on the topic of "implicit bias": "The final nail in the coffin for the failed science of 'implicit bias'?": https://leiterreports.typepad.com/b...-for-the-failed-science-of-implicit-bias.html The final nail in the coffin for the failed science of "implicit bias"? Philosopher Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh), a leading contributor to philosophy of cognitive science, shared with me his latest analysis of the empirical literature. (Professor Machery also was kind of enough to allow me to post the penultimate draft of the typescript: Download Machery Anomalies in Implicit Attitudes Research copy.) As Professor Machery summarizes the research: Since the 1990s, social psychologists have developed several unobtrusive or indirect measures of attitudes, the most famous of which is the Implicit Association Test. Psychologists, and following them philosophers and policy makers, often take these measures to tap into a new kind of attitudes, distinct from the attitudes that older direct measures assess: implicit attitudes. Implicit attitudes have been blamed for many of the enduring social ills, and they justify costly training programs in the corporate world, universities, and police departments. In recent years, however, there have been increasing concerns about the quality of indirect measurements. This article reviews the most important issues related to that question: There is little evidence that direct and indirect measures measure distinct things. Indirect measures are unreliable: Your score today does not predict well your score tomorrow. Indirect measures predict behavior poorly. There is no causal evidence that whatever it is indirect measures tap into affects behavior. These issues have been around for now decades, but they have barely been addressed despite their basic nature. But then why do so many believe in implicit attitudes at all, as a sui generis kind of attitudes? In academic philosophy, as I've said many times before, I suspect the primary obstacles to women have not been "implicit" biases but explicit biases, including the tendency of far too many socially maladjusted academic men to view female graduate students not as professionals in training but as potential sexual and romantic opportunities. (Perhaps my perception of the problem is colored by having worked with a number of women over the years who were victims of various kinds of sexual harassment.) Regardless, it is surely past time to acknowledge that the "science" of implicit bias is mostly garbage. Posted by Brian Leiter on June 28, 2021 at 05:34 AM
an example where "implicit bias" is integrated into institutional "anti-racism" structures: https://libguides.kent-school.edu/race-racism-antiracism/implicit-bias which in turn links to materials like these videos:
https://pca.st/episode/b432813a-ef7d-4a13-b232-65bc66eb4a21 Another example of implicit bias when you listen to the interrogation of the officer by internal affairs in regards to why he percieved the black kid as a threat. I personally encountered it a few times such as my drill instructor slamming me against the wall asking if I'm a Muslim spy lol. To this day I'm hoping that was just a bad joke.
The idea of implicit bias isn't that it directly causes you to behave a certain way. If that was the case, then we'd be in trouble. It's a wonderful thing that we can be biased in our gut reactions to something but still overcome that with cognitive thinking. I don't see why he dismisses the studies - there are so many, and in many of them, the only explanation for a behavior is bias. Saying its mostly garbage without actually providing detailed critique of some of the more well known studies is eyebrow raising.
Kendi himself has for the most part never addressed criticisms of his ideas. Coleman Hughes has already come up in this thread--here's a brief video where he talks about his efforts to engage Kendi directly, and Kendi refusing him over a period of months. The entire video is worth watching, but I've cued it up to about the 4:00 mark where Hughes (1) confront's Kendi's dismissal of Hughes and then (2) dissects Kendi's proposal to establish a Federal Department of Anti-Racism (this latter starts at around the 5:25 mark or so). I believe that in this video Hughes demonstrates exactly what the OP means by "how to be an anti- anti-racist":
I think he is misrepresenting Kendi a great deal here. The capital gains tax cut was an example posed to him. He's simply saying that racism shouldn't be defined as something people feel but rather as an action that has negative consequences towards one specific race. It's definitely an interesting paradigm. But I think I can understand why Kendi would not wish to debate Coleman Hughes.
and btw Hughes isn't misrepresenting anything here. you can read Kendi's proposals about his proposed federal DOA at Politico Kendi's constitutional amendment and Department of Anti-Racism proposal: https://www.politico.com/interactiv...pass-an-anti-racist-constitutional-amendment/
That's not a tenable idea even. There's no department with that kind of power and you start getting into the limits of executive power over congress and federal vs state. But my reference to misrepresenting his views is not that Kendi saying a capital gains tax cut is racist in the literal sense, but it is racist because as a policy it benefits whites to the detriment of blacks - which is his whole point about recasting racism away from feelings and more towards the net result of policy. Again this is why it's so strange to lump things like cancel culture to anti-racism and Kendi because it's literally the opposite direction he is going. As for him refusing to debate anyone, well that's his prerogative as a writer.
I don't understand the pushback against implicit bias. If anything, it should help people understand that racism doesn't make people evil. And when people make slips and show their bias, maybe we shouldn't crucify them but instead take it as an opportunity for someone to gain visibility into their bias.
