How Did Confirmation Bias Evolve?

[Mr. Scott]

Confirmation Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) is one of my research projects right now. After our discussion on it in the thread "Why the militant atheism?" (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91246) I started to wonder how such a seemingly self-destructive mechanism was selected for.

The particular aspect of Confirmation Bias which I think is remarkable is this: It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs (explaining why woos take on skeptics here with addictive persistence).

However, isn't there an advantage to being the one with the right belief -- to correcting a belief you find evidence is wrong? I offer this parable:

A cave clan may find that every so often an infant simply disappears from their cave on dark nights. They want to know why so they can cut their losses.

Cave man woo-Me argues that waving a totem each night for two hours while chanting "woo-woo-woo" will scare away the spirit lifting the baby to the cave in the sky.

Cave man ran-De suggests the paw prints that appear outside the cave the nights babies disappear suggest they should try and hunt down that dingo they sometimes see with blood-soaked snout.

Woo-Me argues forcefully that he is right and that the paw prints are just the sky spirit's trick to confuse us. Woo-Me is so emphatic and persuasive, because of the pleasure he experiences from ignoring ran-De's evidence, that the clan believes him and banishes ran-De. Babies continue to disappear and the colony becomes extinct, along with the confirmation bias gene.

So, why is the confirmation bias gene still around?

(After I started this I thought of an answer, but still want to see the discussion play out here untainted by my own confirmation bias. I've written what I think is the answer into a text file and will paste it here after the discussion approaches maturity.)

[JoeEllison]

I always assumed it had something to do with how very little thinking is involved in survival. If you have to stop and think all the time, the lion catches and eats you. If you just react in the same way you always react, you get a head start on the thinkers, and they get eaten instead of you.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

Confirmation Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) is one of my research projects right now. After our discussion on it in the thread "Why the militant atheism?" (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91246) I started to wonder how such a seemingly self-destructive mechanism was selected for.

The particular aspect of Confirmation Bias which I think is remarkable is this: It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firnly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs (explaining why woos take on skeptics here with addictive persistence).

However, isn't there an advantage to being the one with the right belief -- to correcting a belief you find evidence is wrong? I offer this parable:

A cave clan may find that every so often an infant simply disappears from their cave on dark nights. They want to know why so they can cut their losses.

Cave man woo-Me argues that waving a totem each night for two hours while chanting "woo-woo-woo" will scare away the spirit lifting the baby to the cave in the sky.

Cave man ran-De suggests the paw prints that appear outside the cave the nights babies disappear suggest they should try and hunt down that dingo they sometimes see with blood-soaked snout.

Woo-Me argues forcefully that he is right and that the paw prints are just the sky spirit's trick to confuse us. Woo-Me is so emphatic and persuasive, because of the pleasure he experiences from ignoring Rand-Me's evidence, that the clan believes him and banishes ran-Di. Babies continue to disappear and the colony becomes extinct, along with the confirmation bias gene.

So, why is the Confirmation Bias gene still around?

(After I started this I thought of an answer, but still want to see the discussion play out here untainted by my own confirmation bias. I've written what I think is the answer into a text file and will paste it here after the discussion approaches maturity.)

Who has the higher probability of producing offspring? Ran-de who has been banished to fend for himself or Woo-Me who remains within the protection of the clan?

[Wowbagger]

What makes you think there would be a "confirmation bias gene"? Behavior is the emergent property of phisiology acting within its enviornment.

There is no reason to assume nature would be efficient in weeding out every single detrimental aspect of life. In fact, in a natural proccess, we would expect our definition of "perfection" to go completely ignored.
Evolution != Progress.

Our ancestors could probably get away with Confirmation Bias, because most of the time its consequences were not as dramatic as your parable.
Perhaps such Bias was a shortcut to full-scale investigation, that was merely "good enough" most of the time.
This Bias might have something of a survival value, anayway, since full-scale investigations would require more resources. And few had such resources to spare, until relatively recently.

