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Confirmation Bias Quotes

Browse 32 quotes about Confirmation Bias.

Confirmation Bias Quotes

“Misguided good men are more dangerous than honest bad men. It is because they are seen as good that, in and by good conscience, the mob will always, stubbornly back them without question.”

WarTruthEvilUnderstandingSupportHonestDangerousJudgmentConscienceLiesMajorityGoodReputationProphetGood And EvilDeceitFightQuestioningFalsehoodBiasMistakenStubbornFlatteryMisunderstandingDiscernmentMisguidedCrowdIntentionsMobMinorityDishonestConfirmation BiasFalse ProphetGood ConscienceBad ConscienceSmooth Talk
Book:Healology
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“All that Delaura noticed, though, was the uproarious crowing of the roosters. 'There are only six of them, but they make enough noise for a hundred,' said the Abbess. 'Furthermore, a pig spoke and a goat gave birth to triplets.' And she added with fervor: 'Everything has been like this since your Bishop did us the favor of sending us his poisoned gift.' She viewed with equal alarm the garden flowering with so much vigor that it seemed contra natura. As they walked across it she pointed out to Delaura that there were flowers of exceptional size and color, some with an unbearable scent. As far as she was concerned, everything ordinary has something supernatural about it.”

OrdinarySupernaturalSuperstitionConfirmation Bias
Author:Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez
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“إن النفس الإنسانية معقدة لدرجة أن ما قد يظن صاحبه أنه جدال عن الحق قد يكون في الحقيقة كِبر خفيّ في أغوار نفسه يأبى عليه أن يخطّئ نفسه وينصاع للحجة الواضحة  (إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يُجَادِلُونَ فِي آيَاتِ اللَّهِ بِغَيْرِ سُلْطَانٍ أَتَاهُمْ إِنْ فِي صُدُورِهِمْ إِلا كِبْرٌ مَا هُمْ بِبَالِغِيهِ)”

PsychologySelf Deceptionعلم نفسCognitive BiasesConfirmation Bias
Book:معادلة الإيمان
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“Some people in my position would now have felt rather crestfallen, and would have begun to think that they had made a very foolish mistake. Not the faintest misgiving of any kind troubled me. I did not feel in the slightest degree depreciated in my own estimation. And even now, after a lapse of three hours, my mind remains, I am happy to say, in the same calm and hopeful condition.”

HumorousStupidityEgotismSelf DeceptionConfirmation Bias
Book:Biter Bit and Other Stories
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“It was a good answer that was made by one who when they showed him hanging in a temple a picture of those who had paid their vows as having escaped shipwreck, and would have him say whether he did not now acknowledge the power of the gods, — ‘Aye,’ asked he again, ‘but where are they painted that were drowned after their vows?’ And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like; wherein men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happens much oftener, neglect and pass them by.”

LogicRationalitySuperstitionConfirmation BiasDeductive Reasoning
Author:Francis Bacon
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“From the very beginnings of our story as followers of Jesus, we have recognized and honoured the fundamental truth that every person is made in the image of God. Yet, while we are quick to celebrate those aspects of the divine image with which we personally relate, we all too quickly reject and denounce those that are different than ourselves as suspect or lesser than or sinful.”

TruthJesusSinChristianityDivineTheologyImage Of GodConfirmation BiasNormativity
Author:Jamie Arpin-Ricci
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“Whenever I was too straitly pressed with objections and arguments against any of my sentiments, and when doubts began to arise in my mind, to put off the uneasiness occasioned by them, my constant practice was to recollect, as far as I could, all the reasonings and interpretations of Scripture on the other side of the question; and when this failed of affording satisfaction, I had recourse to controversial writings. This drew me aside from the pure Word of God, rendered me more remiss and formal in prayer, and furnished me with defensive armour against my convictions, with fuel for my passions, and food for my pride and self-sufficiency.”

