A: Once we form a belief, for any reason, good or bad, rational or bonkers, we will eagerly seek out and accept information that supports it
Karl Heinz Jeron 2011
while not bothering to look for information that does not and if we are unavoidably confronted with information that doesn't fit, we will be hypercritical of it, looking for any excuse to dismiss it as worthless."
B: Which is exactly why it is important to have free speech and open forums so that all opinions, good or bad, rational or bonkers can be expressed.
A: Serious confirmation bias only affects psychotics. Most of the rest of, sure, tend to hold to theories we've tested and held for a long time, but are quite capable of properly testing them and changing them if need be.
B: Of course, only a few are really good at it.
A: There's also the equally powerful "deconstruction bias," which makes certain idiots refuse to accept any theory, however rational.
B: My theory of temperaments explains all this but is too intelligent for anyone to notice.
A: Gosh, are you saying we should keep the possibility that we could be wrong in mind? Interesting thought.
B: And, yes, we should keep the possibility that we could be wrong in mind. But it seems to indicate that this can be a difficult thing to do despite our good intentions.
A: You will have a tough time convincing.
B: Once you form a belief, for any reason, good or bad, rational or bonkers, you will eagerly seek out and accept information that supports it while not bothering to look for information that does not and if you are unavoidably confronted with information that doesn't fit, you will be hypercritical of it, looking for any excuse to dismiss it as worthless.
A: The Goon Squad has good intentions?!
B: And yet the theorist behind 'confirmation bias' appears to have no trouble affirming the objective existence of 'confirmation bias'...
A: The Goon Squad has your best interests at heart at all times.
B: Good point. Or is it? Perhaps this is just an example of being hypercritical of a theory with which you disagree, looking for any excuse to dismiss it as worthless. And so is a confirmation of the theory.
A: I can see how this could get very confusing.
B: It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more ...
A: Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, ...
B: Thanks for the demonstration of your confirmation bias.
A: Absolutely! And I commend you for doing your part and then some: even without the help of Elizabeth and Crowley, you've single- handedly got the bonkers part coVERED.
B: Oh, what are you, a newly baptized Oxfordian?
A: How does this demonstrate that I am guilty of "confirmation bias?" As far as my remarks above are concerned, I spent the last two years of school studying the history of ideology.
B: Movements, communes, cults, heresies, etc.
A: When I got out of school I would hang out in online forums kicking Marxist butt.
B: In fact, when I first got into the authorship question, and I got into it via a correspondence with a philosophy prof at Harvard
A: At least he knew how to write his own name.
B: Anybody who wants to confirm that he has priority for conformation bias theory can easily search "confirmation bias."
A: I got 23,000 results
B: It goes back to classical times, in fact, but he is indeed the first to have attempted a systematic study of why people reason badly (his "four idols"), confirmation bias being one category (though not one of his "four idols" in itself).
A: Those in the seat of power oft forget their failings and seek only the obeisance of others! Thus is bad government born! Hold in your heart that you and the people are one, human beings all, and good government shall arise of its own accord! Such is the path of virtue!
B: Did you seek out any counter-instances that would disprove your hypothesis? No.
A: Sorry about the misattribution. I think I was looking at another thread.
B: I'm sure everybody but the crazies realizes he could be wrong about most things and that nobody but the crazies is not intelligently certain about other things.
A: I was sarcastic because it is a truism, and because the third-rate psychologist speaking of it is simplistic and wrong in attributing it to everybody. Makes me think he may be a hedgehog.
B: Easy to say, wack, but not so easy to support with evidence.
A: Terms like these (including "rigidinikry") cannot be used to confirm or refute anything, only to describe those believing in theories that have already been confirmed or refuted by the relevant facts and logic.
B: I rest my case.
Loading...
57:12
Swigertby khjeron59 views
Link to this comment:
All Comments (0)