Tag Archives: science

Sometimes we encounter bias that is so overt that it is impossible not to notice and its source is obvious.   Like, for example, this shirt listed in the JCPenney’s catalogue:

Figure 1:  My favorite part is the text describing the shirt.  It reads “Who has time for homework when there’s a new Justin Bieber album out?  She’ll love this tee that’s just as sassy as she is.”  h/t to Mr. Isis who sent me a link to a screenshot.  The shirt has since been removed.  It’s a shame.  I was hoping they’d start making it in adult sizes. I’m pretty sassy.  

Or almost any of the comments on this story about a female kicker who tried out for the Virginia Tech football team.

Sometimes, however, the source of bias is less apparent or uncomfortable to recognize.  These are the more challenging forms of bias to battle.  It’s been very , very interesting to listen to/read the discussion around the so-called Ginther report, recently published in Science, that found that black R01 applicants are 13 percentage points less likely to be successful in securing NIH funding.    These discussions have been occurring around me both on the blogosphere and in real life.  The reaction I’ve heard from many?

“NIH reviewers aren’t racist.”

It’s the silliest bit of race ‘splaining I’ve ever heard.  Granted, there is probably some smidgen of NIH reviewers that are simply racist, but for the majority I believe the the difference probably lies between racism and bias.  It is possible to be biased without being racist.  Racism is a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.  Bias is an inclination of temperament or outlook or  a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment.   One is a value, usually rooted in conscious hatred.  The other defines our actions without necessarily being rooted in in the forefront of our consciousness. 

Even good people frequently behave with bias.

One interesting point that stuck out to me was what could be characterized as bias on the part of the applicant.  Black applicants are less likely to resubmit an unfunded application (46% of unfunded applications are resubmitted by black applicant versus 64% for white applicants).  The effect of this?  According to the authors:

Applications from black…investigators were significantly less likely to receive R01 funding compared with whites for grants submitted once or twice. For grants submitted three or more times, we found no significant difference in award probability between blacks and whites…

Together, these data indicate that black… investigators are less likely to be awarded an R01 on the first or second attempt, blacks…are less likely to resubmit a revised application, and black investigators that do resubmit have to do so more often to receive an award. Assistance with the grants submission and resubmission process may provide a policy lever for diversifying the scientific workforce.

So, although there is bias in the awarding of grants fo’ sho’,  I wonder why black applicants are less likely to resubmit an application? 

I have a feeling that some of the additional bias against black applicants is going to be difficult to untangle.  Ginther and coauthors made attempts to control for “educational background, country of origin, training, previous research awards, publication record, and employer characteristics,” but I’m not sure that all of those things could truly be controlled for.  Even within a single research group at a research focused institution, training can be highly variable.  I know, for example, that I’ve progressed a alot because I have been offered opportunities.   I became a reviewer for several journals because someone more senior than me recommended me to the editor.  I have given seminars or formed collaborations because people have learned about my work from others. The recommendations of more senior colleagues have certainly been key.  None of these things have improved the quality of my science, per se, but they have increased my visibility in the community.  How do black and non-black applicants differ in their social and professional networks?  How frequently do black scientists sit on study section? Sometimes I even wonder if we are guilty of a sort of existential bias.  Because we postulate that black scientists are generally less qualified than whites, we postulate that an individual scientist is less qualified although we have no evidence to support this belief.

None of these sources of bias need necessarily be rooted in overt racism.   In academia, like every other field, we extend opportunities to people we “know”.  And often, as in every other field, that translates to the people who are most like us at the exclusion of “the other.”   Still, none of that is fixable until we unpucker ourselves after reading reports like these, put away the “I’m not a racist” trope, and examine the choices we make.   I suspect that frequently even good people are guilty of bad bias.

Then again, science might just be full of racists.