Role of Bias Is an Essay

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" 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. … 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.

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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.

In conclusion, three types of bias are offered by the authors examined. The first is somewhat malicious and set directly against a large sector of society, offering the privilege of intelligence and evolution only to white males. This view was perpetuated despite clear empirical evidence to the contrary -- women like George Elliot articulately argued against it, while many other women proved themselves to be useful in much more than only child rearing and other nurturing endeavors. In Wolfe's essay, the sense of bias is somewhat more subtle; the crabs players are not aware that they are biased, but simply that a person appears to be different from them but is in fact not. This bias is perhaps more dangerous than that considered by Gould, because its subtlety could preclude direct refutation. Finally, Tuchman's essay is surprising, in suggesting that bias can be a good thing as well, since it can provide focus in selecting the relevant facts….....

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