How Dissent on Gender Bias in Academia Affects Science and Society: Learning from the Case of Climate Change Denial

Abstract

Gender bias is a recalcitrant problem in academia and society. However, dissent has been created on this issue. We focus on dissenting studies by Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams, arguing that they reach conclusions that are unwarranted on the basis of the available evidence and that they ignore fundamental objections to their methodological decisions. Drawing on discussions from other contexts, particularly on manufactured dissent concerning anthropogenic climate change, we conclude that dissent on gender bias substantially contributes to (a) the exacerbation of biases in society and (b) an increasing number of attacks on researchers, making it both epistemically and socially problematic.

Exploring the limits of dissent: the case of shooting bias

“…In sum, conditions 1 and 2 of the IndRA hold for the given case, but conditions 3 and 4 only partially. This indicates that the case differs from cases of epistemically detrimental dissent we have investigated more recently, such as denial of anthropogenic climate change (Biddle & Leuschner, 2015;Biddle et al, 2017;Leuschner, 2018) or gender bias denial (Leuschner & Fernández Pinto, 2021). James et al and Fryer do not bluntly deny that racism is widespread among police officers.…”

“…Beyond climate change, the IndRA conditions have also proven useful in identifying denialist research as epistemically detrimental in cases of research on social biases. Through an examination of recent studies denying the existence of gender bias in the academy (Ceci & Williams, 2011;Ceci et al, 2014;Williams & Ceci, 2015), we have shown that these investigations meet the four IndRA conditions and, therefore, are prone to producing similarly problematic consequences as in the case of climate change denialism (Leuschner & Fernández Pinto, 2021). They contribute to both widely-shared sexism in society and a social atmosphere that is hostile to science, as scholars investigating gender bias have been attacked (cf.…”

“…In particular, the denial of well-established scientific and scholarly facts can come with epistemic and social costs when epistemic and political asymmetries are exacerbated, and the authority and reputation of scientists and scholars come under attack. In recent work, we have contributed to show how this has indeed occurred in the cases of denialist research on anthropogenic climate change (Biddle & Leuschner, 2015) and gender bias in academia (Leuschner & Fernández Pinto, 2021). In this paper, we aimed to show the epistemic and social shortcomings of dissenting research on shooting bias.…”

“…Thus, we wish to examine here whether the studies by James et al and Fryer that question the existence of shooting bias among police officers also meet the four IndRA conditions and, thus, ought to be considered epistemically detrimental. 4 Following our work on gender bias in academia (Leuschner & Fernández Pinto, 2021), we avoid the original statistical terminology of "producer and consumer risks" (see, e.g., Pearson 1933), given that there are no clear producers and consumers in the case at hand. Instead, we prefer the more general wording of "risks of making type I and type II errors."…”

“…In this paper, we aim to show that research questioning the existence of shooting bias is epistemically and socially detrimental. In previous work, we have examined the cases of denialist research on anthropogenic climate change (Biddle & Leuschner, 2015) and gender bias in academia (Leuschner & Fernández Pinto, 2021). However, in contrast to these two clearly denialist cases, the situation regarding shooting bias seems more complex.…”