November 1, 2005
The Process Makes the Content
The process makes the content. It Ain't Necessarily So makes a case that a flaw of journalistic scrutiny of academic research is the method journalists use to criticize the research. Journalists tend to impose guilt upon faulty research by association. If Jane the researcher doing a study on abortion is a major feminist pro-choice figure and finds evidence that abortion has no link to health problems, then she must have done biased research.
As the book said, this is an Ad-Homenim argument. The ideology that because you belong to any given social organization you must be a biased researcher is a weak argument that assumes one cannot put biases aside when reseraching.
The process makes the content. There are three major parts to this issue: history, process, and content. History is the programming of the researcher--the biases. Process is the methodology of the research, and content is the finding. It seems sensible to say that history plays a role in whether the research is credible. However, criticizing research requires a certain amount of concrete evidence.
Methodology is that evidence. If a person was biased when they researched the topic, it will show in their methods. Skewed methods show a clear bias. History only shows previous patterns and does not guarantee that the research presently in question is biased.
The process makes the content. In the journalist's world, being an advocate is a conflict of interest. That is not as true in the research world.
Posted by EvanReynolds at November 1, 2005 10:59 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry: