Confirmation Bias

Originally posted by sonship
Oh well.

I refered to another source with a view contrary to my view.
How I missed the point, I don't understand.

It's not about pre-empting what people who disagree with you might say, it's about people like you and me ~ within ourselves [not fielding questions from others in a debate with others] ~ about our respective beliefs, and whether our beliefs are in any way sustained or protected by selectivity in the sources of information we use.

Originally posted by FMF
It's not about pre-empting what people who disagree with you might say, it's about people like you and me ~ within ourselves [not fielding questions from others in a debate with others] ~ about our respective beliefs, and whether our beliefs are in any way sustained or protected by selectivity in the sources of information we use.

We all protect our thoughts with reasons.

You might consider reasons to be the protective wall surrounding what needs to be protected - our thoughts.

That in and of itself does not say anything about the truthfulness of what we think or its falsehood. But it says we think a certain way. And we protect that way of thinking with reasons.

I don't know about Internet conversations, but an astute scholar would study more than one side of an issue always. He or she would examine one angle carefully and examine another angle carefully. If that student doesn't do that then they are not a very good scholar.

Now on a typical Internet Discussion Forum people are probably not going to take the time to volunteer a lot of source material contrary to what they want to believe. But a well written book or a graduate level text should present contrary viewpoints and do so with impeccable fairness and objectivity.

The honest researcher should ask himself then, "Am I understanding and representing this contrary opinion to my own fairly ?"

Check peer reviewed sources. Multiple web sites which quote the same erroneous source merely contribute to confirmation bias through apparent certainty in numbers.

Bear in mind that Wikipedia & YouTube often come up first (or very near the top) on a web search, but are far from being what serious scholars would consider peer reviewed.

"the hobgoblin of consistency" is from Emerson, BTW. The full passage reads as follows:

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood." from his essay, Self-Reliance

Originally posted by sonship
You might consider reasons to be the protective wall surrounding what needs to be protected - our thoughts.

I'd be interested in examples of thoughts that you think need to be protected completely [I take it that this is what you mean by there being a "wall"]. And perhaps an example or two of thoughts that don't need such a "wall".

Originally posted by moonbus
"the hobgoblin of consistency" is from Emerson, BTW.

Ah that's where vistesd got it from! If I'd heard it before, I'd forgotten. I particularly liked the way he juxtaposed it with the perception of "integrity". Was that Emerson too?

Originally posted by sonship
You might consider reasons to be the protective wall surrounding what needs to be protected - our thoughts.

That in and of itself does not say anything about the truthfulness of what we think or its falsehood. But it says we think a certain way. And we protect that way of thinking with reasons.

I think in the past ~ the somewhat younger me ~ I may have erected protective walls surrounding certain PC issues, and would have characterized my stances as maybe "commonsensical" or even "decent". But I sense that I now feel a bit less doctrinaire about certain things ~ having been exposed to many arguments I once used to reject ~ although certain core values may not have changed much.

I believe there is also a danger of being too 'open minded'. For example I do not think the correct attitude towards most conspiracy theories is to say 'they may be possible' and then put a lot of effort into giving them a fair trial so to speak.
Much the same applies to religions. I don't think anyone here has investigated every single religion/cult/belief to see if there is something to it.
Maybe we should at least consider the possibility that certain beliefs are valid, but what criteria should we use before considering them? The number of subscribers? So if say 2 million people say 'touch wood' as a good luck charm, should we consider the possibility that it works?

Originally posted by sonship
We all protect our thoughts with reasons.

You might consider reasons to be the protective wall surrounding what needs to be protected - our thoughts.

That in and of itself does not say anything about the truthfulness of what we think or its falsehood. But it says we think a certain way. And we protect that way of thinking with reasons.

I do ...[text shortened]... ask himself then, "Am I understanding and representing this contrary opinion to my own fairly ?"

Your analysis fits properly done science, up to a point. An astute scientist will design his experiments such that if his hypothesis is wrong, the experiments will show it to be wrong.

I find myself leaning in the direction of confirmation bias when it comes to comparing the geological evidence to claims of a 6000-year old universe. That is, I don't try to find and consider the best possible argument for all the old-Earth evidence being wrong. I know where it is, it's in Genesis. Of course, the current scientific theories about the age of the universe may be wrong, that being the provisional nature of science. That thought tempers my bias a bit.

To know every side of a debate would be the best tact to take. Know the opposition's argument as well as they do 😉 I will say this that I've learned that half the stuff on Youtube and Facebook or whatever outlet can't be trusted as fact and hard to base an argument on.


Manny

Originally posted by FMF
I'd be interested in examples of thoughts that you think need to be protected completely [I take it that this is what you mean by there being a "wall"]. And perhaps an example or two of thoughts that don't need such a "wall".

I am not ready to contribute anything further yet.

It is kind of tricky because reasoning certainly is thinking. But if our thoughts are for some reason under assault, we protect them by bolstering up reasons around them.

My thoughts on this matter were along the line of spiritual matters.