Confirmation Bias

We're wired to do it. We notice evidence that confirms our already established beliefs and ideas about the world, while ignoring evidence that is contrary to our established beliefs and ideas about the world. Our brains seek out ways to solidify what we know, or what we think we know. Information about the world that confirms to our established beliefs is easier to understand on a cognitive level than information that runs contrary to our established beliefs.

Confirmation bias is one of those things the human animal does so naturally that it is hard to think of it as a negative thing. After all, of course we seek out evidence that confirms our beliefs! Why would we not?

The problem with confirmation bias is that it's not independent and is based not on objectivity but on already established beliefs. We believe proposition X (for example, that my boyfriend and I have a psychic connection to each other) and then when evidence supporting this belief occurs (for example, I was thinking about calling him and right as I picked up the phone, he called me!) while ignoring all of the countless times I was thinking of calling him, and I picked up the phone and he was instead, playing Soul Caliber when I called. Or ignoring all of the times when he called me, and I was busy writing blog posts.

A willing mind can easily overcome confirmation bias by recognizing how prolifically our brainmeat tries to make connections and confirm what we already think we know.

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Why should you read this blog?

I am a skeptical liberal ignostic strong atheist existentialist determinist naturalist ubuntu secular humanist.

I am an amateur photographer, and I want you to see the world through the eye of my camera lens.

I am white, female, and I live in the middle of Saint Louis city.

I am a researcher, a scientist a student, a learner.

Here, you'll read about atheism, alternative medicine vs evidence-based medicine, statistics, disability, the borderlands of science, logic, and unrelated things that catch my fancy.