Geoffrey MillerVerified account

For the life of me, I don't understand why this is a bad point. Viewpoint diversity is provably epistemically valuable. Lack of representation of conservatives in social science really is a problem.https://twitter.com/ntdPhD/status/1138893573997387777 …

I think it's mainly due to the fact that people with liberal dispositions are far more likely to select into academia. But self-selected populations can become self-reinforcing and path dependent, as cultures become more homogeneous and the range of accepted views narrows.

You have to take active steps to be welcoming to groups not inclined to feel welcome. And it's worth doing. Greater diversity reduces correlated error, covers more of the intellectual search space, and accelerates progress toward truth.

Political/ideological diversity is especially important in this regard when politics is the subject.

I understand why people who profess to care about the intellectual benefits of diversity don't love being consistent about this. There are real distributive implications.

Academia is pretty zero-sum. Making space for conservatives can mean less space for somebody else. Grad student spots, fellowships, grants, TT jobs, etc.

If that doesn't mean displacing members of other traditionally underrepresented groups, it puts the most pressure on white liberals, especially men--still academia's dominant class, and still a bit sore from relative loss of opportunity from greater gender and racial inclusion.