objectivity is for girls?

I began reading Dan Doriani's book Women and Ministry the other day. He blew my mind in the very first paragraph...of the preface. It reads as follows...

With this preface I invite my readers to enter a controversy. Readers will naturally want to judge if they can trust the author who hopes to guide them through complex, emotionally charged issues. Is he a polemicist or a peacemaker? What are his formative experiences? What are his biases and convictions? Are these biases and convictions likely to lead to truth or to confusion? (emphasis mine) These questions deserve answers.

I remember doing DBQ's (document-based questions) in my AP European History class in high school. One of the questions we always had to answer about whatever bit of philosophy we had read regarded the bias of the author, and how it affected his work. Whenever I pick up a newspaper or turn on CNN, I filter the information through the bias I assume the author or speaker has. Whenever I listen to political candidates running for various offices (ok this does NOT happen that often), I constantly keep their party affiliation in mind as I listen to their speeches.

In short, I have always assumed that bias is perceived as a negative thing by the intellectual world. That if one wants to gain respectable knowledge in that world, one must clear away any subjectivity until only the facts remain, and then draw conclusions. I've never thought about it in terms of truth versus confusion. That if a bias leads to truth, then that bias is infinitely preferable to even complete objectivity. That a bias even could aid in discovering the truth. The word "bias" has such a negative connotation; I have simply never considered that it could be incredibly beneficial.

I'm still rather fascinated by this idea, and haven't fully processed it yet.

**Note: In the title of this post, my use of the word "girls" is completely unrelated to Doriani's book. I just love the phrase little boys use, "[insert lame thing here] is for girls!" I use this phrase frequently. Even when it makes no sense whatsoever.

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In completely unrelated news, I broke a guitar pick today. I guess I was really getting into the song I was playing (badly, I assure you), and the tip ripped almost completely off. I didn't even know that could happen. I'm trying to decide whether that means either a) I've now completed my right of passage and am a TRUE guitar player (like breaking a tennis racquet string), or b) I'm just that bad at guitar. I'm hoping for option a.