This is my biggest confusion reading the summary. Since all kinds of inputs can lead to the same measured output (such as being more scared about the entire theme and self-censoring), how would they single out 'implicit bias' and decide to label it as the cause?
"Implicit biases are malleable. Our brains are incredibly complex, and the implicit associations that we have formed can be gradually unlearned through a variety of debiasing techniques."
I don't know... isn't it almost by definition not 'implicit bias' then?
Yes, it is shoddy science or possibly not science at all. Testing an assertion using known measures that have been shown to not test what you want to test does not add to the scientific knowledge and instead subtract by adding noise.
Building upon tests that has not held up to scrutiny without having a good argument for why it is different this time violates how science explores and builds knowledge. Science is a technique that produce a network of knowledge [1], where the core nodes are viewed as facts because they have successfully held up to scrutiny by other pieces of knowledge and has worked as a foundation for other pieces of knowledge.
In science pieces of knowledge that builds upon claims that are shown to be invalid, such as the IAT test, are viewed as inheriting the problems of the knowledge it builds upon.
Comments
This is my biggest confusion reading the summary. Since all kinds of inputs can lead to the same measured output (such as being more scared about the entire theme and self-censoring), how would they single out 'implicit bias' and decide to label it as the cause?
Also http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/research/understanding-implic...
"Implicit biases are malleable. Our brains are incredibly complex, and the implicit associations that we have formed can be gradually unlearned through a variety of debiasing techniques."
I don't know... isn't it almost by definition not 'implicit bias' then?
Yes, it is shoddy science or possibly not science at all. Testing an assertion using known measures that have been shown to not test what you want to test does not add to the scientific knowledge and instead subtract by adding noise.
Building upon tests that has not held up to scrutiny without having a good argument for why it is different this time violates how science explores and builds knowledge. Science is a technique that produce a network of knowledge [1], where the core nodes are viewed as facts because they have successfully held up to scrutiny by other pieces of knowledge and has worked as a foundation for other pieces of knowledge.
In science pieces of knowledge that builds upon claims that are shown to be invalid, such as the IAT test, are viewed as inheriting the problems of the knowledge it builds upon.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxdBRKmPhe4&feature=youtu.be...