Slashdot Mirror
Google Search Results Have Liberal Bias, Study Finds (thedenverchannel.com)
According to a new study reported by The Wall Street Journal, Google's search results tend to lean liberal. "An analysis by online-search marketer CanIRank.com found that 50 recent searches for political terms on Google surfaced more liberal-leaning webpages than conservative ones, as rated by a panel of four people." The Denver Channel reports: "Minimum wage" tended to yield more liberal results, while "does gun control reduce crime" resulted in more conservative ones. Searches for "financial regulation" and "federal reserve" found mostly nonpartisan links. CanIRank used the opinions of four people to determine how liberal or conservative each website was. For 16 percent of the political search terms studied, no right-leaning results showed up at all on the first page of results. CanIRank noted this could be a problem for democracy. A different study found most people click on one of the first five search results. Users rarely move on to the second page. A Google spokesperson said in an email to the WSJ: "From the beginning, our approach to search has been to provide the most relevant answers and results to our users, and it would undermine people's trust in our results, and our company, if we were to change course." According to Google, their results are "determined by algorithms using hundreds of factors" and "reflect the content and information that is available on the internet."
It is a well known fact that reality has a strong liberal bias.
Most results are biased towards the side that feels most emphatically about it? Not shocking, if their hundreds of factor algorithms include things like links or hits.
Well, as they say, truth has a liberal bias, so if your search engine weights things that provide more credible factual information, and more credible factual information is associated with liberal news/information sources, what's the problem?
If the effect however, is that conservative opinions / viewpoints based on factual information are being deemphasized, then that's a valid point - but I don't think that's the effect going on here. Or perhaps conservative viewpoint webpages tend not to contain the same amount of credible factual information...
Intelligence has a liberal bias.
Google is a smart search engine built by smart people.
CanIRank.com found that 50 recent searches for political terms on Google surfaced more liberal-leaning webpages than conservative ones, as rated by a panel of four people.
Four people rated the results? That sounds like pretty flimsy evidence. Why are their opinions some definitive source of truth?
That's is because liberal information tends to be science-based, while conservative information tends to be faith-based. eg "I believe this is true because people/jesus told me it is."
That doesn't mean that all Liberal information is correct, nor does it mean conservative information is incorrect, it just means that the basis for forming that information tends to lean liberal because liberals put more value on science or fact-checking than conservatives do. You would never use breitbart or foxnews as a primary source because the information is at best misleading and at worse outright fabrication. Likewise Liberals would would not use CNN as a primary source either because the information tends to be hype-based. Liberals tend to have to look at CBC in Canada or BBC in the UK for a unbiased fact-checking, but may still need a truth filter because both CBC and BBC are government broadcasters. The US has no government broadcaster (NPR/PBS is about as close as you get as a neutral source.)
Conservatives whine like crazy when their blatantly inaccurate claims aren't reported as "news". Then, by claiming some sort of bias against their fake news, they grant legitimacy to their phony claims. Your fake news isn't real news, republicans. I know that you are too stupid to know the difference, but the rest of us know that you are lying and spreading misinformation. Now, go on and keep whining until google has to pretend your FAKE NEWS is legitimate. Poison the well, assholes. Poison the well.
"It is a well known fact that reality has a liberal bias."
- Stephen Colbert
And will continue to, regardless of recent election results.
Global warming? Still happening,
Evolution? That too.
Your favorite invisible friend? Maybe not.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."
This signature is false.
As the summary indicates the bias varies with the topic. Having a conservative bias on gun control suggests the engine is getting things correct. In this case the conservative side is more fact based and less appealing to emotion and placebo "solutions". So yeah, maybe the search engine page ranking is working fine.
... can cite this damaging evidence, provided by four fucking people , to contest the election.
Oh, wait.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Given the party political support that taints brands in the USA.
How about a search engine that just searches?
No SJW algorithms, no SJW suggestions, no party political staff, just search results for a global community.
Get back to literally search results and if reality is offensive or disparaging that is more to do with decades of policy, party and politics.
A search engine is not a safe space. If the user wants a safe space online, let them configure settings for that on their own devices.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
So that's what we're down to? Baiting the low UID wingnuts that linger here for clicks?
Man this place has gone downhill.
a fact bias? Because that could explain things. . .
