Editing Infrastructure bias (section)

In [[economics]] and [[social policy]], '''infrastructure bias''' is the influence of the location and availability of pre-existing [[infrastructure]], such as roads and telecommunications facilities, on social and economic development.

In [[science]], '''infrastructure bias''' is the influence of existing social or scientific infrastructure on scientific observations.

In astronomy and [[particle physics]], where the availability of particular kinds of telescopes or particle accelerators acts as a constraint on the types of experiments that can be done, the data that can be retrieved is biased towards that which can be obtained by the equipment.

[[Procedural bias]], related to infrastructure bias, is shown by a case of irregular genetic sampling of Bolivian [[Solanum|wild potatoes]].<ref name=DivaGIS>{{cite web |url= http://www.diva-gis.org/docs/bias.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060616034023/http://www.diva-gis.org/docs/bias.pdf |archive-date=2006-06-16 |url-status=live | title= Assessing the geographic representativeness of genebank collections: The case of Bolivian wild potatoes| publisher= Diva Geographic Information System}}</ref> A 2000 report of previous studies' sampling found that 60% of samples had been taken near towns or roads, where 22% would be the average, had the samples been taken at random<ref name=DivaGIS/> (or from equidistant points, or at specifically varying distances from towns, representative of the average terrain density).