The post concerned (it’s not long):

Overcoming Bias: Tyler Vid on Disagreement

The sentence I disagree with is this:

but on any truly controversial question among intelligent people, you should never think its 95 to 5 in your favor.

My comment:

Tyler has a much too optimistic attitude on people’s reasoning skills, thinking that when most people agree on something they should be right more probably. It is rather that we are evolved to agree, so disagreeing is difficult even if you have good reasons.

That Tyler’s view is wrong can be seen easily: imagine a person versed in the cutting edge of modern science is instantiated in the stone age: he will find himself disagreeing with most people in the tribes, but surely he will be right on more things than them? (Believing not is a very postmodernist attitude, against which so much can and has be said that it need not repeated here).

Of course, Tyler would say that the information that the future person has is different from the one the stone-agers have. But exactly this is the case in modern science: if you find yourself disagreeing with 95% of people on a subject, this is probably because you are familiar with often very counter-intuitive results of a highly specialized field – and the information has not gone public yet.

On Cosmic Variance something even more troubling is discussed:

A commenter says:

Great discussion. I particularly note Sean’s reminder that quite a lot of physicists don’t want to admit that there is a problem with the arrow of time. The underlying motivation is all too often a kind of childish machismo: that’s philosophy, and philosophy is bad. Sadly, the truth is that physicists needed philosophers like Huw Price to keep on telling them what ought to have been extremely obvious: the arrow of time is a real mystery, and our failure to explain it fully is a very strong hint that there is something major missing from our whole understanding of the early universe.

So should one really go believing that everything is ok just because the majority of physicists do? No. The social factors working against posing new difficult questions are much too evident here. So we see that even highly sophisticated disciplines have a problem: they do not take dissenters seriously enough. So much for disagreeing with intelligent people.

As to assigning a concrete number to being right or wrong about a certain belief: in absence of empirical evidence giving some numbers to plug in, that’s just begging for a false certainty of exactness – don’t do it.

Check the reasoning and evidence behind arguments, apply some evolutionary psychology, avoid cached thoughts, and you’re well on your way.

Addendum: On the disagreeing with physicists part: this presupposes of course that you have comparable knowledge. It is a bad idea to disagree if you’re a n00b, but if you’ve weighed the evidence and see that they are missing a problem, then disagree!

Technorati Tags: philosophy of science, rationality

Eliezer’s OB Posts

Dependency Graphs

Great resource for newcomers and oldtimers.

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(The essay was brought to my notice via overcomingbias.com)

Some quotes:

This sentence is gold:

The truth is common property. You can’t distinguish your group by doing things that are rational, and believing things that are true. If you want to set yourself apart from other people, you have to do things that are arbitrary, and believe things that are false.

And here:

We arrive at adulthood with a kind of truth debt. We were told a lot of lies to get us (and our parents) through our childhood. Some may have been necessary. Some probably weren’t. But we all arrive at adulthood with heads full of lies.

There’s never a point where the adults sit you down and explain all the lies they told you. They’ve forgotten most of them. So if you’re going to clear these lies out of your head, you’re going to have to do it yourself.

Few do. Most people go through life with bits of packing material adhering to their minds and never know it. You probably never can completely undo the effects of lies you were told as a kid, but it’s worth trying. I’ve found that whenever I’ve been able to undo a lie I was told, a lot of other things fell into place.

I have to absolutely second the last sentence – the most gratifiying experience when adopting a scientific mindset – or, more strongly, adopting a scientific identity – is the freedom to systematically discard the fantasies underlying your local group (nationality, ethnicity, religion, what have you…) world view: and from that point on the world starts to make more sense every day!

It’s not enough to consider your mind a blank slate. You have to consciously erase it.

It reminds me of something which I said in a lecture half a year ago: before starting to learn things, you have to unlearn most of that which you think you know (because it is false). The “knowledge” base existing in our brains is probably the biggest barrier to erkenntnis (insight, knowledge, truth) we face.

Happy cognitive deleting

Technorati Tags: artificial intelligence, bayes, bias, cognitive science, critical thinking, ethics, philosophy, rationality

…when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”

Asimov – The Relativity of Wrong

Technorati Tags: rationality

Backreaction: On The Edge

I didn’t read the whole post, but the quote below resounded with me because this is also what troubles me deeply:

Intelligence is no longer an evolutionary advantage if the content of thought becomes increasingly abstract and theoretical. Our societies get more and more complex, and desperately need intellectuals, scientists, and thinkers to help them find their way in a world that’s getting increasingly confusing every day. Yet, our societies don’t listen to these voices, politics refutes any scientific method, leaders repeat mistakes, ignore warnings, and stick to believes that are scientifically wrong. It’s a problem that has been around since thousands of years, but it is a problem that can be ignored for a long time – as long as trial an error works fast enough. Unfortunately though, the tolerance for mistakes gets smaller every year, and the consequences of mistakes larger.

