Confirmation bias
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Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
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Observation statements, then, are always made in the language of some theory and will be as precise as the theoretical or conceptual framework that they utilise is precise. The concept of “force” as used in physics is precise because it acquires its meaning from the role it plays in a precise, relatively autonomous theory, Newtonian mechanics. The use of the same word in everyday language (the force of circumstance, gale-force-winds, the force of an argument, etc.) is imprecise just because the corresponding theories are multifarious and imprecise. Precise, clearly formulated theories are a prerequisite for precise observation statements. In this sense theories precede observation.
- —A. F. Chalmers, What is this thing called science? (1976)
Confirmation bias
kɒnfəˈmeɪʃᵊn ˈbaɪəs (n.)
The tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information that confirms a pre-existing belief, preferring information that supports that belief, ignoring information that contradicts it, interpreting ambiguous information to be consistent with the belief, and more readily recalling information that confirms the belief than that which challenges it.
In oner of life’s glorious ironies, once you understand confirmation bias, you can’t help seeing it everywhere. Which is, more or less, confirmation bias.
Our acceptance of incoming information is biased in favour of what we want to hear — which confirms our existing narrative — and against information which undermines it. Hence confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance and the frequent confusion of causation — the relation to a given conclusion enjoyed by ideas with which you happen to agree — with correlation — the relation to a given conclusion suffered by ideas with which you do not.