Note: Moderators that modded this down had a small penis bias.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
You probably meant to type "According to a new study reported by a fox-media-pwned newspaper ..."
The summary in fact offers an example where conservative websites are emphasized and it happens to be on a topic where the conservatives usually have the facts on their side. Gun control. Like it or not the facts from an engineering and historical point of view favor the conservatives. The liberal side of the argument seems mostly emotion and embracing placebo "solutions".
I have read a lot of lines about 'the truth has a liberal bias', or 'liberal information tends to be science based', and I have to shake my head.
Try googling for any information on how to 'combat the rise of gender-fluidity', or 'how to explain physiology is a binary gender system', or 'how to explain gender fluidity is a social construct' and you get Nothing, Zip, Nada, that isn't in support of this brand of mental disorder.
Science based? Truth? Not even close. Everywhere you see sex that's outside a human social construct there's a male and female. Only humans social structure describes non-existent genders in liberal circles.
Not a troll, or flamebait, but I have asbestos underwear on, and I can already feel the flames from the mod-activism firing up.
Fact is, The science and truth hurt the liberal cause acutely no matter how much spin they try and put on it.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Both Google and Facefuck do this crap.
Reality has a liberal bias. The google search results merely reflect reality.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It means that more liberals use the Internet to look up political information than conservatives. The ranking algorithms are ultimately driven by how the crowds are using the Internet, after all.
Liberals are just as quick as anyone to throw science to the wind when its results don't meet their forgone conclusions. Like stats about the uselessness of gun control, for example.
...if you can't down mod an entire article
-1 flame bait
And will continue to, regardless of recent election results.
You underestimate, perhaps, the necessity of rectifying the facts to make them more congruent with post-election reality.
You'd have to be a fool, not to know that Google slants results. It's how they make money.
So much more satisfying, isn't it, to smugly dismiss the opinions of others rather than consider the possibility that you were wrong?
Keep it up. Maybe you can flip a few more states to Trump in 2020...
If they're not and these pages were the most selected, I don't see where the problem is.
50 recent searches for political terms on Google surfaced more liberal-leaning webpages than conservative ones, as rated by a panel of four people.
In other words, four people have a conservative bias. :)
With just 4 people, it seems like a randomly correct result.
I get it slashdot is american blah blah blah.
But many of the issues that are raising in the US as conservative vs liberal are not in the same camp when in other countries. Gun control is a prime example. In Australia the strict gun control laws were put in place by the strongly conservative party. Also minimum wage legislation was introduced by Deakin in 1904 who was the leader of the then right wing party.
Google's results are not the same for every searcher in every locale. They are dependent on what you've searched for in the past, where you're at, what is in the news at the moment, etc.
In other words, they are quite intentionally biased to meet the likely desires of the user. This article has no basis in science, though it cloaks itself in that fashion to those who know nothing about science, and is far more biased than Google's search results.
... and Google search results are just reflecting the web. In other words, don't blame the messenger for the message conveyed.
You post so much flamebait it's unreasonable. You either don't understand stats and just post these out of ignorance or you're a paid troll.
Either way stop or leave. I fucking hate you.
.
If that center benchmark is too far towards the conservative side, then the web (and, subsequently, google's search results) will appear to have a liberal bias.
In other words, maybe the web does not have a liberal bias, maybe the center benchmark that the researchers used is too far towards the conservative side.
I can't think of ANY study where 4 people would be a statistically valid sample size.
Somebody is either a cheapskate, or using tricks to yank our crank.
Table-ized A.I.
I have observed that liberals tend to be idealists, conservatives realists. The song Imagine by John Lennon is a beautiful expression of liberal thinking.
Liberals speak of what they desire *could* be, and very often of how things *should* be. Conservatives focus much more on the cold, hard facts of how things *are*. So much so that it often makes discussions difficult:
Conservative: That doesn't work, X% of y are Z.
Liberal: No! X shouldn't be Z!
Conservative: "Should" doesn't matter, X -are- Z.
Liberal: You racist fuck, you think X should be Z!? That makes you a bigot!
Try googling for any information on how to 'combat the rise of gender-fluidity'....... you get Nothing, Zip, Nada, that isn't in support of this brand of mental disorder.
I'm curious what did you expect to find?
Do you expect to find people expression hatred towards people conditioned with what you called a "brand of mental disorder"?
