At Huffpost, Marty Kaplan is — somehow — surprised that prior beliefs influence how we interpret new information, even blinding us to facts.
But then he quickly realizes that this is — of course! — why “Fox News viewers” and “climate change deni[ers]” are incapable of seeing the obvious truths that are in front of them.
One obvious lesson of confirmation bias: It’s always easier to see confirmation bias amongst those who disagree with you!
HT Althouse.
It’s about humbling yourself before the mysteries of the natural world.
My favorite decade is the 1970’s. Partially because of the urban cowboy shirts. But also because it was – by subjective evaluation – the most subversive decade. This is the decade that gave us the original Bad News Bears, remember, one of the most subversive movies ever made.
Now for some subversive science from the 1970’s. In 1973, D.L. Rosenhan and eight other “normal” people got themselves admitted – undercover – as patients at psychiatric hospitals. After admission, they made every effort to act normally and to answer questions truthfully, staying on average over 3 weeks.
The doctors and nurses failed to realize that they were sane. But the real patients in the hospital saw through the ruse.
From my hammock this morning. A little out-of-focus.
Angry old man Bill Nye argues that we have to eradicate creationism, because “we need scientists and engineers.”
Evolution is fascinating to me… and an integral part of how I see the world. But it is preposterous to propose that one can’t be a scientist or engineer without believing in evolution. Partial list of people who did not believe in evolution: Galileo, Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Mendel, Gutenberg, Faraday, etc.
Science is a process, not a body of facts to be memorized.
One of my favorite interviews. Robert Cialdini not only uses sneaky-clever psych experiments to study the art of persuasion, he also goes out and learns from car salesman, direct marketers, etc.
http://vimeo.com/74153462
The CDC reports that over 80 thousand people die each other from alcohol-related causes. And over 20 thousand people die from prescription drug overdoes.
But NPR is fear-mongering about 4 deaths from drugs incorrectly sold as MDMA, a drug that NPR declared to be safe and potentially beneficial last year.
Note that the DEA’s scare tactics are based on the potential that pills sold as ecstasy are not pure MDMA, an extremely infrequent problem that could be eliminated if the government ended its ban.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I hosted this panel discussion on Richard Feynman’s letters at the LA Public Library:
http://vimeo.com/74085608
Red-whiskered bulbuls – a bird native to SE Asia that showed up in our walnut tree. Took me over 2 hours to figure out what they were.
Quote is from Nicholas Lund at Slate.
At Slate, the famous memory researcher Elizabeth Loftus proposes that implanting false memories could change our behavior for the better:
AG: Could false memories be used for therapeutic purposes—like reducing alcohol consumption? EL: Absolutely, yes. I’ve had people say to me, do you think you could cure all kinds of problems with the false-memory technique? I hope other people will give it a try.
It’s hard to imagine how this would be implemented: If somebody signs off on having a false memory implanted, then won’t it be harder for them to accept that memory as factual?
It’s analogous to the problem of how to harness the power of the placebo effect. Doctors could be instructed to try a placebo before a “real” treatment, in cases where the life of the patient is not at stake and the potential benefits outweigh the costs. But the patient would have to sign off on this, presumably reducing the effectiveness. Maybe health insurers could offer patients the option of “pre-clearing” the use of placebos (with a lower premium?)
It seems extremely inefficient that our whole system of Western medicine forbids providers from harnessing one of the most powerful natural healing mechanisms.
But allowing providers to practice deception is also fraught with peril!