Social media users will be familiar with measures of ‘freedom’ pushed by US state media, based on data from Western researchers, which invariably reflect badly on Russia. It’s time to look at their inherent, often absurd, biases.
Perhaps one of the biggest misnomers in academic life is ‘social science’. Ever since the Age of Enlightenment, scholars have sought to apply the scientific method to social phenomena, to which end they have also sought to quantify everything in sight. In some cases this works, but much of the time social life doesn’t lend itself well to the quantitative method. The choice of what to measure, how you define it, and then how you assess the data you collect, all influence the result, with bias.
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