[pron]

It's quite simple:

1. We don't wish to eliminate personal biases (like your preference for blue over green), but social biases (like that Africans are sub-human)

2. We don't wish to eliminate all social biases (like murder is bad and fairness is good), but only those that increase power inequality (like that Africans are sub-human or that women belong in the home)

So there is a subjective ideology here (preference for fairness), but it makes recognizing incompatible biases rather objective and very much based on a set of external facts.

> The burden of proof for 'hidden bias' is simply not attainable by any standard of law.

No one has said that this change is to be done by changing the law alone. It is mostly educational.

[TeMPOraL]

I'm going out on a limb here, but did anyone consider that some of those "social biases" you want to eliminate arise naturally from society exploiting comparative advantage of sexes?

When women are on average better at doing X and men are on average better at doing Y, even if the advantage is very slight, it's beneficial to let women focus on X and men on Y. I think some of the customs may have arisen there. I'm not saying that they haven't become twisted or outdated and shouldn't be pruned - just that we should take a closer look before deciding to get rid of them.

[pron]

I think that the near universality of many of those biases, and the fact that civilization arose pretty much independently around the world, it's pretty clear that that is the case. I don't think saying that is even controversial.

However, you must be careful with your history, because many biases (such as the place of women in the workplace) have actually changed considerably through history and across different cultures, and many of them actually peaked in Victorian times, and it is mostly the Victorian biases that we in the West are left with.

Nevertheless, the origin of the biases says nothing about their benefit. Obviously, beneficial behavior in pre-historical times was very different from what benefitted it in classical times, medieval times, the early-modern period, and certainly after the industrial revolution.

Finally, it is very hard to define what you mean by "a benefit to society" by any objective means. For simple organisms, increasing the population count is beneficial (although even that is not clear because that's assigning a value judgment to a mere fact). But what does it mean for human society? Obviously many people thought for a long time that slavery is very beneficial, although the slaves obviously disagreed. So the basic ideology of feminism basically has one tenet -- that of fairness -- and says that power should be more-or-less equally distributed among social categories that are determined at birth (except for individual misfortunes etc., which is another matter).

[PeterisP]

I would be very, very wary of a statement like "we wish to eliminate only those social biases that increase power inequality".

Yes, there untrue and unfair biases that increase power inequality, and those should be eliminated.

But what about preferences which, after careful deliberation, turn out to be actually objective to the best of our knowledge? If I understand your statements correctly, then they would imply that in this case, the if that bias/belief/preference/opinion would benefit the socially dominant group (thus increase power inequality), then then it should be eliminated; and if/when that same bias would benefit the socially disadvantaged group (this increasing power equality) then the exact same thing should be praised... which feels not okay to me.

I mean, people are different, and groups of people are also pretty different. For pretty much any useful property, when we split people in groups (e.g. by genders, by ager, or "all the current USA citizens with X ethnical background") we see examples where one of the group will have (on average) a significant objective advantage over another group in that property. Most likely it's not because of something they did or deserve, it's some effect of past generations of socioeconomic situations, ingrained cultural practices that favoured different attitudes to e.g. directions of education, or simple genetics - but there differences are real.

If you would achieve perfect equality of opportunity for each individual - you would still have a significant inequality of results and power between such groups.

If you would achieve perfect equality of results or power equality - that could only be done through very significant inequality of opportunities for individuals, significantly aiding or hampering them depending on which social groups they belong to. This does not seem acceptable to me at all; the goal is nice, but it definitely doesn't justify such (IMHO horrible) means.

[pron]

> but there differences are real.

But those differences aren't the laws of physics. We can change them, and we do change them all the time. The only question is in which direction? Saying "leave things alone" simply means let the existing dynamics continue and is as much of an ideology as "let's figure out what change would be in accordance with our values and do that".

> you would still have a significant inequality of results and power between such groups.

Between what groups? Struggle over power never stops. It's not a problem that can be solved once and for all, and people fight over it all the time. Even the most powerful fight to stay in power and even increase their power. All I'm saying is, find out what your values are and fight for those, rather than believe that the current state of affairs is "natural". It isn't. It is simply a recent snapshot of the situation after all previous struggles. Not fighting for your values is simply yielding to those who do.

> If you would achieve perfect equality of results or power equality - that could only be done through very significant inequality of opportunities for individuals, significantly aiding or hampering them depending on which social groups they belong to. This does not seem acceptable to me at all; the goal is nice, but it definitely doesn't justify such (IMHO horrible) means.

I said nothing of the means, and all of those fears are completely unfounded. Decades of research show us that people are being "aided or hampered them depending on which social groups they belong to" right now. All we want is to people to study and be aware of the state of affairs, and the goal is not to achieve perfect equality among all individuals, but to exactly remove the existing pressures on social groups -- that's all.

[leereeves]

Where does that definition of personal bias come from?

It seems to me that the dictionary definition and common understanding of personal bias is "a bias held by a particular person".

I've often seen social engineering redefine terms to redirect or derail discussions and find that very Orwellian.

[pron]

> It seems to me that the dictionary definition and common understanding of personal bias is "a bias held by a particular person".

Yes, and some biases are shared by many and propagate through social mechanisms. Those are called social biases.

