Two Roads Diverge in a Wood: Indifference to the Difference Between ‘Diversity’ and Moral Grounds and ‘Heterogeneity’ Should Be Resisted on Epistemic Anat Kolumbus*, Ayelet Shavit* and Aaron M. Ellison ,,, Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference from The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost (1916) Abstract: We argue that a and and that conceptual tension exists between “diversity” “heterogeneity” glossing over their differences has practical, moral, and epistemic costs. We examine how these terms are used in ecology and the social sciences; articulate a deeper linguistic intuition; and test it with the The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). results reveal that and ‘diversity’ ‘heterogeneity’ have conflicting rather than interchangeable meanings: heterogeneity implies a entity that collective interactively different entities, whereas diversity implies not integration. integrates divergence, Consequently, striving for diversity alone may increase social injustice and reduce epistemic outcomes of academic institutions and governance structures. * Equal main contributors.
Two Roads Diverge in a Wood: Indifference to the Difference Between ‘Diversity’ and ‘Heterogeneity’ Should Be Resisted on Epistemic and Moral Grounds Anat Kolumbus*, Ayelet Shavit* and Aaron M. Ellison ,,, Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference from The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost (1916) Abstract: We argue that a conceptual tension exists between “diversity” and “heterogeneity” and that glossing over their differences has practical, moral, and epistemic costs. We examine how these terms are used in ecology and the social sciences; articulate a deeper linguistic intuition; and test it with the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The results reveal that ‘diversity’ and ‘heterogeneity’ have conflicting rather than interchangeable meanings: heterogeneity implies a collective entity that interactively integrates different entities, whereas diversity implies divergence, not integration. Consequently, striving for diversity alone may increase social injustice and reduce epistemic outcomes of academic institutions and governance structures. * Equal main contributors.
PSA2016.Heterogeneity%20.docx