ABSTRACT
Typical instances of bias are provided by historians of wars, where the standpoints of the victor and the vanquished yield very different accounts, beginning even with the name of the conflict. And it is a commonplace that bias is more or less easily identifiable in many studies of political, social, or economic problems. The language of behavioral science is often marked by normative ambiguity, allowing for interpretation both as reporting a value and as making a valuation. This ambiguity is obviously present in statements about what is “normal” or “natural”, but it may also be present in such less obvious cases as “lawful” or “rational”. The metaprofessional values consist of the commitments to create and maintain conditions under which science can exist— for instance, freedom of inquiry, of thought, and of its expression. Such values are particularly important to the behavioral scientist, for it is he who suffers most from restrictions on those freedoms.