[NobbyNobbs]

Who has the higher probability of producing offspring? Ran-de who has been banished to fend for himself or Woo-Me who remains within the protection of the clan?

Also, it's possible that rather than the clan dying out, with fewer mouths to feed those remaining have more food each and remain healthier than they would otherwise.

[Hellbound]

Actually, I'd first argue that your example does not illustrate the case very well. Your example is discussing the formulation of a new idea, which is a matter of critical thinking rather than confirmation bias.

Although take the same example. They accept woo-Me's explanation, and dance all night outside the cave. While they do this, no babies get stolen (the dancing scares the dingo away, it doesn't approach). Later, one of the cavemen suggests that maybe it's not evil spirits...that's where confirmation bias is more likely (at least in this example). Of course, confirmation bias can even come into play when you have the right answer, as well.

In any case, my point is that confirmation bias is more about defending/holding on to an already existing belief, rather than choosing between new alternatives. This would tend to reinforce the behaviors that already exist within a clan/group. As that clan or group has obviously been successful at surviving (it's still around), this means that the successful survival-oriented patterms would be reinforced, as well.

I'd say that confiramtion bias was actually less of a problem when we were cavemen than now. In primative days, confirmation bias defending incorrrect and dangerous ideas would tend to promote the removal of those ideas...while keeping around good and useful ideas. Keep in mind that evolution is about the species, not the individual. It would seem that a method to preferrentially weed out those with poor thinking skills, something like confirmation bias, could actually be useful to the species as a whole. Some neutral ideas owuldn't be affected much (various rituals and traditions, for example). Today, we protect people from their own stupidity, so confirmation bias has a free hand to promote both useful and useless ideas.

That's my two cents worth, anyway. I'll bill you for it ;)

[Ichneumonwasp]

Confirmation Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) is one of my research projects right now. After our discussion on it in the thread "Why the militant atheism?" (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91246)
However, isn't there an advantage to being the one with the right belief -- to correcting a belief you find evidence is wrong? I offer this parable:



As previously stated, there should be no such thing as a "confirmation bias gene".

As to the question above, when it comes to complex beliefs like religion, no, there would be no advantage to those with the "right belief". The important aspect of that sort of behavior is group unity. Confirmation bias aids group unity by ignoring pesky issues that do not impact survival generally (in other words, your example is far too contrived).

Group unity is so important to our survival that I would expect confirmation bias to be a strong force even if it led to some weird examples of decreased survival in strange situations.

[Mashuna]

Actually, I'd first argue that your example does not illustrate the case very well. Your example is discussing the formulation of a new idea, which is a matter of critical thinking rather than confirmation bias.

Although take the same example. They accept woo-Me's explanation, and dance all night outside the cave. While they do this, no babies get stolen (the dancing scares the dingo away, it doesn't approach). Later, one of the cavemen suggests that maybe it's not evil spirits...that's where confirmation bias is more likely (at least in this example). Of course, confirmation bias can even come into play when you have the right answer, as well.



I'd agree with this example. The confirmation bias here is that the cavemen keep dancing to appease the spirits. They don't have the right reasoning, but in this situation, where's the evolutionary benefit in trying to falsify your belief? If you change what you're doing to test your theory, there's a good chance that the dingo comes back while you're formulating alternative explanations and tests.

[fls]

Confirmation Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) is one of my research projects right now. After our discussion on it in the thread "Why the militant atheism?" (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91246) I started to wonder how such a seemingly self-destructive mechanism was selected for.

Because in the main it is not destructive? I can consider a whole bunch of ways in which it is helpful.

The particular aspect of Confirmation Bias which I think is remarkable is this: It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs (explaining why woos take on skeptics here with addictive persistence).

This? (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060131092225.htm)

However, isn't there an advantage to being the one with the right belief -- to correcting a belief you find evidence is wrong? I offer this parable:

A cave clan may find that every so often an infant simply disappears from their cave on dark nights. They want to know why so they can cut their losses.

