Posting this not as a political piece advocating one point of view or the other but because, IMO, it demonstrates the type of scholarship that tends to be associated with UChicago. This person was a graduate student, but a lot of this open-ended and - at times -controversial spirit of inquiry exists in the College as well.
I read that, and I thought it was totally, completely, 100% in-the-box thinking. What was supposed to be news about that? That biologists more or less agree that life begins at conception? Wow, stop the presses! That it would be possible to fashion a set of laws about abortion that a clear majority of Americans would feel was appropriate (but would not satisfy activists on either side of the political debate)? Every time someone polls the issue, those stories get written. The last set came when University of Chicago-affiliated NORC released the data from the 2018 iteration of its General Social Survey last April.
I hope there was something better in his actual thesis, something that merited a University of Chicago doctoral degree.
^ Interesting. Seems a bit “visceral” of a reaction there, @JHS. Did you read the entire article? The author outlined his thesis. He’s in the Department of Comparative Human Development, not the department of Biology. In fact, he may well have participated in some of the research you mention pertaining to NORC’s GSS - but I wouldn’t know that one way or the other. The author, of course, was trying to answer the “why” of the conflict - not that the polls show this or that information.
As a biologist, I find the question asked to be disingenuous and the conclusion to be misleading.
The question has never been “when does life begin?”. That is just a person with a political agenda misrepresenting the actual question so that the response is the one that they want. The actual questions are, and always have been, A, “when does a fetus become a person with rights?”, and B, “which rights do the fetus and the mother each have?”
If there was a problem because an embryo is a live cell, it would be problematic to pull out your hair. In fact, if the problem was ever “can you terminate a life?”, it would include swatting flies, or exterminating termites. No biologist thinks that life = personhood.
The entire study was A, to support the re-framing, and B, to find yet another way to represent progressives as being intolerant. It isn’t “original”, “thought-provoking”, nor “out of the box” in any way. It is political propaganda masquerading as “science”.
By the way, I have found this type of “study” is not restricted to any political view. It is, however usually the work of sociologists or psychologists who think that they’re “scientists”, without actually having a real notion of how scientific research actually works.
The piece gave us a couple of head fakes about where it was going. It seemed initially to be about the conclusion of biologists that “life begins at conception”, which the Supreme Court had considered in its most important abortion decision to be the seminal and undecided point. Then it looked to be linking that finding to data showing that people trust biologists more than other groups to decide the point. In the end it seemed mostly about the conclusions drawn from the blowback the author got when the biologists he polled were told that their opinions were for use in the abortion debate. Many of them were ready to disavow the science if it meant that the wrong political conclusions could be drawn from it. There was a cognitive psychological aspect to all this connecting up the science with the law and the politics. The dissertation must have laid these connections out more systematically than could be done in a brief article. The approach did seem to me to be characteristic of the interdisciplinary UChicago ethos. The author himself has a law degree, and now a Ph.D. in the Department of Comparative Human Development, so is somewhat of an embodiment of that ethos. He also has a stomach for controversy. I like all that. The individual parts may not be novel, but the confluence of them could be.
To address something that @MWolf brought up, the researched kicked off with survey responses showing overwhelmingly that the question “when does life begin” helps clarify the debate. That led to the efforts to gather the database of biologist viewpoints. It seemed that a good number answered the questions despite their personal or political objections. The author believed he needed to establish this question (either as an ambiguous or unambigous issue) before moving on to the points A and B. Presumably, strategies for addressing those points would be addressed in the body of the dissertation.
Regardless of the research conclusions, the author alludes to an amazing amount of controversy. Further reading of this issue reveals that even his own thesis advisor bailed. Yet the dissertation was proposed - and defended - successfully. Unless we wish to believe that the University of Chicago is filled with fake scholars, one can presume that the merits of the issue met with some legitimate stamp of approval.
@Marlowe1 don’t know about this article specifically, but many times authors don’t write their headlines. That’s a publishing decision.
