SBC - (love the name, BTW) Very good book I've recommended on at least two other threads is 'The Believing Brain' by Michael Shermer. Available at a bookstore or library near you.
Confirmation Bias
by allelsefails 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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SweetBabyCheezits
Love Michael Shermer! Platonically, of course.
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mummatron
There's an awful lot of it in the media...
UK newspaper, The Daily Mail, is notorious for sensationalising out-of-context findings from medical studies. However, earlier this year, the UK press caused a massive furore when they used confirmation bias to hype up a paper published in the British Medical Journal entitled, "Six months of exclusive breastfeeding: How good is the evidence?"
Relying purely on breastfeeding for the first six months might not be best for babies, experts in the UK have warned.
Now a new review says that breastfed babies should be weaned before they're six months old.
Scientists from University College London say children not introduced to solid food early enough could suffer from iron deficiency, or become prone to allergies. The research, however, contradicts government advice. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12189183This was nicely deconstructed as misrepresentation on the part of the BMJ paper and further misrepresentation on the part of the Associated Press by infant feeding consultant Charlotte Thomas, aka The Analytical Armardillo, in her blog: http://www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2011/01/starting-solids-facts-behind-todays.html and widely refuted by authorities such as UNICEF and the UK Department of Health.
An article published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) is being reported in the media as questioning whether exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months is appropriate for UK babies. This article is not based on new evidence but rather a re-analysis of older evidence, much of which is the same as that used as the basis for weaning recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UK’s Departments of Health (DH). http://www.unicef.org.uk/BabyFriendly/News-and-Research/News/UNICEF-UK-response-to-media-reports-questioning-the-recommendation-to-introduce-solid-food-to-babies-at-6-months/
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allelsefails
SBC - Thanks for Shermer that was great. It is certainly difficult to seperate TRUTH from what you are led to believe.
"Critical Thinking" is awesome, but you are the only one who can tell you what that standard is. Just watched a show where there are "rogue" scientists that deny Quantum theory for believing an electron is a wave and a particle all the time instead of sometimes a wave and sometimes a particle. I don't understand half of it, but the point is there is no absolute truth..... to find one is to close your mind to all facts, experiments, and research.
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man oh man
i think this confirms why i am bias!
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Chevelle
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
This pretty much sums it up.
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eyeslice
Unfortunately, we are all victims to confirmation bias.
Trump is a good guy who is really misunderstood vs Trump is an evil idiot.
Vaccines are the devil's spawn vs vaccines are God-given life savers.
Confirmation bias has always been about but with the internet today it is far too easy to do research that simply confirms your existing bias.
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TonusOH
ihadnoidea: I think to a degree we all are affected by confirmation bias.
More than just to a degree. Confirmation bias is just one of the ways our brain works, in order to minimize the amount of time and energy devoted to anything aside from being aware of our surroundings. Those who could compartmentalize and quickly process decision-making info were less likely to be caught unawares by a predator.
Our brains process a lot of information automatically and manage our vitals with minimal or no input. Even when we're aware of behavior like confirmation bias, we're still subject to it because it's how our brains work. A good pair of books that review research on how our brains work would be the ones by David McRaney: You Are Not So Smart and You Are Now Less Dumb. Some of the research is limited and probably out-of-date, but it's fascinating to see just how little control we have over who we are.
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Vidiot
SweetBabyCheezits - “… Identifying them is, I believe, a pretty important step in suppressing them.”
Or, at the very least, keeping ‘em on a fucking leash.