ABSTRACT

Accusations of bias are a recurrent event in the social and psychological sciences. Some of these have achieved the status of major public events, such as the attacks on hereditarian theories of intelligence, notably on the work of Cyril Burt (Kamin 1977; see also Mackintosh 1995); the response to the Glasgow University Media Group's books on television news (see Harrison 1985); and Derek Freeman's critique of Margaret Mead's Coming of Age in Samoa (Freeman 1983). And of course, in many cases, the reaction to an accusation of bias is a counter-charge, indicating that it is not just research itself but also evaluations of research that can be biased. 1