No, he wasn’t. He was building surveys based on the logic of a specific set of anti-abortion arguments to show that a substantial number of people support the logic that would ban or severely restrict abortions. Which of course is true. He could have built another set of surveys to show that a substantial number of people support the logic that underlies a more permissive stance.
Yes, i read the whole piece. I was very not impressed with it.
“The entire study was A, to support the re-framing, and B, to find yet another way to represent progressives as being intolerant. It isn’t “original”, “thought-provoking”, nor “out of the box” in any way. It is political propaganda masquerading as “science”.”
- Not sure anyone is aware of any "true" motives of the author, nor whether they even matter as long as the scholarship stands up to scrutiny. For all we know, what motivated Milton Friedman to come up with his Nobel-winning macroeconomic theories was a personal disgust with John Maynard Keynes LOL. Doesn't matter. The research either stands on its own, or it doesn't.
- IMO, any new efforts to re-frame a majorly contentious debate that end up getting some traction are, by implication, "thought provoking." Do we know of such work at other institutions? If not, then it's also "out of the box." And as the author was granted his doctorate, the work he produced was, indeed, "original." Whether it's relevant, fraudulent or just plain wrong might be another question. But those are questions for future scholarship and debate.
Wow, I could have told him that. (It’s just common sense.)
“He was building surveys based on the logic of a specific set of anti-abortion arguments to show that a substantial number of people support the logic that would ban or severely restrict abortions.”
- I can see that viewpoint given how he described his follow-up questions as using the context of "life begins at fertilization." But the overwhelming number of scientists, regardless of their personal viewpoints, saw that as a no brainer. Also, survey construction is really best revealed in the paper itself. Unless the paper is published, we can't do more than assume the author swings one way or the other on this issue.
“Wow, I could have told him that. (It’s just common sense.)”
- Sure, but what compromise exactly? That was part of the goal of the paper. In fact, it appears his conclusions about bridging the debate with such a "common sense" solution weren't very hopeful. Too much mistrust. (Now I coulda told him that!!!).
It was the same with the When Does Life Begin survey. Most biologists - an overwhelming number - agree on that question. But according to the author’s earlier research, no one apparently knew that.
He seems to have attempted to break down the debate into manageable parts in order to see if some issues can be clarified and the issue moved forward. I didn’t notice evidence of a personal viewpoint one way or the other. His conclusions didn’t seem to support an “anti-abortion” stance.
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Sometimes I just don’t get social science research. A lot of work – and more importantly, resources expended – just to state the obvious.
I’m with JHS: hard to see how this subject is worthy of a PhD from a top tier Uni.
Sometimes I just don’t get social science research. A lot of work – and more importantly, resources expended – just to state the obvious.
I’m with JHS: hard to see how this subject is worthy of a PhD from a top tier Uni.
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I agree as well.
As an aside, the Supreme Court did NOT consider the question as to when life begins. It considered the question of when person-hood begins.
As for "Not sure anyone is aware of any “true” motives of the author, nor whether they even matter as long as the scholarship stands up to scrutiny. "
Well, to use the author’s own words: “as over a billion humans have died in abortions since the year 2000.” O am sorry, but if THAT doesn’t demonstrate the views of the author, as well as their motives, I don’t know what does.
You can also look at the headlines of the Religious Right’s newspapers.
This is a classical case of the logical fallacy of Argument From Authority. “It has to be true because it’s from the University Of Chicago”.
It was in Sociology, and sociologists often receive their PhDs based on “research” that every scientific discipline out there finds to be ludicrous. Just because it’s University of Chicago does not mean that the discipline has anything close to rigor. If the discipline lacks rigor, then nobody in the discipline is able to actually judge the quality of their research. So the fact that the department of Sociology is at UChicago does not, in any way, indicate that their research is any better than any other university.
Psychologists are pretty similar. I would like to point out that Duke a parapsychology research lab for years as part of its psychology department. The University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences still has a parapsychology department, despite the fact that scientists have thoroughly debunked it years ago.
