The deep and unavoidable roots of political bias
As a former scientist, I’ve been trained to rely on objective facts. For years, when I was attempting to persuade someone, I would back my arguments with hard, cold, irrefutable data and expect immediate results. Drowning the other person with facts, I assumed, was the best way to prove that climate change is real, the war on drugs has failed, or t
... See moreOzan Varol • Think Like a Rocket Scientist: Simple Strategies You Can Use to Make Giant Leaps in Work and Life
This is an observation about human rationality as much as it is about the epistemic conditions generated by life in what Jay Bolter has aptly termed the digital plentitude and which I usually call the Database. We are not as narrowly rational in our thinking as many would like to believe. Which is why conventional “solutions” to the problems associ... See more
L. M. Sacasas • Digital Inception
Confirmation bias is not objective, so it has no place in actual research. To combat it, give the voice of the opposition clear and full attention.
Peter Hollins • The Science of Self-Learning: How to Teach Yourself Anything, Learn More in Less Time, and Direct Your Own Education (Learning how to Learn Book 1)
we go astray when we think of our task primarily as “overcoming bias.” For me, the fundamental problem we have may best be described as an orientation of the will: we suffer from a settled determination to avoid thinking.