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{{g}}The related phenomena of [[causation]], [[correlation]], | {{g}}The related phenomena of [[causation]], [[correlation]], [[confirmation bias]] come together in the idea of [[cognitive dissonance]] - how one person can hold separate ideas in her head whose underlying values, premises and assumptions contradict each other. | ||
===[[Confirmation bias]]=== | ===[[Confirmation bias]]=== | ||
You will be familiar with the experience of the futile argument with to someone who holds a contrary idea to yours. If you're not, what the hell were you doing at university? The atheist who heckles the born-again preacher - or vice versa - will know this feeling. So will Marxists who engage capitalists, climate deniers who take on eco warriors and anyone who's tried to querying | You will be familiar with the experience of the futile argument with to someone who holds a contrary idea to yours. If you're not, what the hell were you ''doing'' at university? The atheist who heckles the born-again preacher - or vice versa - will know this feeling. So will Marxists who engage capitalists, climate deniers who take on eco warriors and anyone who's tried to querying [[force ranking]] wirh [[HR]]. This kind of arguments is utterly fruitless, but thoroughly entertaining for the protagonists, at least until one pushes one hot button too far, and it's all-out war. | ||
It is fruitless because everyone who holds a view will accept any | It is fruitless to argue across divides because everyone who holds a view will accept as immutable proof any contention, however wan, which seems to support it, and will explain away, dissemble or, at the limit, flat-out ''ignore'' any assertion which tends to contradict it. | ||
We apply a rose-tinted filter, that is to say. 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]]. | |||
Where defence is even needed (much of the time, ignoring will do just fine), classic approaches include ''[[ad hominem]]'' arguments, ''[[reductio ad absurdam]]s'', analogising to the Third Reich and, if you're really rattled, the old [[correlation does not imply causation]] chestnut, but the most reliable of the lot is just ignoring utterly. | |||
You won't notice you're doing it. You won't even ''believe' you're doing it. There are plenty of pragmatic reasons you should do this. This is how scientific progress works . | You won't notice you're doing it. You won't even ''believe' you're doing it. There are plenty of pragmatic reasons you should do this. This is how scientific progress works . |