Honest question here. Are these neighborhoods “over policed” because their residents commit more crimes, or do the residents commit more crimes because their neighborhood is “over policed”?
Only one answer is socially acceptable, regardless of what statistics indicate. And we are building a dangerous world by going down this unscientific path. I am genuinely concerned that this will bleed into ML science and we may find ourselves collectively pursuing a rabbit hole of bad science in a vain attempt to reconcile empirical data with ideology.
This preference for ideology instead of data reminds me of weird stuff that would happen with science in the Soviet Union. You had things in the Soviet Union like Lysenkoism[1] where a kook got power and explained his science in ideological terms and his theories, unsupported by data, were adopted and defended to the detriment of agricultural production. Workers adopted the theories because people were so afraid of criticizing the dominant ideology that they adopted whatever "science" was mandated in order to avoid being purged. Disagreement with official science was considered proof that one was a political subversive.
"More than 3,000 mainstream biologists were dismissed or imprisoned, and numerous scientists were executed in the campaign to suppress scientific opponents."