Honestly, I'm not surprised that "hate" is down rated by search engines.
Science based? Truth? Not even close
Scientists rarely gets founded to "combat" something, before it's been clearly identified as a problem. Obesity is a problem (facts are in on that).
Now if you go searching for why there is a rise or a perceived rise you might actually get some results.
Note: if you do find an article labelled 'how to combat the rise of gender-fluidity', you'll likely see it founded by fundamentalists who have already decided that gender-fluidity is a problem. Without actually studying the phenomenon first.
On an unbiased scientific note: I seriously doubt gender-fluidity has a scale that could threaten humanity.
Other than being weird in your (and many others) subjective opinion, what evidence is there that it's an issue?
My first post may have cast liberals in a negative role. Both viewpoints are needed, so ideally we'd all respect the others' ways of looking at things. Liberals are strong at imagining a great thing, as dream end state. Then respect the conservatives' that the budget won't cover all that, but we CAN afford to do A, B, and C.
Proved again that fact, truth, science, and honesty has a liberal bias.
Given a specific selection of searches a putatively unbiased panel said the results were biased. Some of the serches were: ... liberal bias ... conservative bias ... non-partisan ... non-partisan
"Minimum wage"
"does gun control reduce crime"
"financial regulation"
"federal reserve"
Why do I feel accurate reporting of web pages would produce a that kind of bias? This seems to be a non-story tricked up to try to appear shocking.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Actually, Google Search Results have "Yes" bias and not "liberal" bias.
Goolge Search is designed to find "relevant" (as Google says), "helpful" and "useful" information, so it needs to be designed to look for "positive" and "affirmative" words.
"Liberals" are more likely to say "can be solved", "can work together", "can get along" and so on.
"Conservatives" are more likely to say "can't be solved", "can't work together", "can't get along" and so on.
Google Search ends up thinking "agreeing liberals" are "good results" and "denying consevatives" as "bad results".
The approach of Google Search is fine when looking for information with the correct answer such as "Yes, 1+1=2" but fails on social issues with no clear answer.
This study is just way, way too small to have the conclusion it claims to have.
Whether left-leaning or right-leaning results turn up depends upon a wide variety of factors, not least of which is wording (left-leaning sites and right-leaning sites often use slightly different wording for the same issue). I don't see how it is even remotely possible for a group of four people to review enough searches to make up a representative sample, and four people is too small a number to provide a solid opinion.
Also, there's a distinct possibility that for some issues, left-leaning sites have talked about those issues far more frequently and in far more depth, while right-leaning sites will have discussed other, different issues.
Finally, I see no reason why Google should be held to any sort of standard of false balance: there are many issues for which the facts very solidly support the left, and it makes sense for Google's search results to reflect that bias. One of the clearest examples here would be global warming, but there are many others.
Google results are biased towards what users at a particular location using a particular computer and a particular account find to be correct.
I.e. Billy Bob and William Jefferson the Third just may not get the same results when googling for things. Particularly when it comes to cigars.
You know... Search engine giving YOU results YOU are searching for... not what someone else might be searching for...
Something tells me that Google may be spending a lot of time and resources on getting that to actually work.
On the other hand... both the list of "50 politically-relevant keywords" and their methodology ARE left-leaning by default.
Their methodology includes MANY "relevance" checks - which is bound to select for left-leaning results when googling for terms such as "abortion" instead of "baby murder" or "global warming" instead of "global warming hoax".
Hell... they didn't even search for "Mexicans", "Muslims", "N-word", "terrorist"... Nor was there a single search for "Pepe".
Or "pussy" for that matter. And speaking of matter...
Don't these people know that it's not just "black lives matter" but that "all lives matter" and "blue lives matter" too?
You know... Actual right-leaning vocabulary.
BTW... Apparently Slashdot also has a left-leaning bias. Wont' let me say "Nig.ers" with two 'g's.
Remember that as you read all the other posts here. This is a left-leaning site.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The summary in fact offers an example where conservative websites are emphasized and it happens to be on a topic where the conservatives usually have the facts on their side. Gun control.
Sorry to burst your American bubble but there is a simpler explanation: Google searches the web worldwide with the emphasis on "world". On the US political spectrum the average person in Europe and Canada probably maps to somewhere marginally right of communism and since Google will use links to judge interest those of us in the rest of the world could produce a 'liberal bias' compared to the US.
