Physics and chemistry don’t change based on subjective interpretations — they either work or don’t, and so should economics, psychology etc.. Either Why should any science, social or not be different?

If the basic ideas of a field do change based on the political views of the teacher, then that is a statement about the rigorousness of the field or its department, and not an issue with the personalities of the lecturers. For instance, why is it that one worries so much about bias from an English prof being an ideologue, while no one cares if a physics prof is.

They never created a “left-wing authoritarianism”…

Left Wing Authoritarians have a philosopher or ideologist as their authority, while RWAs use the traditional authorities in their society.

…which sees gender as totally socially constructed.

Gender is by definition socially constructed. Sex on the other hand is biological.

This whole narrative strain is white guy identity politics, rather than good epistemological inquiry, IMO. The whole thing (“liberal” sociologists + people who compare the lack of “conservative” professors with the lack of black female mathematicians) presents itself as a type of pageant to me. It’s ultimate accomplishment, as far as I can tell, is a distraction of attention from people doing better but less identity-pandering social epistemology (people like perhaps Professor Bostrom).

Across the developed world, there is a clear tendency for academe to be socially liberal, economically collectivist, secularist, internationalist, multiculturalist. But what has characterised academic opinion has changed over time. The Nazis, for example, found academe something of a pushover (see Claudia Koonz’s excellent The Nazi Conscience). Nationalism, racism and imperialism all had much support in the academy during their high periods.

Moreover, the tendency of those whose sense of identity is based on their intellect/cognitive capacity/knowledge, but whose income is isolated from commercial activity, to have anti-commercial attitudes is very longstanding. From Plato, to Chinese mandarins, to medieval clerics to modern humanities academics, the notion that one is morally superior if one is not involved in “vulgar commerce” is a repeated pattern.

The common feature I would suggest is various forms of elitism. Either the sense of being an elite against one’s wider society (the current tendency) or the sense being an elite with and of one’s society that is itself superior (the C19th and early C20th view, the Chinese mandarinate view). If the latter view loses academic cred, then the former becomes the alternative elitism.

After all, if one invests (or intends to invest) all that effort in cognitive skills and knowledge, there has to be some payoff. A sense of moral superiority is a payoff and one, moreover, that one can (to add to its charms) share with one’s colleagues in a “club” of shared (indeed mutually-reinforcing) virtue.

Academic economists tend to not conform entirely to the pattern since the presumptions of common rationality, and that one studies markets so it is a bit hard to feel morally superior for not being a “vulgar profit-seeker”, both rather get in the way.

More numbers from the study: nationally, in the humanities and social sciences, there are 7-9 professors registered as democrats for every 1 professor registered as a republican (it’s about 5:1 in academia as a whole).

Also, you might have misread your numbers. I searched the paper for the number 48 to see what you are referring to in particular, all I found was the statement that 48% of professors are self-described liberal.

If you have evidence that 48% of professors are moderate (as opposed to believing they are moderate), please post it.

Other techniques of identifying political opinions can compare people to other standards.