> I've often seen social engineering redefine terms to redirect or derail discussions and find that very Orwellian.

Much of it is no more than a more careful, organized terminology designed to assist academic study. I find that many people who find stuff like that to be Orwellian are simply not interested to learn what it's really all about. If they did, they's find a fascinating field for research, and a clearer understanding of human society. Instead, many of them dismiss the study of human society because it eludes simple mathematical models (as all complex systems do), and may require a re-examination of things they take for granted.

Comments like this sounds to someone with a social sciences education as the statement "I feel this messing about with particles angers the gods, and, in particular, Zeus" would sound to anyone with a science education.

[outofcuriosity]

When a scientist measures the behaviour of particles in a carefully-defined system, they can replicate that behaviour such that they can say, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the particles always behave that way under those conditions.

Such replicability has not been demonstrated in systems as complex, chaotic, and essentially unmeasurable as the human brain, let alone a human society. A field of study is not a science without replicability.

Academic terminology, especially in the social "sciences," creates a scaffold of "theory" without any replicable data, and uses it to pass judgement on the behaviours of individuals without actually examining the individual's own motives for a behaviour. It's a dehumanizing assumption of determinism to believe that individuals are incapable of making decisions for themselves, or that conjectured Foucaultian structures (which could be said to exist only as linguistic sign for the speaker's own level of education) govern all human behaviour.

I'd even go so far as to say that if you believe that Power Structures determine all human behaviour, you're living in the worst sort of Bad Faith.

One either accepts that all study of human society (and all reexamination of values which occurs in its pursuit) is little more than observation, conjectures, and untestable hypotheses--or, one accepts that they do not understand what science is and how it is conducted and how it proceeds.

Calling the social sciences "science" is about as disingenuous and unscientific as calling Art History "Temporal Paint Physics."

[pron]

> A field of study is not a science without replicability.

What's your point? That unless we achieve the same certainty we do in physics we can't know anything?

> without any replicable data

That's just an outright lie.

> and uses it to pass judgement on the behaviours of individuals without actually examining the individual's own motives for a behaviour.

I don't think you have any clue what research says. Now you're just making stuff up.

> I'd even go so far as to say that if you believe that Power Structures determine all human behaviour, you're living in the worst sort of Bad Faith.

You're speaking from such total ignorance and justifying it by stating (with no clue) that our research is worthless, and hence you don't need to know it. No one is saying what you're saying. It's like me saying, "oh, so you're saying that all matter is energy? So how come my car can't drive on water?" In short, utter ignorance and lack of understanding and curiosity.

> One either accepts that all study of human society (and all reexamination of values which occurs in its pursuit) is little more than observation, conjectures, and untestable hypotheses--or, one accepts that they do not understand what science is and how it is conducted and how it proceeds.

Listen, buddy. After I studied math and computer science in college and graduate school, I went to study history, and, again, you have absolutely no clue. There are different practices and tools, and a different level of certainty -- sure -- but we still know a lot.

> Calling the social sciences "science" is about as disingenuous and unscientific as calling Art History "Temporal Paint Physics."

And dismissing the work of brilliant researchers without even studying it is juvenile and idiotic. No one is saying history is science in the same way that physics is science (neither is medicine, BTW). You're making up ridiculous strawmen just to convince yourself that it's OK to stay ignorant.

[outofcuriosity]

Yes, I am a strict logical positivist. Without reproducibility and meta-analyses (or rigorous empirical observation as in climatology, paleontology, etc.), no theory exists, because no meaningful and logically-consistent observations have been made.

I used Foucault's theories as an example, but if you think I am "making stuff up," then I would be pleased to hear your opinions about the other theorists and researchers who admit to the subjectivity and reporting bias intrinsic to the social sciences and instead formulate more "theory" with which to explain and evaluate the behaviour of chaotic systems.

I am not your buddy. I am not making up strawmen, nor do I dismiss the work of researchers without having gained at least a dilettante's familiarity with the field.

I am fascinated by cultures, history, human behaviour, etc. However, I am skeptical of "experimental conclusions" which arrive from surveys and observations of cultures. Incredibly noisy data.

Furthermore, I object to the ambiguation of a term like "science," which exists to connote the certitude of rigorous observations and analyses of systems, and to bestow a certain truth value upon these observations, to describe studies for which our best explanations for observed behaviours are guesswork.

I do believe that human beings, as tribal animals, are (sometimes, and with the possibility of override) governed by evolved ingroup/outgroup behaviours, and that this seems as likely an explanation as any for all the myriad strife in the world. Beyond that? It's anyone's guess.

[leereeves]

I agree with a lot what you said, but:

> A field of study is not a science without replicability.

excludes paleontology, geology, climatology, astrophysics, and many other physical sciences.

[leereeves]

Do you believe that political manipulation by careful use of language exists?

That's a big difference between Zeus's wrath and Orwellian tactics. One is real.

Perhaps social science should be more aware, or more open about, the political influence of its chosen terms, if it wants to be a neutral search for truth.

But I admit, I may have misinterpreted your definitions. From your examples, I thought you meant that personal bias was about something of little social import, like blue vs green, while a bias regarding other people (even one held personally) was not a personal bias.