This would also explain why gun control came back more conservative. Whatever your views on it are the only country which really debates gun control now is the US, everywhere else the debate is pretty much over except for the odd discussion about changes to the gun control regulations in a particular country which is far less of an emotive discussion and usually affects only a small fraction of the population.
Said the person looking down on those with a different viewpoint, ironically.
Study results aside, Google returns search results that are most likely relevant and ranked by what people looked at in the past. This means, if the first 8 results are no good and everyone clicks (and stays at) on the ninth result, it will make it's way toward number one. Liberal or conservative, these are the pages people looked at the most. It could be more liberal people use Google or maybe conservatives are seeking out results they disagree with but that's not really important. What is important is that Google is simply returning the results that people are seeking.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I don't trust Google any farther than I can throw them, but they've got orders of magnitude more credibility than the WSJ. There's absolutely zero doubt that each and every murdock "news outlet" has a severe conservative bias. More than four people have confirmed that.
Search phrase wording affects results returned. GASP!!! Almost like the algorithms are working as designed.....
... depending on whether the search is by a liberal or conservative.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I tested the theory several times through the election process. "How do I vote" would immediately fill in "for Hillary Clinton" and the name "Donald Trump" would not appear even when you typed in "Donald Trum". Searching for "Presidential Candidates" would show Hillary and Obama, with Trump being down between 6 and 9 places in the list. When millions of people report the same exact symptom, it no longer remains something you can explain with a personal anecdote.
Google Management and executives have a bias toward Democratic/Liberal politics. This can show up in their product with relative ease, and if you don't believe so perhaps spend a bit of time with data analysts who can show you how to manipulate data for the effect you want. Study Statistics, which is all about manipulating data for effect.
While it's true that the study will be accepted by people who have the world view that Google censors content, people who happen to favor Democratic/Liberal politics will disbelieve it.
Reality is not distorted, only our view of it is distorted. Without facts, such as the question in my subject, we can only speculate on the facts that we do have.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
There was an OTM episode a few months ago that talked honestly about bias in reporting on gun issues. Most reporters for the main stream media live in large metropolitan areas where guns aren't common (for non-criminals anyway) and their knowledge is extremely lacking. They interviewed a journalist from the midwest that took the MSM to task for getting so many basic things about gun control reporting incorrect. Basic facts like the difference between semi-automatic and automatic weapons and how it amplifies the mistrust of MSM for gun owners.
For those that don't know, OTM is produced by WNYC, a pretty liberal NPR affiliate.
Go use another search engine that caters to your political persuasion.
I can't search for anything on Google without being buried in an ocean of far-right conservative fear-mongering and conspiracy theories. It got so bad that I eventually had to start setting up filters. I happen to live in the South, and I've often wondered if the results I see are targeted to my geography.
a small group of people brought together to investigate or decide on a particular matter.
"an interview panel"
synonyms: group, advisory group, team, body, committee, jury, council, board, commission
"a panel of judges"
You know... like those people who score individual performances at sports events... or those people on that supreme court thing...
Some might even call such a group a "panel of experts".
On the other hand, "the four people" part seems to be a Wall Street Journal invention.
All that the actual CanIRank.com analysis mentions is "scorers from both sides of the political spectrum" and that they "were in agreement as to the degree and direction of bias for about half of the results, and were within 1 point on approximately 90%".
On the other hand, I wouldn't trust someone who references "four people" either. Might as well say "four guys", "four dudes" or "four humans".
Which leaves us with a question - why would a Wall Street Journal writer use such a 4th grade language when he should know better?
Particularly when it's a phrase he invented... and he only writes about Google...
There are other biases out there other than the left- or right- bias.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...only an idiot (aka liberal) would think otherwise.
Since liberal opinions are far closer to reality, or actuality, if you prefer, then the best answers will tend to be liberal answers. Obviously the cloud of total idiocy covers many conservative minds. You know, dullards like Trumpenstein have conservative and incorrect beliefs and warped minds.
the truth has a liberal bias, bwahahah
the obvious assumption of the critique is that the population of web-pages on any issue breaks evenly across the left and right, or that the number of pages worth linking to do. if 55% of (quality) web pages were "liberal", and you randomly sampled it, then 55% of your sample, on average, is going to be "liberal".
They can't be defended.
