Episode 91. Political Bias: Bill von Hippel
In prior episodes, we examined political interference and bias in science in a few contexts, including episode 3 on the history of U.S. congressional attacks on science, episode 57 on types of bias, episode 65 on ideology and science, and episode 84 on the academy's ideological march to the left and antisemitism on American college campuses. Since those episodes, America went back to the future with the election for the second time of Donald Trump, and the Trump Administration has attacked elite American universities such as Columbia and Harvard with historic intensity. These attacks are motivated by the right's revulsion with the dominance of leftist bias on these universities. We do not know what the outcome of these battles will be. Indeed, as of this recording, Harvard University is challenging the Trump Administration in the American courts, while many other universities are trying to placate the administration or avoid its gaze. However, the fundamental complaint by the right, that elite universities have become bastions of the left and lack diversity of thought, warrants an examination. In today's episode, I explore this topic with my brother Bill. We discuss how political bias distorts the science produced in universities, especially in the social sciences, and we discuss the implications. Bill is the author of over 150 articles in psychology, as well as the books The Social Leap, published in 2018, and The Social Paradox, published in 2025, both by Harper Collins Publishers.
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