SinPrejudiceReasoningConfirmation Bias
Book:The Force of Truth
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“Let us, thusly, embrace the assumption that to each advocate of a respective paradigm within his respective bubble, the phenomenological gaps between himself and those in neighboring bubbles are insurmountable. The resident of a given bubble has become so inured to the echoes of his own ‘truth’ as to abandon all terms of commonality with the ‘truths’ of others outside his bubble. The internal terms, concepts, definitions and assumptions underlying each paradigm are different and incommensurate with those of their external counterparts. And so, to debate them would be tantamount to speaking through one another without much mutual understanding. In their communities, they speak different words, abide by different sets of logic, axioms and propositions from those of other communities; they, thusly, do not understand the terminology upholding other paradigms beside their own, and many attempts at translation have become lost in circular discourse for there exists no equivalency of terms. Thus, any gaps between bubbles of paradigm are beyond traversal; all arguments between them remain perplexing and irreconcilable. There, then, evolves, among them, a strong tendency to seek out information that only serves to confirm their own biases, and, in the process, to otherize any alien paradigms as hotbeds of disinformation.”

ParadigmPostmodernismEpistemologyPhenomenologyConfirmation BiasPost TruthTheory Of KnowledgeEcho ChamberInsularityInformation BubblesPlurality Of Truth
Author:Ashim Shanker
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“If we were to trace the arc of this resplendent moment to its uncertain trajectory, we might arrive at a time 10,000 years hence in which our story is likely to be told, albeit in the past tense, with the requisite degree of speculation and inconsistency and according to the values, perceptions and prevailing paradigms swirling about its storyteller—who, most certainly, would be just as alien and unseemly to us as we, in our primitive ways, would seem to him... Of course, we can suppose there to be some level of idealization in the storytelling—even if he...were to examine fastidiously all records of our associations, contracts, interactions, transactions and endeavors, he would still come away with his own set of presumptions, in a manner, no different than the sort to be drawn away through the course of taking epistemological preference. Certain facts, agreements and events will unduly be assigned a preponderance of emphasis whilst others, though critical in their own time and to its chief actors, will be glossed over for their lack of sexiness to the keen observer of historical fact. Certain moments will be lost and others manufactured in their place, and these conscripted fabrications will define future idealizations of this moment of time—this, as you are sure to find, deeply critical moment in the history of our species.”

PropagandaSpeculationEpistemologyInconsistencyConfirmation BiasIdealization Of The PastHistorical Inaccuracy
Book:Inward and Toward
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“In the mid 1980's I was asked by an american legal institution known as the Christic Legal Institute to compile a comic book that would detail the murky history of the C.I.A., from the end of the second world war, to the present day. Covering such things as the heroin smuggling during the Vietnam war, the cocaine smuggling during the war in Central America, the Kennedy assasination and other highlights. What I learned during the frankly horrifying research that I had to slog through in order to accomplish this, was that yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists, and ham fisted clowns. If you are on a list targeted by the C.I.A., you really have nothing to worry about. If however you have a name similar to someone on a list targeted by the C.I.A., then you are dead? The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening. Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless...”

ConspiracyCiaParanoiaNew World OrderConspiracy TheoriesIlluminatiConfirmation BiasThe Truth IsAlex JonesConspiracy ThoeoristsPitfalls Of Bad ThinkingMales 18 35Mindscape Of Alan Moore
Author:Alan Moore
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“In addition to the confirmation bias and circular reasoning of the worldview-assumption filter, the Münchausen trilemma eliminates any natural way of reaching the truth. Every argument needs true premises, and those premises require an additional argument to prove them. The result is an infinite regression of unproven proofs.”

TruthArgumentAssumptionPremisesWorldviewConfirmation BiasFilterCircular ReasoningMünchausen Trilemma
Book:Exposing the REAL Creation-Evolution Debate: The Absolute Proof of the Biblical Account
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“What I tried to make clear in Good Calories, Bad Calories was that nutrition and obesity research lost its way after the Second World War with the evaporation of the European community of scientists and physicians that did pioneering work in those disciplines. It has since resisted all attempts to correct it. As a result, the individuals involved in this research have not only wasted decades of time, and effort, and money but have done incalculable damage along the way. Their beliefs have remained imperious to an ever-growing body of evidence that refutes them while being embraced by public-health authorities and translated into precisely the wrong advice about what to eat and, more important, what not to eat if we want to maintain a healthy weight and live a long and healthy life.”