Is there a bias or are we as people on this planet just more frequently linking to these types of content which influences search results in this way?
No, you just live in a liberal country and get information from a liberal media.
This is just basic human nature here. Get a set of results randomly with out any particular bias. Those far on the right will perceive a left wing bias. Those far on the left will perceive a right wing bias.
Of course, that is also very wrong since there is no clearly defined "center" anyway. It's silly to lump all of politics into left versus right.
Wow a study based on four people.
Four people. That's enough to split a large cheese pizza. That's enough to fill a Mini Cooper S. Play double tennis/volleyball, bowling team. Run a dungeon on World of Warcraft. Last but not least, run a polling place during elections.
Liberal according to what measure? The German CDU is liberal compared to the US Republicans, and they are liberal compared to the German AfD and other Neo-Nazi parties.
I hope no one spent any money on this because this is a complete joke.
Reality has a liberal bias.
Now that Google is talking about deciding which sites are "fake news" and which are not, look for anything that doesn't toe the Liberal Line to start falling in rank.
I have a feeling that whoever put this together did so without any sense of direction, any consideration for experimental control or any other way of offering something in lieu of proof, anything. Just anything, period. This person that did this study and wrote about it has a fucking cabbage for a head. That's how that works.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Any articles that feature the strings 'liberal', 'conservative' or any superlative should immediately be piped to /dev/null and you should volunteer to put your own head in the toilet for wasting everyone's time.
Is this a bias with respect to the U.S. political center? Then shouldn't this result be expected if Google returns an unbiased view of the Internet? After all, the Internet is much larger than the U.S., and large parts of the world are on the left of the U.S. political center.
Reality has a liberal bias too, that's been shown again and again. That's not surprising since the other side is based on beliefs.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I will explain you why. Most right wing party are what we call "conservative". Which means a tendency to not change the status quo, to ark back to position which static , "what was done before is good enough" etc... It is only a tendency so look at the average. By nature conservative stay on the habitual position we had. The problem is, science and the new technology we have had for the last 100 years and especially 20-30 years are disruptive. New knowledge is disruptive of the habits of the old one. For example science discovered that spanking is contra productive. Science pointed out at global warning. The problem is that that "new" fact , is disruptive of "old" fact. So they go AGAINST the current for conservative. That is why even it is said in jest, science and new stuff , as disruptive of old stuff as they are, have an anti-conservative bias by nature. New discovery by necessity disrupt old habits/old knowledge, and so by definition will be anti conservative. Some people say "liberal" bias but I would say "disruptive" as politically neutral, as some of the cow of "liberals" (I hate those term) are also slaughtered by disruptive new findings.
So yes, even if said in jest, there is a base of truth in it.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Just consider this: Google works using a (modified) version of the pagerank algorithm. That algorithm ranks pages on importance as measured by referral links weighted by their rank, etc. etc.. Meaning that if the internet contains more coherent clusters of cross-referring pages of a lliberal/consevative signature referring to a page with a certain match string, those results will end up in Google results. It sort of reflects the intensity of discussion.
Apparently there are fewer conservative leaning pages in referring clusters than that link to "minimum wage" than liberal ones.
Surprised?
Try googling for "protect our second amenment rights" and count the liberal hits.
I have observed that liberals tend to be idealists, conservatives realists.
Complete nonsense. Conservatives aren't realists at all. They just have different ideals than the liberals but they at least as unrealistic if not more so. Many conservative ideals are not grounded in pragmatism at all. Evidence supported by data seems to be unknown to a good portion of them. Many conservative ideals come straight out of religious dogma which has no basis in objective reality.
I'm not saying they are necessarily better or worse but to pretend that conservatives are more "realists" than liberals is just ridiculous. They are nothing of the sort as a general proposition
I suspect if you actually dug into Google's algorithms you'd discover that Google is probably not biased but that the internet almost certainly is
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Then respect the conservatives' that the budget won't cover all that, but we CAN afford to do A, B, and C.
Baloney. The conservatives NEVER argue to cut the things that actually matter from the budget. They just borrow the money instead of raising taxes but are just as irresponsible. Conservatives NEVER bring up cutting social security, medicare/medicaid, or the defense budget which together account for about 3/4 of the federal budget. Any politician that claims to be about fiscal responsibility who doesn't talk about how they are going to cut the defense budget or medicare is lying through their teeth about what the budget will cover. They are unwilling to make the hard choices and cut the programs that matter.
