Pages 183-190

History 8 Environment Bone From a Dry Sea

21. Bias:

Bias is the tendency to lean towards your own opinion and personal experiences, and the prejudice against or for something, a person, or an idea. It can distort the truth, purposefully or unconsciously. The presence of bias does not always make a source unreliable, but it can cause us to interpret event and history is a different way. An example of bias occurred in the novel A Bone From a Dry Sea on page: "You think this is a tin-pot country. You think you can come here and do what you wish. You think you can take treasures out of our soil, and we will not know, because we are savages" (188). This quote shows the archaeologists' bias towards the people of the region, and how they believed things work. Their opinions were that the people of Africa didn't have the understanding to realize what important bones lay in their soil. The members of the dig had the biased view that it was a free-for-all, and they could do what they liked and take what they liked.

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- Julia Smith