GovernmentObesityDietDietingCarbohydratesConfirmation BiasBad SciencePaleoLow CarbKetosisPitfalls Of Bad Thinking
Book:Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
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“Even if these researchers do see the need to address the problem immediately, though they have obligations and legitimate interests elsewhere, including being funded for other research. With luck, the ideas discussed in Good Calories, Bad Calories may be rigorously tested in the next twenty years. If confirmed, it will be another decade or so after that, at least, before our public health authorities actively change their official explanation for why we get fat, how that leads to illness, and what we have to do to avoid or reverse those fates. As I was told by a professor of nutrition at New York University after on of my lectures, the kind of change I'm advocating could take a lifetime to be accepted.”

GovernmentScienceIllnessObesityDietCaloriesPublic HealthDietingConfirmation BiasBad Science
Book:Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
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“The proliferation of material means that people might start to become selective about what they consume and, if my instincts are correct, they are likely to read only that which confirms what they already know. This means they will never have their ideas tested. I worry that as a result, people will form tight groups around those who confirm their biases, mistrusting those whom they encounter who think differently.”

Public OpinionNews MediaConfirmation Bias
Author:Una McCormack
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“Stories are powerful and memorable. That is why I have told so many in this book. But an individual anecdote can only serve as an illustration. To really convince yourself, much less others, we need to change the way we do things: we need data, and lots of it. [...] People become overconfident because they never bother to document their past track record of wrong predictions, and then they make things worse by falling victim to the dreaded confirmation bias - they only look for evidence that confirms their preconceived hypotheses. The only protection against overconfidence is to systematically collect data, especially data that can prove you wrong. [...] "If you don't write it down, it doesn't exist". In addition, most organizations have an urgent need to learn how to learn, and then commit to this learning in order to accumulate knowledge over time. At the very least this means trying new things and keeping track of what happens. Even better would be to run actual experiments. [...] The ideal organizational environment encourages everyone to observe, collect data, and speak up.”

Organizational CultureOverconfidenceConfirmation BiasOrganizational BehaviorData Driven Decisions
Book:Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics
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“People tend to accept information that confirms their existing beliefs and feelings, and reject information that contradicts them. This is called “motivated reasoning,” and it means that providing people with corrective information often does not work and may even strengthen their original beliefs. This also means that when people receive new information, their existing beliefs and feelings may have more influence over whether they believe or reject this information than rational reasoning.”

MotivationInfluenceBelief SystemsInfluencing PeopleBelief SystemConfirmation BiasMotivated Reasoning
Book:Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech
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“Therefore, everything the marginalized individual interprets as racism is considered racism by default—an episteme that encourages confirmation bias and leaves wide open the door to the unscrupulous.”

RacismConfirmation BiasUnscrupulous
Book:Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody
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“We lived in a mist of half-shared, unreliable perception, and our sense data came warped by a prism of desire and belief, which tilted our memories too. We saw and remembered in our own favour and we persuaded ourselves along the way. Pitiless objectivity, especially about ourselves, was always a doomed societal strategy. We're descended from the indignant, passionate tellers of half truths who in order to convince others, simultaneously convinced themselves. Over generations success had winnowed us out, and with success came our defect, carved deep in the genes like ruts in a cart track – when it didn't suit us we couldn't agree on what was in front of us. Believing is seeing. That's why there are divorces, border disputes and wars, and why the statue of the Virgin Mary weeps blood and the one of Ganesh drinks milk. And that was why metaphysics and science were such courageous enterprises, such startling inventions, bigger than the wheel, bigger than agriculture, human artifacts set right against the grain of human nature. Disinterested truth. But it couldn't save us from ourselves, the ruts were too deep. There could be no private redemption in objectivity.”

SciencePerceptionBeliefsEvolutionary PsychologyConfirmation Bias
Book:Enduring Love
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