it's outlined, with specificity what we were talking about.
On the causality point, I understand what you’re saying, but you’re treating it as if it’s purely a one-way effect. Even if studying a field has some influence, it’s not the only factor - selection effects and social dynamics within departments matter too. Once a field develops a dominant viewpoint, there can be strong incentives to conform, which can reinforce and amplify that imbalance over time. Huge in this particular field. So it’s likely not a simple “the subject causes the ideology” explanation, but a mix of selection, training, and institutional culture.
More broadly, I think it’s valuable to keep an open mind on this topic. Greater heterogeneity of perspectives in social sciences is generally healthy for the field. Thinkers like Jonathan Haidt, for example, have shown how bringing in different viewpoints can improve understanding and lead to more robust insights. Encouraging more heterodox voices is something that benefits academia as a whole, which I'm trying to do again today.
But it's not true! Social Sciences are at most 20% of faculties, making this statement from the post clearly untrue: "When the research outputs of your professors are 90% ideologically aligned and that alignment is hardened over decades, you don’t need to formally indoctrinate anyone." It's not just the title, it's the conclusion you derive through the entire piece.
I'm not drawing a conclusion about causality, I'm saying we don't know. We don't know. You are trying to reason through something that we don't understand and I'm saying we just don't know.
To your final point, since we don't know about the causality piece we don't know if more balance is better or worse on these topics. That's the problem with trying to apply "common sense" to complex, multi-dimensional problems. It doesn't work.
Always appreciate the comments btw - and to clarify, I am of course just talking about people in these fields, I thought that was implied here. Also just to add - I do think it may be both as simple, and also ofc as complicated, as taking inspiration from what areas that have less bias do. I don't know that it's easy, but def worthwhile