{"id":5083,"date":"2012-06-23T13:21:36","date_gmt":"2012-06-23T17:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shermandorn.com\/wordpress\/?p=5083"},"modified":"2012-06-23T13:23:41","modified_gmt":"2012-06-23T17:23:41","slug":"helen-dragas-and-the-berube-test-of-reasonableness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/?p=5083","title":{"rendered":"Helen Dragas and the B\u00e9rub\u00e9 test of reasonableness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Inability of some in high office to admit they are wrong, even in face of overwhelming evidence, is at heart of matter at UVA.<\/em>\u00a0– Larry Sabato<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everyone has myside bias, the tendency to keep believing in one’s prior views and filter available evidence through those views. The question of whether discussion among people with differing views is not the existence of such bias but whether someone indulges in the bias or is willing to check it in discussion. Evidence of indulging in the bias would include\u00a0ad hominem<\/em> reasoning and other tactics designed to attack the standing of opponents and their ability to participate in debate. But what constitutes evidence of trying to check our natural myside bias?<\/p>\n

At several points, ((At the time I write this, I could not find an exact spot, but I know I’ve read this point in both print sources and his blog.)) Michael B\u00e9rub\u00e9 has framed the question as whether one can imagine and will consider types of evidence that can tip the debate. It’s a simple question: is there a type of evidence you would consider that could make you change your mind? This is a little more subtle than “what would change your mind?” It’s a question of the validity of evidence–can<\/em> evidence and reasoning make a difference in one’s view, or is the debate closed<\/a>? ((Those who know Rorty better than I will be able to suss out the link between his views and B\u00e9rub\u00e9’s formulation, or my vaguely-remembered version of his formulation.))<\/p>\n

Given the public pronouncements of Helen Dragas, including Thursday’s statement<\/a> on the difficulties at the University of Virginia, I think it is fair to ask what evidence she would consider that\u00a0could<\/em> persuade her that Sullivan is the right choice to lead UVa over the next few years. There is a large gap between Dragas’ implicit claims of Sullivan inaction and the evidence I see of changes Sullivan has made to the financial structure of academic units, her proposals for a different lower-division undergraduate curriculum, and the framework within which she sees options to retain and attract faculty. It’s long past time for Dragas to explain what evidence she sees as legitimate in discussing the issue; simply repeating vague assertions looks like she is failing the B\u00e9rub\u00e9 test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inability of some in high office to admit they are wrong, even in face of overwhelming evidence, is at heart of matter at UVA.\u00a0– Larry Sabato Everyone has myside bias, the tendency to keep believing in one’s prior views and filter available evidence through those views. The question of whether discussion among people with differing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-higher-education","category-the-academic-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-1jZ","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5083"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5086,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5083\/revisions\/5086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}