From: jswitzer@afit.af.mil (Chip Switzer)
Subject: Re: Liberal Bias Example
Organization: Air Force Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 03:50:59 GMT

sleator@CS.CMU.EDU (Daniel Sleator) writes:

>To the extent that you described the story, this does *not* strike me
>universities and that, say, 19 of them expressed "doubt that Bush plan
>will fly".  Then the headline would be entirely appropriate, and the
>article would be accurate.

Were these "experts" chosen at random, or were they most likely the same
people they have called on in the past for an analysis?  Every reporter
most certainly has a Rolodex full of experts that they can count on to
have a knowledgeable opinion on any given subject.  And why do the reporters 
trust these experts?  Maybe because they share the same values?  Have
common beliefs?  You don't tend to trust people with whom you have 
nothing in common.  Psychology 101 (free).
 
>Consider a slightly different situation.  Suppose Bush had said "God
>created the earth 5000 years ago, and evolution never happened."
>Would you then expect the reporters to analyze this with a straight
>face, and find an equal number of "experts" to "objectively discuss"
>these claims?  If I got a paper that did that, I'd immediately end my
>subscription to it.  Suppose my paper dismissed these claims as the
>garbage that they are.  This would indicate a certain form of bias,
>since there are many fundamentalist christians who don't agree with
>it.  Perhaps this kind of "bias" should be called "logic bias", bias
>caused by the exercise of thought.

Congratulations!  You are the second person to give a striking example
of just what bias is, while trying to say there is none.  We 
certainly can't have reporters just giving us the facts--not when
those facts are "unreasonable".  We need those reporters to shield us from
all that illogical nonsense that some people actually hold as truths. 

>[By the way, the fact of evolution has been established with as much
>scientific evidence as the fact that the earth orbits the sun.]

You are so out of hand here, it's sad.  I've never even heard a die-
hard evolutionist make the claim you just did.  No serious 
evolutionary scientist would be caught dead saying this.  
There's this subtle difference between a fact and a theory--one you
can prove, the other you can't.  Physics 101 (free).  
And heaven forbid one of those well-respected scientists who believes 
in a God and creation were cited in your paper.  Kiss that subscription
good-bye, huh?

>The Republican convention was so full of bullshit, that it was
>impossible to sit through it and take it seriously.  

Whew!  Certainly no room for any counter-argument here...

>Reporters were
>thus put in an ackward position.  To ignore the sillyness of of Bush
>taking credit for the cold war victory, the ludicrosity of his claim
>that Clinton raised taxes 128 times while he raised them once, or
>Republicans claiming that the Democrats are against "family values",
>would simply be stupid.  I'm glad that the reporters responded
>appropriately to these glaring falacies.  It's odd indeed to desire
>that reporters turn off their ability to reason when reporting
>stories.

It is awfully ironic to me to hear this kind of argument from the very
people who call conservatives closed-minded.  

So, back to the point of this discussion.  You start off by
saying, that a liberal bias doesn't exist, and end by saying you
are glad that it *does* exist (only now you're calling by it's true
name--logical bias).  And we seem to be right back to the only defense
I've heard from my critics:  "OK, there is some bias in the media, but
it is perfectly justifiable considering I believe the same way the 
reporter does."  


Chip Switzer                            "A witty saying proves nothing." 
jswitzer@afit.af.mil                              -- Voltaire 
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