I don't think it's pushback so much but rather (re: the original point Leiter makes) that it is almost impossible to study and identify using standard social science methods. This was the problem in the 'environmental racism' literature in the 1990s following the explosion of interest in that topic during the Clinton era. Social scientists quickly found out racism as a variable was nearly impossible to tease out of all the possible variables (e.g., class, economic status, etc.). Environmental racism got rebranded as environmental justice and has been on much more solid ground as a basis for policy ever since
That is an absolutely terrible definition of racism though. Making murder a crime disproportionally effects one specific race, but I think it would be a real stretch to say making murder illegal is racist. The problem with viewing something by its effects instead of its motives is that it ignores all the other factors that lead to the challenged outcome. This is one of the big issues I have with the criticism of the criminal justice system. People look at the demographics of the prison population or the average sentence for any particular crime by race and say the system is racist. There is no proof that any particular person or decision along the way is racist or even considers race, but the result is disproportionate, so the people who supported it must be racist. Racism already means something. It means judging people by their race as inferior or superior, hating someone because of their race, or discriminating against someone because of their race. Why try to use the same term to talk about policies with no mention of race and no proof of racial motivation but racially disproportionate outcomes? The answer is obvious of course. People who are racist under the original definition are rightly looked down upon by society. These activists are trying to attach the stigma of racism to something that has nothing to do with racism. In fact, it is the exact opposite of why you think there shouldn't be pushback. These redefinitions are not made so that people will be more understanding of those with bias, it is so people can tar others with the stigma of racism without any evidence of actual racism.
So how do you study bias? Are you saying it is impossible to study? I strongly disagree here. No one pushed back against implicit bias until now, for the last 10-15 years its been pretty well accepted. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a famous book on implicit bias called Blink and it referred to many strong studies. There wasn't much push back to the research done there. And the studies demonstrated implicit bias based on behavior thus proving the link.
But his whole point is that you don't defeat racism by tarring people who are biased. That's not the goal - the idea is that you look at public policy and look at the net impact of it - which is far more important in eradicating racism than worrying about racists.
not at all, but then again it's obviously possible to study theology without evidence of God. Leiter's point is that it is much easier (and honest perhaps) to identify and study explicit biases rather than get sucked down the vortex of implicit bias studies. this has been the problem for example with implicit association tests right from the beginning
Is it? Doesn't it depend on the conclusions you are trying to draw from implicit bias studies? Implicit bias was never meant to be predictive of discriminatory behavior, but only to suggest that it influences behavior. And there are other studies that compliment implicit bias studies that show such biases exist. For example, when auditions of musicians were done where the evaluator could see the musicians, more often men were chosen as the best. When they put a screen so the musician could not be seen, it was an even split. That controlled experiment clearly shows bias - but doesn't explain where it comes from. Implicit bias does. They have done these experiments with resumes and other means as well. So what exactly is the problem with implicit bias studies? They aren't meant to be predictive but rather show that people have ingrained biases - that even if someone believes in racial or sexual equality, on a deeper basis they may have biases they aren't aware of.
How would looking at the net impact of public policy have any effect on racism unless you change the definition of racism to be something related to public policy? The whole point is that they have weak policy arguments for arguing against things like the criminal justice system. Most people support the police and the criminal justice system. Saying you don't think criminals should go to jail or prison is a losing argument. Instead they say, supporting tough laws and incarceration is racist because there are a disproportionate number of black people in jail and prison. They don't have the evidence to prove that anyone had racially discriminatory motives at any stage of sending someone to prison (in the vast majority of cases, at least), but if you change the definition to be outcome based instead of motive based, that doesn't matter. You can just point to the racially disproportionate outcome and say the system is racist. No need to prove any sort of racial bias or animosity, just look at population statistics. Blind Spots in the ‘Blind Audition’ Study - WSJ
the summary Machery provides hits upon his major points, the ones I suspect are most significant are the first ("there is little evidence that direct and indirect measures measure distinct things") and the final one about causation. The first is related to the problem with reification once again (similar to our earlier exchange about anti-racism as a "specific thing." Especially when researchers are trying to study that thing using indirect measures. The causation question has to do with the relation between suppposed implicit bias and discriminatory outcomes (behavioral or otherwise). Machery's paper catalogs the enormous amounts of money that agencies, universities, and other institutions have poured into implicit bias training (presumably under the assumption this would causally "change" behavior), but with little or no evidence that any of it had any effects (section 5 in the paper): Perhaps unsurprisingly given the financial stakes, the trainers working with the NYPD are “undeterred” and believe that [their] training reduces biased behavior on the streets of the jurisdictions where [they] train” (criminology Professor Fridell, quoted in Kaste, 2020). Research on diversity training, including implicit bias training, more broadly shows that they are largely inefficient (Carter, Onyeador, & Lewis, 2020). So I don't know. Machery himself asks the question (unlike Leiter, who decides it in the negative) whether implicit bias research is a waste. He sort of shrugs and says he would never answer such a question definitively about any science. on the other hand, he does observe that implicit bias research has had 30+ years to work these issues out, and it has gotten nowhere. Your point about prediction btw is something Machery also discusses (his section 4). Implicit bias studies actually have been assumed and intended to be predictive for the past 30 years, they have simply failed at that task.