Cave man woo-Me argues that waving a totem each night for two hours while chanting "woo-woo-woo" will scare away the spirit lifting the baby to the cave in the sky.

Cave man ran-De suggests the paw prints that appear outside the cave the nights babies disappear suggest they should try and hunt down that dingo they sometimes see with blood-soaked snout.

Woo-Me argues forcefully that he is right and that the paw prints are just the sky spirit's trick to confuse us. Woo-Me is so emphatic and persuasive, because of the pleasure he experiences from ignoring ran-De's evidence, that the clan believes him and banishes ran-De. Babies continue to disappear and the colony becomes extinct, along with the confirmation bias gene.

I suspect a caveperson will form beliefs around that which is familiar. In this case, it seems more likely that they will initially attribute the babies' disappearance to animals or other humans. It is my impression that erroneous beliefs are more likely to be formed around those things where cause and effect is not so obvious - medical outcomes, weather, war, love.

Linda

[Dancing David]

The associative nature of patterns recognition is hardwired and soft programmed. To be able to see edible things and dangerous things will lead to reproductive success.

The behavioral consequence of 'superstitious behavior' is an unfortunate consequenes. Patterns will be seen that are not there.

[Nucular]

In any case, my point is that confirmation bias is more about defending/holding on to an already existing belief, rather than choosing between new alternatives.

Absolutely.

In this (http://psy.ucsd.edu/~mckenzie/nickersonConfirmationBias.pdf) rather good review, Nickerson comes at the problem from a cognitive perspective, and explores the nature of belief-persistence.

He argues that there are several advantages to having less vulnerable beliefs (along with lots of disadvantages too), and that whilst it leads to dogmatism and intolerance, these are not necessarily disadvantageous to individuals or groups. He also cites evidence that we are more prone to confirmation bias in certain situations (e.g. abstract reasoning tasks, hypothesis testing) than others (e.g. processing and monitoring social rules and the behaviour of others), which may be a clue to the ultility or otherwise of this particular bias. The paper also observes that sometimes one particular bias may be protective against more serious errors.

How difficult must it be to write a selective review on confirmation bias!

[Mr. Scott]

Thanks for the criticisms of my OP, which help me focus on the point that really interests me.

I was concerned that someone would suggest that the woo-woo ceremony was scaring off the dingo, but I never said the dingo didn't eat the babies after the ceremony. A smart dingo might learn to associate the ceremony with the presence of delicious babies. Observing this failure, me-Woo might suggest the ceremony go for three, not two hours, a response consistent with confirmation bias. Also, ran-Di could find another clan that's not so woo-woo in its beliefs, while the clan that shunned him goes extinct because they maintained false hypotheses in spite of conflicting evidence.

But such ambiguities in the parable are beside the point.

Whether or not there is a specific confirmation bias gene is also beside the point. Following correct hypotheses about how the world works seems to me to yield a reproductive/survival advantage. There must be genes involved in such an apparently silly wiring plan for the brain that results in confirmation bias.

What possible reproductive advantage yield could result from being pleasured by ignoring evidence that your hypothesis about how the world works is incorrect?

[Dymanic]

What possible reproductive advantage yield could result from being pleasured by ignoring evidence that your hypothesis about how the world works is incorrect?
Because your value to others may not depend so much on your being right as on your ability to convince them that you are right.

Woo-Me is so emphatic and persuasive, because of the pleasure he experiences from ignoring ran-De's evidence, that the clan believes him and banishes ran-De.

The struggle Woo-Me won was not for accurate knowledge, but for status -- and what made him so emphatic and (hence) persuasive was that he himself believed what he was saying.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I always assumed it had something to do with how very little thinking is involved in survival. If you have to stop and think all the time, the lion catches and eats you. If you just react in the same way you always react, you get a head start on the thinkers, and they get eaten instead of you.
And it follows that feeling pleasure at such automatic reactions would reinforce them.

