Woman sentenced to 20+ years for supposedly performing abortion

[Ultimate Paragon]

Could you give any actuall examples of this?

Their attempts to hijack academia, for one.

Less vague, please.

Fair enough. 

It's no secret that academia has a liberal bias.  That's been the case since at least the Sixties.  And this has led to some major problems in universities.  According to a poll published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, more than a third of respondents admitted that they would discriminate against conservatives.  Imagine if an academic said that about Latinos or gays!

Furthermore, this has a demonstrable negative impact in many fields of research.  The social sciences, for example, suffer heavily from groupthink.  Certain questions aren't asked, and certain answers aren't properly scrutinized.  If you care about science, you should care about this problem.

[dpareja]

Could you give any actuall examples of this?

Their attempts to hijack academia, for one.

Less vague, please.

Fair enough. 

It's no secret that academia has a liberal bias.  That's been the case since at least the Sixties.  And this has led to some major problems in universities.  According to a poll published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, more than a third of respondents admitted that they would discriminate against conservatives.  Imagine if an academic said that about Latinos or gays!

Furthermore, this has a demonstrable negative impact in many fields of research.  The social sciences, for example, suffer heavily from groupthink.  Certain questions aren't asked, and certain answers aren't properly scrutinized.  If you care about science, you should care about this problem.

At least part of this belongs at the feet of the anti-intellectual movement that's been going on since around that time. Since professors have ultimate authority over who gets to be on the academic staff at a university, and people in general would prefer to associate with others who agree with them, that means that as fewer people with conservative views entered university, people with liberal views were hired into academic positions simply because there were more of them, and they in turn hired others with liberal views.

The unfortunate result of this is the ideological shift you mentioned.

[Ironchew]

Could you give any actuall examples of this?

Their attempts to hijack academia, for one.

Less vague, please.

Fair enough. 

It's no secret that academia has a liberal bias.  That's been the case since at least the Sixties.  And this has led to some major problems in universities.  According to a poll published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, more than a third of respondents admitted that they would discriminate against conservatives.  Imagine if an academic said that about Latinos or gays!

It's less of a liberal bias in academia and more of an anti-intellectual bias in U.S. conservatives. The easiest example to give would be Republican opposition to AGW as a stake in their party platform; why would climatologists pay any attention to their evidence-free denialism?

I lay it at the feet of conservative leadership being very well-paid to deny any lines of evidence that suggest a government entity has to step in and regulate their rich benefactors.

The social sciences, for example, suffer heavily from groupthink.  Certain questions aren't asked, and certain answers aren't properly scrutinized.

Less vague, please.

[mellenORL]

Yeah, sorry UP, but [citation needed]

[Ultimate Paragon]

Yeah, sorry UP, but [citation needed]

Okay.

http://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bias-killing-social-science

[Dr. Weird]

What part of the state are you from?  I'm from the Chicagoland area (we get all the political ads for Illinois, and almost none for Indiana), and as bad as it can be here, I can't imagine what it must be like everywhere else in the state.  According to my freshman English teacher, the rest of the state doesn't even like people from northwest Indiana that much, and was called a 'region rat' when she went to a state university further south.

Indianapolis, which as a relatively big city is sane compared to most of the rest of the state, thank goodness.  Make no doubt, I still hear from lots of idiots--I'll never forget the day I was sitting in a doctors office wanting to strangle an old lady loudly blathering Fox "News" points about "Obama is a Muslin blah blah blah" but I live in Andrew Carson's congressional district and even our state congressperson is a Democrat.  Go to far any direction, though, and sure enough I'll run into the rural hehaws who think people like Todd Rokita, Dan Burton, and Mike Pence are/were worthy of public office.

I personally haven't heard any slagging of Northwest Indiana around here, but it may be a function of distance and, again, being a relatively urban and sane area.

[Barbarella]

Could you give any actuall examples of this?

Their attempts to hijack academia, for one.

Paragon, I'm a big Lefty. I was with you on this until you started to get all "Universities Are All Moonbatty". IMHO, we need more Liberalism. I'm not going to lump all Conservatives into the "Wingnut/Teabagger" category but I'm not going to equate Universities with The Weather Underground.

I think a lot of our disagreements with each other, guys, is due to having different definitions & connotations to the same word/term/name. One person uses a word or phrase & means it to mean one thing but another person might see a slightly different meaning. This leads to a bunch of confusion.

[ironbite]

It's too bad reality has a liberal basis.

