A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “confirmation bias”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott Alexander reviews 'The Scout Mindset' by Julia Galef, a book on rationality that emphasizes seeking truth over defending beliefs and addresses both intellectual and emotional aspects of clear thinking.
Scott Alexander proposes that confirmation bias might be a misapplication of normal Bayesian reasoning rather than a separate cognitive phenomenon.
Scott criticizes the misuse of terms like 'debunked' in academic and political discourse, arguing for more nuanced examination of studies and their critiques.
Scott argues that people make better decisions when evaluating issues in isolation rather than viewing them as symbols of larger political narratives, using examples from the Duke lacrosse case, environmental regulation debates, and gender politics to illustrate how overarching narratives distort judgment of individual cases.
Scott argues that "extreme rationality" (x-rationality) - the formal study of rationality beyond normal intelligent thinking - provides much less practical benefit than the rationalist community believes, estimating a correlation of only 0.1 with success.