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Remember when one made research and told you tea is good for you, and two others have also done research yet their findings said tea is bad for you. Another told you none of this, coffee is much better. Probably the last one was funded by Nescafé. Feel lost? Welcome to bias.

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According to Cambridge Dictionary, bias is defined as follows:

noun: the action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way, because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment.

Simply put, when you are biased, you have inclination that makes you judge without questioning any This prejudice is done in favor of or against an entity, whether it is a thing, person, idea, or whatever. However, it is usually being done in an unfair way.

While you now understand the basic idea of what bias is, you also need to get an idea of the technical definition. In this definition, bias refers to systematic errors in the design, conduct, analysis, or interpretation of research that can lead to radically incorrect and misleading conclusions.

Bias is usually opposing objectivity, given that it is not based on a fact or justifiable reason, yet usually based on a number of combinations of factors like age, gender, race, culture, personal experience, etc. To investigate how this bias is originated, generally talking in general life, the sources are usually from cultural and societal norms. In research, as described in the paper "Identifying and Avoiding Bias in Research,” occurs when “systematic error [is] introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over others.” That is, it happens when this one thing is there: the lack of absolute objectivity of getting whatever a finding, and thus acting according to this, i.e., not altering anything to favor this outcome.

Based on this same paper, the notion is presented that “Bias is not a dichotomous variable.” This means that bias is not as simple to just to be categorized as either being present or absent; it is not a yes or no situation, being non-binary. Instead, it can be regarded as a continuum, thus having various varying degrees or levels. This is important for you so that while evaluating resources, you wouldn’t only be asking whether a study is entirely biased or entirely unbiased, you should instead evaluate how severe bias is and how much it affects the conclusions; you should be grading the extent of presence of bias.

Taken from university of Wisconsin-green bay, you should be also aware of the following terms (definitions taken from Cambridge dictionaries):

• Agenda, n. the underlying intentions or motives of a particular person or group
• Hyperbole, n. exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally
• Objective, adj. (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts
• Parody, n. an imitation of the style of a particular writer, artist, or genre with deliberate exaggeration for comic effect
• Satire, n. The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's folly and vice
• Subjective, adj. based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions

You now may understand the dangers of research. On an academic integrity note, bias is nothing but existential crisis. Bias cane be seen as the largest factor corrupting the scientific method, given how devastating it is to introduce systematic errors at every stage. One part is reputation and credibility, both of you and your institution. This would lead, regarding institutions, result in loss of public trust that would now question their standards, which would further severely damage them in forms of reduced funding opportunities and collaborative relationships.

What was mentioned above is how would bias impact one, one a personal note, where although huge, it is nothing compared to the following: how bias affects research, the community, and people: you and I.