The role of bias in argumentative essays

Role of Bias

Bias is an inherent element of the human condition. Every human being has certain preferences and beliefs regarding almost all areas of human living. Some opinions and beliefs are of course more controversial than others. Furthermore, bias may be harmful in the case of academic professionals who promote beliefs that are more based upon bias than upon true scientific evidence. This is dangerous in the sense that academics can espouse their biased ideas on the strength of scientific evidence that support these ideas. While such scientific evidence is very convincing -- being evidence -- it is unbalanced in terms of balance and refutation. A good example of this is the bias discussed in Stephen Jay Gould's article "Women's Brains." A further danger of bias, as indicated by Tom Wolfe's essay, is that it may lead to prejudice against persons who in fact are more similar to the general populace than different. On the other hand, bias can also benefit the argumentative essay. Historians such as Barbara Tuchman for example uses bias to help her focus her research of historical facts.

The majority of Gould's essay focuses on the scientific bias of Paul Broca, the inventor and promoter of crainometry -- the measuring of skulls. Broca based all of his observations upon the general societal belief at the time that women were less intelligent than men. He promoted and perpetuated the idea based upon the fact that the size of women's brains is smaller than that of men's brains. Both he and his followers went on to use this as evidence that women are far less intelligent than men, and could be compared to children, savages, or even gorillas. Gould quotes a follower of Broca's, Gustav le Bon, in his harsh view of women's intelligence:

"All psychologists who have studied the intelligence of women, as well as poets and novelists, recognize today that they represent the most inferior forms of human evolution and that they are closer to children and savages than to an adult, civilized man." With this, Le Bon uses respected scientific professions to promote his ideas. This made it difficult to refute. Furthermore, the genera societal bias against women at the time made it easy to present such ideas in an acceptable form. This belief also precluded the scientific urge to consider alternative views of the subject. In this case, bias can then be seen as a danger, as it promotes and perpetuates harmful social bias against certain groups. Indeed, the bias against women because of their brain size was also used to promote and perpetuate prejudice against other races and classes in Paris at the time.

In more subtle terms, Tom Wolfe also indicates a sense of bias in his essay. He describes Las Vegas for its effect upon the human mind and heart, while also indicting humanity for their basic tendency towards bias without critical examination and indeed without self-examination. In the opening pages, Wolfe describes a man who has become somewhat unstable because of the constant sensory bombardment of Las Vegas, to the point where he began to disturb other players by repeating the word "hernia." After describing his peaceful but forced departure from the casino, the author considered the similarity of the "hernia" chant with the mainstream elements of the crabs tables: " Every casino in Las Vegas is, among the other things, a room full of craps tables with dealers who keep up a running singsong that sounds as though they are saying 'hernia hernia hernia' and so on. & #8230; What they have to say contains next to no useful instruction." Wolfe here indicates that, despite the prejudice of the crabs table dealers, they were in fact more similar to the man they threw out than different. The only difference was that he was not imitating their chants in their way, although the sound "hernia" could be easily distinguished in the casino by anyone who would care to try. The prejudice is therefore socially imposed, but entirely unjustified.

Finally, Barbara Tuchman argues that bias can in fact be a good thing, particularly where the work of the historian is concerned. For Tuchman, it is important to present historical facts in such a way that readers find it entertaining. However, she also emphasizes that the facts are important to maintain within historical writings. Tuchman believes that it is important to carefully select facts, in order to create a unique and artistic document of facts that is her own work rather than a regurgitation of others. Tuchman's bias is then against using secondary sources for the main part of her research: "My feeling about secondary sauces is that they are helpful but pernicious… Furthermore, the facts in a secondary source have already been pre-selected, so that in using them one misses the opportunity of selecting one's own." Another part of Tuchman's bias is when selecting facts. She does so to optimize the creativity and art that she brings to her work. In this way, bias can be very effective to achieve focus when presenting a set of facts, as well as to boost the presentability of a piece of writing. The role of bias here is therefore both beneficial and functional. It focuses the historian for the work that she intends to present to the public.