Some more on how sociology does its “research”: https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/brainstorm/flawed-sociology-on-gay-parenting/48121
Hey! You can’t blame Sociology for this! I don’t know what the heck the “Department of Comparative Human Development” is, but it ain’t Sociology. It sounds like something made up, but apparently it’s a real part of the Social Science Division.
(Apart from that, I agree with MWolf. The biological beginning of life has never been in issue; what gets debated is the social meaning of the biological beginning of life. The “billion human lives lost” line tells you exactly where the author stands. I had written a long piece more or less on the same lines, but I didn’t want to turn this thread into a debate on abortion.)
Agree that the politics of the author are showing, but aren’t the politics of his critics equally showing?
The answer to the question “when does life begin?” doesn’t constitute the end of the debate for most of us. Neither apparently does it for the author, who seems to favor a middle path restricting abortion only after the first trimester. That would hardly be the position of someone who himself believes the biological question is completely dispositive. Nevertheless, the biology of the matter is hardly irrelevant to common sense or the beliefs of ordinary Americans. Roe also gives it weight.
Whatever might be original in this dissertation lies in the “experiment” of soliciting the views of biologists as to “when life begins” without telling them the context of that question; then afterwards revealing to them that the context was the abortion debate. This precipitated a number of vituperative reactions, which he quotes after first telling us that his sample was composed of 89% self-identified liberals; 85% pro-choice; and 92% Democrats.
From this data he draws what are to my mind interesting conclusions about how we humans deal with the dissonance between our political views of a matter and our cognitive understanding of it. Perhaps that’s what makes this about “human development”.
Writing a dissertation that suggests bad faith on the part of lots of his colleagues and leads to a piece in Quillette and interviews in Breitbart and the Daily Fix isn’t calculated to assist this fellow in his academic career. He’s going down the path of John Lott. He’s either foolhardy or has considerable more cojones than most Ph.D. students. Perhaps that’s what JB has in mind when she talks of his thinking outside the box.
On the issue of the author’s “politics” here is the entire quote from the article:
‘One side sees abortion rights as critical to gender equality, while the other sees abortion as an epic human rights tragedy—as over a billion humans have died in abortions since the year 2000.’
There is very little - or no - way to present both sides w/o seeming to favor one or the other. However, for purposes of this discussion, perhaps there is a solution to forming opinions by taking quotes out of context: I noticed that once I changed my browser a link appeared to the actual paper, and it’s downloadable, so here it is: https://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1883
The abstract describes the problem: namely, that the compromise envisioned in Roe v. Wade was getting chipped away by both sides of the debate. Most recently, states have stepped up the passage of both permissive and restrictive laws concerning abortion. Furthermore, there was a lot of noise surrounding the debate, and that perceptions of how much is actually agreed upon vs. not could be notably different from actual agreement/disagreement. The author’s goals were multifold and summarized in the article; most notably, he wished to clarify and solidify the framework for the debate.
The actual social science research consisted of two phases. First, he gathered data from a series of surveys he conducted online (using a standard tool for academic research) to gather info. on aspects of the debate itself. I believe the sample was notably pro-abortion and educated but the details are in the paper. By running regressions on this data, he found that the largest factor of importance was the question “when does life begin” - it beat out a bunch of other factors - and that both sides largely agreed on which type of expert could answer that question (several choices were specified covering the sciences, ethicists/philosophers, religious, political, etc.). As biologists were identified as “the expert” he then turned to Phase II and surveyed them on the question.
The author’s conclusions are contained in the abstract: the “proper” framework seems to be the debate in how to balance fetal rights with women’s rights and autonomy. Haven’t read the paper to the end yet so will update if/when I do that.
@Marlowe1 - I answered how this is “outside the box” upthread. Have no idea why he’s been interviewed by The Fixx and Daily Wire and not Slate or HuffPo. But it apparently was an uphill battle getting this work to the final stages. Oddly - and to clarify @MWolf’s own misunderstanding of what it means to get a dissertation approved - the issue doesn’t seem to be “quality” since he passed proposal and review stages with no difficulty. Bad theses are a dime a dozen and most students are sent back to Square One or kicked out - or just leave. In contrast, the author’s work was halted and “re-reviewed” many times during the research phase, he was reported to the university’s ethics committee at least once and he had trouble keeping a thesis adviser. Those aren’t the typical issues associated with a “nothing topic” or a flunky PhD candidate.
