27 Quotes About Confirmation-bias

"Some people in my position would now have felt rather crestfallen, and would have begun to think that they had made a very foolish mistake. Not the faintest misgiving of any kind troubled me. I did not feel in the slightest degree depreciated in my own estimation. And even now, after a lapse of three hours, my mind remains, I am happy to say, in the same calm and hopeful condition."

"We all also suffer from confirmation bias, the tendency to spot evidence in support of a proposition that we already think is true. So it is not always the case that people start with a belief and then set out to communicate it; much of the bullshit to which we are exposed comes from folks who have a compelling reason to communicate something and then come to believe it. Or to think they believe it."

"Did you ever read my words, or did you merely finger through them for quotations which you thought might valuably support an already conceived idea concerning some old and distorted connection between us?"

"What sets science and the law apart from religion is that nothing is expected to be taken on faith. We're encouraged to ask whether the evidence actually supports what we're being told - or what we grew up believing - and we're allowed to ask whether we're hearing all the evidence or just some small prejudicial part of it. If our beliefs aren't supported by the evidence, then we're encouraged to alter our beliefs."

"People tend to accept information that confirms their existing beliefs and feelings, and reject information that contradicts them. This is called “motivated reasoning,” and it means that providing people with corrective information often does not work and may even strengthen their original beliefs. This also means that when people receive new information, their existing beliefs and feelings may have more influence over whether they believe or reject this information than rational reasoning."

"One believed what one was told to believe, what it made sense to believe. Unless one was a foreigner, of course, or a philosopher."

"Given the level of understanding and the fact that they believed already in a set of myths and superstitions, it was the easiest and fastest way to proceed."

"Data has an annoying way of conforming itself to support whatever point of view we want it to support."

"Therefore, everything the marginalized individual interprets as racism is considered racism by default—an episteme that encourages confirmation bias and leaves wide open the door to the unscrupulous."