What does a chipmunk on a road do when you approach it with a car? I believe it dodges randomly, rather than thinking about where to go. Thinking will get it squished every time.

~~ Paul

[JoeTheJuggler]

Whether or not there is a specific confirmation bias gene is also beside the point. Following correct hypotheses about how the world works seems to me to yield a reproductive/survival advantage. There must be genes involved in such an apparently silly wiring plan for the brain that results in confirmation bias.

What possible reproductive advantage yield could result from being pleasured by ignoring evidence that your hypothesis about how the world works is incorrect?

I think the point people are making when they say there is no confirmation bias gene is that it is not an inherited trait (not that there needs to be one single gene for it). If it's hard wired, then the only way to avoid it would be to change our anatomy (lose some connections and grow others). I find that difficult to believe. I would also question whether any fallacious way of thinking is an inherited trait.

I would accept that we're hard-wired to want explanations for things. (Probably because of the selective advantage for a social creature in being able to think about other peoples' motives and desires and so on, and the huge surplus in reasoning power that accompanies that.) Wanting to explain things can lead to genuine curiosity (which can lead eventually to science), or it can lead to clinging to false explanations.

Leaving the inheritance question aside, I can see C.B. having some advantage. The confirmation bias, as mentioned, is sort of a defense of existing ideas, not a way of coming up with new ones. I'd lump it in with ways of protecting the status quo (sort of the thinking that is behind superstitious behaviour). Whether your thinking about it is right or wrong, you're generally safer with the tried and true. In cases where you're wrong about a risk, it's at least innocuous to avoid something novel that isn't really dangerous.

[Jimbo07]

I would accept that we're hard-wired to want explanations for things. (Probably because of the selective advantage for a social creature in being able to think about other peoples' motives and desires and so on, and the huge surplus in reasoning power that accompanies that.) Wanting to explain things can lead to genuine curiosity (which can lead eventually to science), or it can lead to clinging to false explanations.


Bolding mine.

With only one sample set, who's to say that what we have isn't what would have evolved under any other circumstances? With such a startlingly brief history (in terms of the evolutionary record), the modern scientific method seems more like the evolutionary quirk than confirmation bias or even tribal social behaviour.

If we are somehow able to take full control of our own evolution (or that of a synthetic follow-on super species), it may lead to an entirely different set of questions being asked 10,000 years from now...

[Dancing David]

But such ambiguities in the parable are beside the point.

Whether or not there is a specific confirmation bias gene is also beside the point. Following correct hypotheses about how the world works seems to me to yield a reproductive/survival advantage. There must be genes involved in such an apparently silly wiring plan for the brain that results in confirmation bias.

What possible reproductive advantage yield could result from being pleasured by ignoring evidence that your hypothesis about how the world works is incorrect?


That is way too specific for human biology, there is a benefit from associative pattern recognition, even if it gets misapplied at times.
Leraning to see patterns is good, that is edible, that is where edible thing grows, that is dangerous, that is where danger lives. Possible benefits to associative pattern recognition.

Superstitious behavior occurs when a consequence gets associated with an unrelated stimulus, so we haver pattern recognition and superstition, bith based upon healthy traits that become misapplied.

[Mr. Scott]

That is way too specific for human biology, there is a benefit from associative pattern recognition, even if it gets misapplied at times.
Leraning to see patterns is good, that is edible, that is where edible thing grows, that is dangerous, that is where danger lives. Possible benefits to associative pattern recognition.

Superstitious behavior occurs when a consequence gets associated with an unrelated stimulus, so we haver pattern recognition and superstition, bith based upon healthy traits that become misapplied.

I'm not really focusing on superstition.