Technorati Tags: rationality

Overcoming Bias: But There’s Still A Chance, Right?

The last sentence raises an important issue on the nature of rationality:

“Consider his example if you ever you find yourself thinking, ‘But you can’t prove me wrong.’ If you’re going to ignore a probabilistic counterargument, why not ignore a proof, too?”

In the end, we must decide to be rational or not. Nobody can force us to be rational, and many people unfortunately choose not to be rational (in full awareness of the fact; this is often combined with feeling proud about not being rational. Strange, but true).

As Sir Karl Popper said:
“There are many difficulties impeding the rapid spread of reasonableness. One of the main difficulties is that it always takes two to make a discussion reasonable. Each of the parties must be ready to learn from the other. You cannot have a rational discussion with a man who prefers shooting you to being convinced by you.” (from Wikiquote)

Technorati Tags: philosophy, rationality

This is because my thesis work concerns looking at “human” systems (many individual agents acting independently – ok, so they’re pseudo-humans ). I am especially interested in the relationship of “rational” agents and “irrational agents” – for instance, if irrational agents can survive in the long run if they have to compete against rational ones, or even if irrational agents threaten the survival of rational agents (because they are aggressive toward rational ones). This of course means I have to define a rationality criterion in the model, or ensure that it emerges (now that would be difficult!).

While I am not yet sure as to how detailed my models will be and how useful this research into rationality will be for my models, I am very interested in principle what constitutes rational behaviour in the first place, and what makes us human rational or irrational.

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Chance Welcome Page
Fallacy Files
Argument Mapping Tutorials

Technorati Tags: bias, cognitive science, rationality, statistics

I recently read a good paper by Tim van Gelder:

van Gelder, T. J. (2005). Teaching critical thinking: some lessons from cognitive science. College Teaching, 45, 1-6.
(You can download the paper on his site.)

Tim van Gelder develops six (not exhaustive) lessons in his paper which should lead to more critical thinking.

Critical thinking is hard – humans have not evolved to think critically, we are “pattern-seeking, story-telling animals” (van Gelder quotes Michael Shermer here) – and:
“We tend to be comfortable with the first account that seems right”.

We have to practice critical thinking to get better

I feel reminded of the motto of the enlightenment, formulated by Immanuel Kant: “Sapere Aude!” – Dare to think.

Transfer: we have to reflect on our critical methods and transfer them to different domains.

People often wonder why intelligent people hold certain ideas, or worse, they give credit to some ideas because certain people who have done good work in other domains hold them. We just have to recognize that being intelligent in one domain does not exempt from stupidity in another.

Practical Theory on critical thinking supplements practice.

Cognitive Science, Pyschology, Sociology and other disciplines inform us about fallacies and cognitive biases in our thinking. If we learn about them we can become more aware of them in our daily thinking and try to actively counteract our biases.

Argument maps: Present your thinkings in diagrams instead of only in written form.

Indeed, I couldn’t agree more: writing necessarily takes a linear form, and it is difficult to convey nonlinear, highly interacting relationships in an essay. Here a picture can truly say more than a thousand words.

Belief preservation: we tend to stick with our beliefs and ignore evidence to the contrary.

Here the final quote from his paper, which is the “message” we should heed:

Belief preservation strikes right at the heart of our general processes of rational deliberation. The ideal critical thinker is aware of the phenomenon, actively monitors her thinking to detect its pernicious influence, and deploys compensatory strategies. Thus, the ideal critical thinker
• puts extra effort into searching for and attending to evidence that contradicts
what she currently believes;
• when “weighing up” the arguments for and against, gives some “extra credit” for those arguments that go against her position; and
• cultivates a willingness to change her mind when the evidence starts mounting against her.
Activities like these do not come easily. Indeed, following these strategies often feels quite perverse. However, they are there for self-protection; they can help you protect your own beliefs against your tendency to self-deception, a bias that is your automatic inheritance as a human
being. As Richard Feynman said, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool” (Hutchings 1997).

Finally, some nice links on the topic:
Software for developing rational thinking by Tim van Gelder and his group – and they have a bunch of links on critical thinking.

Technorati Tags: cognitive science, paper of the week, rationality