You may not have meant it this way, but that sentence implies you have already dismissed any point he makes purely based on what he believes in. Without any evidence, you've implied that any conclusions the author makes are automatically devalued because he will be incapable to undertaking objective research.
Would you write a similar sentence about say a medical researcher? 'Researcher is a member of the medical industry and is very clearly biased toward proving vaccines are safe and necessary'.
(Note: I think it's very important to be aware of influences and biases in hearing opinions - an important part of critical evaluation. Your comment does that for the most part ... it's just the last sentence I have an objection to)
As a result, ideological biases are important to flag, and studies possibly affected by bias need to be replicated and cross checked.
There is? I would seem that the effects could simply be drawn from real world results in any other developed nation.
How about "Anti-abortion activist doctor releases study showing that abortion in unhealthy." Are you telling me you wouldn't place the study under extreme scrutiny? When someone shows their ideological bias, and it happens to be extreme (yes, socialism is extreme), and then they also do science in the same field, it is absolutely appropriate to make their biases known and subject them to extra scrutiny.
EDIT>> Just saw your note that you agree about raising awareness to biases. It sounds like we agree on that.
Humans trade don't need theoretical underpinning to trade goods and services with each other. They have done it since the dawn of time. Even monkeys do it. I'll scratch yours if you'll scratch mine. And indeed it percolates down to the personal as well, as Eric Berne noted in Games People Play.
If we chose to follow that rule we would end up with very few studies in economics, and the world would be poorer for it.
Maybe we should, maybe we shouldn't but the studies for sugar and minimum wage spread wide enough that it's easy to see these convenient conflict-of-interests everywhere.
In many cases it results in consumer confusion and serious health issues (sugar vs saturated fat war you noted).
- because they are perhaps not very bright, maybe mentally-disabled (Downs syndrome people for instance), possibly just naturally very slow, inexperienced, very young, very old, physically feeble or otherwise considered to be unlikely to be productive would-be employees who
- are then legally prevented from getting a job unless of course the state wishes to force employers not to hire the most productive staff to be paid the minimum wage. And that's not going to happen in a free society and nor should it. Everyone has their value. But don't let's pretend that value (for a specific job) is the same for all of us.
This seems like a lack of familiarity with the scientific method. First, there's a hypothesis about the world. Then, that hypothesis is tested against evidence. The origins of a seasoned researcher's hypotheses about the world and their ideas of what they would like the world to be are not enough to impugn their ability to evaluate others' study design or the integrity of their own hypothesis-testing.
At best, you've provided evidence for "he may be ideologically more pleased with hypotheses supporting the success of minimum wage increases being successfully supported by evidence".
And yet the author of the article seems happy to impugn the motivations of the UW researchers, because his ideology does not agree with their results.
And even if he was, it doesn't excuse alacombe.
"Controversy Reich's analyses on the effects of minimum wage increases in his capacity at IRLE have generated controversy and accusations of bias from Los Angeles city legislators. Addressing IRLE's selection to analyze a proposed minimum wage hike in Los Angeles to $15.25, Democratic City Councilman Felipe Fuentes argued that "the selection of U.C. Berkeley, by perception, compromises the possibility of a fair and balanced discussion." Fuentes and fellow Democratic Councilman Mitch O'Farrell asked to reopen the selection process for a research team "so that we can engage in a process that is worthy of our employers, workers and their families, and the well-being of our economy."[14]
In March 2016, the Albany Times Union reported on hundreds of pages of emails from Reich’s research team that showed a close collaboration between the research team and labor union groups that fund the movement to raise the minimum wage. According to the article, “the relationship between academic and funder seemed explicit” with one uncovered email showing that the research team was seeking grant money to support its research "for local groups engaged in work to raise the minimum wage" and “testimony/media work” in California.[15]"
When you are getting accused of bias by Democrats, things are pretty bad.
In 1968, while in graduate school, Reich was a founding member of the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE).[5] In doing so, as Reich describes in a biographical compilation piece (A Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists),[3] he helped "to organize an influential circle of radical economists." URPE’s agenda, as described by a spokesperson for the group, is to:
"support an American version of socialism, with public ownership of production and a government-planned economy to meet social needs rather than the needs of private profit."
So he's very clearly biased toward proving minimum wage increase's success.