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“If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.” - Old anonymous lawyer adage

While perusing the MassPoliticsProfs blog, I came across a comment on an article about rhetorical asymmetry which irrationally irritated me:

You definitely are a problem and should not be teaching with so much bias.

My first reaction was: “This professor wrote an entire essay; surely you can find one specific thing to pick apart, if you feel that it’s so ‘biased.’” I’m annoyed when people take cheap shots that don’t leave you with a chance to rebut in detail.

But it also got me thinking: growing up in a conservative household in Massachusetts, where it seemed that we were greatly outnumbered locally, it felt like “bias” was a good word to wield against teachers and authorities who demonstrated the slightest tilt away from full agreement. It wasn’t that we were ever wrong, or needed to introspect, no–it was that they were inherently against us and just wouldn’t listen to reason, because obviously, they were devout liberals.

I haven’t thought that way for a long time, but seeing it pop up here in the wild brought me back. When the author replied with a thoughtful, undeservedly detailed response, the user replied again with:

Bias bias bias. You should not be grading papers or influencing minds. I have much experience with professors like you.

And then again:

I do. I believe you are an example of those that assert YOUR OPINION and YOUR CHARACTERIZATIONS as “indisputable” which is a cardinal sin for an educator. You give no examples of his alleged vile and destructive ideas, probably because you know they would not hold up as such if honestly debated.

(It’s worth noting the first sentence of the professor’s blog entry is devoted to one such example.)

What is bias?

I feel like there are two competing ideas of the definition of the word bias: the denotation and the connotation.

The dictionary definition of “bias” as given by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “an inclination of temperament or outlook”, which to me, occupies a neutral stance: if you’re commenting on the asymmetry of two sides, you’ll have a bias by virtue of having an “inclination”. However, the colloquial definition of “bias” is highlighted in the follow-up: “a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : prejudice”. Or, when you present a stance which is grounded in feelings and deception, rather than sound logic. With the first definition, an article that isn’t neutral is “biased”, but with the second definition, it would only be “biased” if it couldn’t back its claims; as such, the word can be weaponized when there’s any tilt at all to try to discredit the source.

The author of the article has an inclination, but their foundation is backed up with reasoning. The commenter got as far as feeling uncomfortable with the content and recognizing the dissonance they felt, but never got as far as constructing a counter-argument based on the same level of detail as the post they replied to.

Symptoms, not causes

When confronting someone you disagree with, don’t be like the commenter here. If you sense bias, that’s a symptom of a bad argument, not the basis of one. If they felt that the author’s comment wasn’t grounded in reason, then their task would have been to highlight it and rebut it. Simply recognizing that someone has a tilt isn’t indication that they’re wrong, and in fact, a person well-versed in facts likely isn’t going to be 100% neutral on a given topic. It’s a clue to dig deeper–not the destination.