You could cut every cent of every program except for medicare, medicaid, defense and social security and you STILL couldn't balance the budget. So anyone who talks about "cutting pork" without discussing those four programs is full of shit about being fiscally responsible.
I have to wonder where you get your news. Name ANY conservative leader and I'll give you some links of them addressing exactly those issues. The leading Republican right now is the guy who was unanimously voted Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. He said, very clearly, that fixing Medicare is a top priority for the new Congress. The headlines of left-leaning publications currently are things like "Paul Ryan to dismantle Medicare". The LA Times just had that headline, for example. This Washington Post article is a tad more factual.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
I don't know where you've been getting your information, but obviously not from any of the major media. Chris Christie's speeches about Social Security are legendary. So anyway go ahead and name ANY conservative leader and I'll show you video of them covering those topics or specific policy proposals to address them.
Is it really a shock that, when asking about liberal-leaning ideas (i.e., minimum wage) the results are more liberal-leaning, and vice versa?
I trust the WSJ to relay corporate press releases adequately but their editorial slant is the sort of murdochian right wing nutjobbery that leads to 'conservapedia'. Anything except extreme climate denialism and laffer curve idolatry is likely to register with them as a liberal plot to destroy america.
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
was the response of a conservative friend to fact checking of some anti Obama propaganda he Cc'd to our mailing list.
photosMy Photostream
Betcha the WSJ's vendor for this story failed to flush cache and use a new plain vanilla account, so what they're reporting is the damned search bubble for their office account or the employee's account.
> And they don't even talk about cutting defense spending which is the biggest issue.
As far as "the biggest issue", it's about 1% of GDP. That's significant. Obamacare probably has larger economic effects, but 1% is significant.
Here's a chart of defense spending over 30 years. You can see the largest cuts, which are significant, were the cuts passed in 1989, starting with the 1990 budget and phased in over ten years. You probably remember who was president.
http://www.usgovernmentspendin...
I mentioned 1%, then the chart I linked is just since 1990.
The two don't go together, of course. 1% is a very long term number.
If you search for global warming, should you come up with 50% conservative sites that say it doesn't exist?? If you search for "is Trump an asshole", should 50% of the sites say no??? If you search for income equality, should 50% of the sites say poor people are just whiners? Sometimes the truth hurts.
This entire media "bias" meme really separates those who allowed their schooling to interfere with their education, and those of us who didn't. What would unbiased media even look like? I don't know, but it would certainly be a state propaganda feed, because something can only be unbiased as measured against a ratified, societal norm.
For Act II, how about we stick our little strip of pink/blue bias-detection litmus paper into the baptismal bowl at Lakewood Church? Bias? Just imagine. Part of a giant, orchestrated, financially flush media empire? Absolutely. Harder to Google than the printed word? Who would have guessed?
There's a good sociological reason Wikipedia is largely authored by literate, STEM-positive, over-educated, middle-aged white males such as myself—many of us keep our Sunday morning calendars free and clear of conflicting obligations.
Journalism—the kind that operates outside the church—also, tilts toward a literate, STEM-positive, over-educated, professional cadre.
I once read a book by an IT consultant from way back. (Gerald Weinberg would have been on my desk at the time, but I'm not sure it was him.) As the story went, he was shooting the shit in the cubical of the middle manager who was likely to retain him, and noticed a huge, fancy chart on the wall documenting the weekly software defect rate. Seeing an in, his mouth shot out "looks like you have a problem here with software quality".
Already steaming, the middle manager shot right back, "what the fuck do you mean?" and proceeded to explain that the chart was just one artefact of an industry-leading quality management program that actually bothered to meticulously self-assess, which was almost unheard of in its time. The consultant had been brought in to forestall future pain, rather than medicate human folly. Lesson learned: think before you assume that smoke means unmanaged fire.
Journalism self assesses, bias purportedly found (by an otherwise unloved wolf-calling sub-population whose standard of hard thinking is managing to distinguish red from blue along a single axis).
Wikipedia self assesses, huge pockets of white male nerds discovered.
The church self assesses, oh noes we've got a few here who haven't swallowed the catechism lock, stock, and barrel; we should redouble our efforts.
Hmmm, different agendas.
