On Bias and Values

Interesting discussion on on bias and values on MR:

I understand procedural bias, which happens when a person throws out valuable information because he doesn't like the conclusion. And I understand ideological rigidity, which suggests that a person's view on one issue predicts his view on most other issues far too readily. I also understand that a curious and open-minded person should be absorbing enough
information to change (how much?) percent of his views every (how many?) years or so. (Is it worse if I am changing my views in predictable fashion, or should the change be a random walk?) But is it so bad for the prolific to be predictable? Am I not allowed to have a shelf life?

Janet takes a bit further:

...[V]alue judgements are hard to argue with--is green a better colour than blue? Should we have justice or peace? Thus, we all seek to make our value preferences into facts, rather than opinions.

I think one of the biggest problems facing economists, and to some degree other social scientists, is the feeling that if you're just a little bit willing to fudge facts, you could do a great deal of good. If you'd torture the numbers just a little--not even torture, really, just waterboarding and a few stress positions--you could convince people to do what you know, deep in your heart, is
the right thing. If you produce numbers showing that tax cuts increase tax revenue, or the minimum wage increases jobs, or GDP doubles for every 10% increase in the salaries of economists--why, you could do a whole world of good.

Some good remarks in the comments:

...in the physical sciences (most of them) you can take a thousand cases that are identical except for one variable, and see what laws are true. That'll quash the debate pretty nicely. Social sciences can't hope to have anywhere near that kind of experimental precision.

...You should read "On Certainty" by Ludwig Wittgenstein. You are getting into some deep water about how people "know" things and when they are willing to discard one belief for another. Do you revise your political beliefs based on
what you read & study? Or do you test what you read and study AGAINST your political views? For most people, there's a bit of both going on all the time. You have to hold some beliefs as certain, beyond a doubt, in order to process the truth value of a new piece of information. But it's tricky, and far from logical, even for the best of us.

...Just because value judgments are hard to argue with, doesn't mean they are impossible to argue with. People who work on ethical and political theory, both inside and outside academia, think very hard about these questions and, even when they disagree, they have a great deal to say on the question...... it is also important to note that their is a distinction between *value judgments* and matters of taste. If I like corn bisque and you like clam chowder, arguments about which is better are trivial (although not useless!); it could simply be that one of us likes corn bisque, and the other likes clam chowder. But value judgments are not matters of taste.

...[s]tatistical results are best used to find if something is important, not if it is true.

Here is one thing I thought of after reading this: who is better suited to be a good social scientist? A passionate hot-head or a cold-hearted rational person? I would strongly argue for the latter. As a social scientist, economist included, you will need a lot more discipline to guard against your emotions seeping into your rational judgements. So if you know you are a emotional person by nature, go pursue a career in the fields of natural science or engineering, trust me, you will be better off this way.