Reality check: the dangers of confirmation bias
Mar 7, 2017 19:03:54 GMT
ashliy and kenskinner like this
Post by ck4829 on Mar 7, 2017 19:03:54 GMT
A professional hazard that nearly all experts must learn to overcome is “confirmation bias,” the tendency to favor and recall information that confirms their hypothesis.
In this excerpt from The Death of Expertise, Tom Nichols discusses a 2014 study on public attitudes towards gay marriage to illustrate the dangers of confirmation bias.
“Confirmation bias” is the most common—and easily the most irritating—obstacle to productive conversation, and not just between experts and laypeople. The term refers to the tendency to look for information that only confirms what we believe, to accept facts that only strengthen our preferred explanations, and to dismiss data that challenge what we already accept as truth. We all do it, and you can be certain that you and I and everyone who’s ever had an argument with anyone about anything has infuriated someone else with it.
Scientists and researchers tussle with confirmation bias all the time as a professional hazard. They, too, have to make assumptions in order to set up experiments or explain puzzles, which in turn means they’re already bringing some baggage to their projects. They have to make guesses and use intuition, just like the rest of us, since it would waste a lot of time for every research program to begin from the assumption that no one knows anything and nothing ever happened before today. “Doing before knowing” is a common problem in setting up any kind of careful investigation: after all, how do we know what we’re looking for if we haven’t found it yet?
blog.oup.com/2017/03/confirmation-bias-danger/
In this excerpt from The Death of Expertise, Tom Nichols discusses a 2014 study on public attitudes towards gay marriage to illustrate the dangers of confirmation bias.
“Confirmation bias” is the most common—and easily the most irritating—obstacle to productive conversation, and not just between experts and laypeople. The term refers to the tendency to look for information that only confirms what we believe, to accept facts that only strengthen our preferred explanations, and to dismiss data that challenge what we already accept as truth. We all do it, and you can be certain that you and I and everyone who’s ever had an argument with anyone about anything has infuriated someone else with it.
Scientists and researchers tussle with confirmation bias all the time as a professional hazard. They, too, have to make assumptions in order to set up experiments or explain puzzles, which in turn means they’re already bringing some baggage to their projects. They have to make guesses and use intuition, just like the rest of us, since it would waste a lot of time for every research program to begin from the assumption that no one knows anything and nothing ever happened before today. “Doing before knowing” is a common problem in setting up any kind of careful investigation: after all, how do we know what we’re looking for if we haven’t found it yet?
blog.oup.com/2017/03/confirmation-bias-danger/