At the end of the day, bias is mainly found in the organizations leading the curve in self-assessment (not hard to do, as this is so rarely done at all).
Go back to the Contract with America, the Congress that started in 1995. It was a Republican Congress and Bill Clinton was Pres. They fought him tooth and nail, shutting down the government for weeks, sometimes months on end. They shut down I think it was 13 agencies - totally useless agencies. Interstate Commerce Commission to name just one. If you look at the deficit, starting in 1998 we were doing well and when GW Bush took office, they actually issued a rebate. Of course the Democrats wanted the overpay that the higher paying tax payers contributed to go to the poor. So my refund went to a bottom feeder somewhere. I overpaid my taxes and they got it.
Part of that contract is that they would do term limits, and they honored them. Unfortunately most were simply replaced by Democrats and things went right back to spend, spend, spend. Then in 2008 with Barry and his buds in a D congress, man did they go hogg wild. They, to this day haven't passed another budget since GW Bush! The one with the auto bailout! Press doesn't say a word, now we're up to a 21 T debt thanks to the Democrats. Democrats often rationalize all this, we prevented a depression (no we didn't if you count everyone on food stamps and such, it's actually worse than the depression), spent on infrastructure and such. We didn't fix the infrastructure or any of that other stuff. It went into things like the Clinton Foundation as we see actual expenditures on some Dept records that actually say that. Barry is well into his millions for his corruption. Goes on and on. They brainwashed everyone into thinking all of this is fine. Brainwashed really well. Even violations of the espionage act - that's ok. If a Republican did it, you'd never hear from them again.
has a liberal bias.
Furries make the internet go.
Measuring only US intelligences, that never lived in communism?
Just after posting, I realized I had swapped the variables. I figured I'd get about two idiots saying "haha you stupid idiot. You used the wrong variable, so you're a moron." Or perhaps more likely:
your a idiot you said x not y your stupid fucker
Your post was slightly more clever.
There, I fixed the title for ya.
Think globally but act within local variable scope.
It is a well known fact that reality has a strong liberal bias.
Correct... although I think it was more correct 10 years ago than it is today. This is particularly evident with issues requiring nuance. With broad brush strokes and in the big picture, liberals still completely blow conservatives away (at least in this country), but I've noticed that they are becoming less and less able or willing to delve into more detailed rational analysis. The obvious examples generally involve calling out the overeager progressives (/ SJWs) on their statistical fabrications, but it's not limited to that.
For example, in the past three days I've had two people around here foe me for daring to point out things like the fact that Trump did not "admit" to sexually assaulting anyone, but rather was babbling about being a magnet for beautiful women and said that they "let you" do things with them. They don't continue the debate past a post or two; they just shut up and foe me. That let is a very common word with a perfectly agreed-on definition does not appear to matter to these people:
"They didn't really let him; they were coerced! He was in a position of power!"
"Well, that may well be, but there's no indication of that on the tape. I'm definitely not claiming he's innocent; I'm just saying that he didn't admit to what you (and the New York Times, for crying out loud) are claiming he admitted to. He was clearly engaged in some over the top macho bragging that women were *that into him* that he didn't have to 'wait' for a bunch of tedious flirting or courting. He wasn't bragging about not waiting for any form of express or implied consent; that's ridiculous. The whole context of this cringingly bad boasting is that they know who he is and exhibit attraction to his wealth."
"But he apologized! Why would he apologize if he wasn't talking about grabbing pussy without permission?!"
"Uh, well, he was running as a *Republican* and he was caught red-handed talking extremely crudely about extramarital sex. Maybe that might have something to do with it?"
It seems that minor quibbles like these are conversation-enders with a lot of people these days, even if you include (as I try to remember to do so) a bunch disclaimers about how you're a liberal/leftist, can't stand Trump, didn't vote for him, and acknowledge that he may well have assaulted one or more of the women who accused him. It's fairly astonishing. And worrying. The echo chambers are being reinforced and the heretics cast out... hmm. I confess I was rather looking forward to seeing this kind of self-destruction on the right in this country. This is less fun to behold.
I guess the bottom line is I'm not sure reality will always have a liberal bias. Don't count on it. Don't take it for granted. I say that partially because we need to constantly strive to stay in touch with the world as it really is, but also I simply don't think the left needs more smugness right now.