Politics sometimes rules academia but this seemed extreme.
@JHS asked about CHD which is a department in the social sciences division that sprung out of the Committee for Child Development. It and/or its predecessor have been around the university for about 75 years. The department has its own controversial figures: Bruno Bettelheim and Marline Dixon, to name just two 
The interdisciplinary nature means that it draws from social sciences (primarily psychology and sociology), some humanities and at least at some point had or still has interaction with the biological sciences. Now, my own bias is that I tend to view the work that comes out of groups like this as pretty schlocky. The better sociologists and psyscologists have actual academic appts. in a “real” department. However, UChicago does have a tradition of pulling together some interesting interdisciplinary thinkers (committee on social thought, for instance) and CHD seems to be along the same lines so maybe it’s different.
“As an aside, the Supreme Court did NOT consider the question as to when life begins. It considered the question of when person-hood begins.”
@MWolf - This isn’t the thread for a debate on Roe or Casey, but “personhood” has little to do with the arguments of the subject dissertation except as it shows up as a historical point or directly in the research. The word itself is mentioned only a few times. So if you think that’s a major flaw in the paper (ie it SHOULD have shown up in the research but the author scrubbed it or something) then that’s a valid (and probably verifiable) point. Otherwise, it’s irrelevant.
I wasted way too much time reading the dissertation. It is supremely unoriginal, and literally spends hundreds of pages confirming the validity of a statement of the central problem from a 1981 Washington Post editorial that it quotes at the outset.
Nevertheless, while the author’s orientation on the issue is never in doubt, he shows reasonable clarity of thought and fairness in discussing both the legal and social history of abortion and the contemporary positions of activists and non-activists. He has a perfectly good understanding – and a lot of discussion – about the difference between biological life and legal personhood, although his clear (but not overwhelmingly well supported) argument is that historically legal personhood has always corresponded to views about life (which were, however, often more spiritual than biological). He gives very short shrift to the argument that the social balance of abortion law was stable for centuries because it provided a reasonable opportunity for women to abort pregnancies without violating any legal rules, notwithstanding what he sees as the intent of the lawmakers to protect unborn children. But he is less dismissive in acknowledging the virtual non-enforcement of most abortion laws into the 20th century.
The paper is a awkward mixture of legal history, social psychology, opinion research, and models of conflict resolution used in mediation. It also purports to demonstrate use of the “SAGE” approach to qualitative social science research for mediation. Honestly, that felt like a suck-up to his advisor and committee rather than something he actually cared about. If it were convincing, it would probably be the most original part of the thesis, but . . . not so much. (What, exactly, the SAGE approach to qualitative social science research is proved to be too jargony and boring to sustain even my desperate procastinatory interest.)
I can’t tell if he started out in Comparative Child Development or merely ended up there when his first advisor ditched him. He had quite the odyssey to get his PhD, including three years at Northwestern Law School, and a JD (but no bar membership), to put him in a position to write a 100-page survey of legal historians’ work on abortion laws and the Supreme Court decisions of the past 50 years. Comparative Child Development seems like an awfully ironic home for this thesis. His advisor does really interesting work, however, on things like the conflict between immigrants’ moral values and majoritarian values in their new country, on issues like male and female circumcision, child marriage, and animal sacrifice.
The mediation aspect is really simplistic, and amounts to “There’s really lots that most people agree about, and there could be a reasonably stable solution if only politicians were willing to find the majority rather than cater to the activists in their respective parties.” Yes, we knew that already, I think. And we also know that our political system really isn’t built that way.
The important thing to note is that the paper was good enough to get the author a PhD from the University of Chicago.
“Nevertheless, while the author’s orientation on the issue is never in doubt,” . . .
- Examples please, @JHS.
And the paper was good enough to generate serious discussion among some highly intelligent CC posters.