Ironbite-then he'd have a point.

[Sigmaleph]

Postmodernists are typically leftists. Anti-vaxxer/anti-gmo/alternative medicine types are typically leftists. The crazy wing of the Social Justice movement is more or less entirely leftist. I think 9/11 truthers skew leftist as well, though I'm not sure.

The left has plenty of idiots to go around.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Could you give any actuall examples of this?

Their attempts to hijack academia, for one.

Paragon, I'm a big Lefty. I was with you on this until you started to get all "Universities Are All Moonbatty". IMHO, we need more Liberalism. I'm not going to lump all Conservatives into the "Wingnut/Teabagger" category but I'm not going to equate Universities with The Weather Underground.

I think a lot of our disagreements with each other, guys, is due to having different definitions & connotations to the same word/term/name. One person uses a word or phrase & means it to mean one thing but another person might see a slightly different meaning. This leads to a bunch of confusion.

Oh, of course not.  Not all universities have been hijacked by moonbats.  However, there's definitely a strain of moonbattery in academia.  Moreover, this is leading to attacks on freedom of speech on campuses all over America.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/21/colleges-restrict-free-speech-fire-report_n_4633542.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-progressive-ideas-behind-the-lack-of-free-speech-on-campus/2015/02/20/93086efe-b0e7-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html

It's too bad reality has a liberal basis.

Ironbite-then he'd have a point.

That statement is pure nonsense.  In the 19th Century, most of the world was controlled by white people, directly or indirectly.  Does that mean reality had a pro-white bias?

[ironbite]

Nope still liberal.

[I am lizard]

Postmodernists are typically leftists. Anti-vaxxer/anti-gmo/alternative medicine types are typically leftists. The crazy wing of the Social Justice movement is more or less entirely leftist. I think 9/11 truthers skew leftist as well, though I'm not sure.

The left has plenty of idiots to go around.

I would like to point out anti-vaxxers don't slant towards any one side http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/conservatives_and_liberals_hold_anti_science_views_anti_vaxxers_are_a_bipartisan.html

And yes, it's true their is liberal idiots, it's just that they don't cause even a fraction the damage right-wing extremists have,

[Ultimate Paragon]

Postmodernists are typically leftists. Anti-vaxxer/anti-gmo/alternative medicine types are typically leftists. The crazy wing of the Social Justice movement is more or less entirely leftist. I think 9/11 truthers skew leftist as well, though I'm not sure.

The left has plenty of idiots to go around.

I would like to point out anti-vaxxers don't slant towards any one side http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/conservatives_and_liberals_hold_anti_science_views_anti_vaxxers_are_a_bipartisan.html

And yes, it's true their is liberal idiots, it's just that they don't cause even a fraction the damage right-wing extremists have,

That's really debatable.

[R. U. Sirius]

It should also be noted, UP, that higher levels of education tend to make people more liberal.

You would probably say that it's because of the influence of liberal professors in academia. While that's undoubtedly a factor, I'd argue that a much larger one would be the fact that higher levels of education tend to expose people to other worldviews and ways of thinking. While that doesn't immunize them against groupthink and "my side is always correct," it does tend to foster a greater concern for the rights of others. American conservatism, on the other hand, has strong anti-intellectual tendencies even in their mainstream...if something is too complicated to explain in ten minutes or less, it's not worth knowing, "real men always follow their gut," the glorification of unquestioning faith over critical thought, etc.

Add in the fact that you need a certain degree of higher education in order to qualify to TEACH higher education, and you get a situation where most of the people applying for higher-education jobs are already predisposed toward a liberal worldview. That's not some vast conspiracy on the Left's part; that's just how it shakes out.

I'm still waiting for you to give any examples of how liberal idiots are anywhere near as dangerous as conservative idiots.

[Art Vandelay]

Postmodernists are typically leftists. Anti-vaxxer/anti-gmo/alternative medicine types are typically leftists. The crazy wing of the Social Justice movement is more or less entirely leftist. I think 9/11 truthers skew leftist as well, though I'm not sure.

The left has plenty of idiots to go around.

I would like to point out anti-vaxxers don't slant towards any one side http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/02/conservatives_and_liberals_hold_anti_science_views_anti_vaxxers_are_a_bipartisan.html

And yes, it's true their is liberal idiots, it's just that they don't cause even a fraction the damage right-wing extremists have,

That's really debatable.

Are you going to tell us why, or are we just supposed to take your word for it?