My main curiosity is in the connection between ignoring evidence that contradicts your beliefs and stimulating the pleasure center. I'm ready to believe that a single genetic mutation resulted in a connection between these two groups of neurons, and that this bit of accidental neuron wiring was then selected for.

In pseudocode one would write this as follows:

FUNCTION Confirmation Bias(input,model)
IF(input doesn't agree with model)
THEN
discard input
stimulate pleasure center()
END

FUNCTION Stimulate Pleasure Center()
whatever you just did, do it again ASAP and with more gusto
END FUNCTION

Could some dyed-in-the-wool skeptics have a damaged confirmation bias gene?

I only ask. ;)

[JoeEllison]

And it follows that feeling pleasure at such automatic reactions would reinforce them.

What does a chipmunk on a road do when you approach it with a car? I believe it dodges randomly, rather than thinking about where to go. Thinking will get it squished every time.

~~ PaulThat's exactly right. And, if it were capable of higher thinking, it would probably later think "Hey, I dodged to the left first, and I survived... better go ahead and dodge left first every time!" We're not adapted to be "perfect", but merely "good enough", and some sort of dodging motion is going to almost always be at least a little better than no movement at all. So, you can surmise that there will be greater benefit to "keep doing what you have done successfully in the past" than in "stop and formulate a new method every time."

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'm not really focusing on superstition.

My main curiosity is in the connection between ignoring evidence that contradicts your beliefs and stimulating the pleasure center. I'm ready to believe that a single genetic mutation resulted in a connection between these two groups of neurons, and that this bit of accidental neuron wiring was then selected for.

In pseudocode one would write this as follows:

FUNCTION Confirmation Bias(input,model)
IF(input doesn't agree with model)
THEN
discard input
stimulate pleasure center()
END

FUNCTION Stimulate Pleasure Center()
whatever you just did, do it again ASAP and with more gusto
END FUNCTION

Could some dyed-in-the-wool skeptics have a damaged confirmation bias gene?

I only ask. ;)

Then how do you explain people's ability to be educated out of making the confirmation bias fallacy in their thinking?

If it's hard wired, it'd be like height or hair-color, wouldn't? Yours for life.

I think Dancing David is right, that a larger issue might be something connected with selective advantage, but a specific logical fallacy doesn't seem like something close enough to protein-encoding.

Just like when people say how could homosexuality have evolved? (I'd ask then how could poetry writing or philosophy have evolved?) (See Wowbagger's post above.)

We evolved as social animals where things like face-recognition and recognizing intent was important, and the large brains that were selected for those (among other) properties also have other interesting properties. . . including, for instance, the ability to learn calculus. Does it make sense to ask whether the ability to learn calculus (itself) was something selectively advantageous?

[Dancing David]

I'm not really focusing on superstition.

My main curiosity is in the connection between ignoring evidence that contradicts your beliefs and stimulating the pleasure center. I'm ready to believe that a single genetic mutation resulted in a connection between these two groups of neurons, and that this bit of accidental neuron wiring was then selected for.

In pseudocode one would write this as follows:

FUNCTION Confirmation Bias(input,model)
IF(input doesn't agree with model)
THEN
discard input
stimulate pleasure center()
END

FUNCTION Stimulate Pleasure Center()
whatever you just did, do it again ASAP and with more gusto
END FUNCTION

Could some dyed-in-the-wool skeptics have a damaged confirmation bias gene?

I only ask. ;)

I think that I didn't make my point very well, the brain acts as an associative filter that is heavy into pattern creation and pattern recognition. I would say that confirmation bias is just an offshoot of an otherwise healthy process. The benefit of seeing patterns is hard wired and soft programmed into humans, perceptions are also generated from the sensations to fill in missing sensation data. the ability of the brain to recognise patterns is crucial to survival and reproductive success. The ability to see plants and animals is very important, the ability to recognise places where animals and plants are found is very useful. The same is true of any resources and the reverse is true for aversive situations. So the ability to see patterns is part of being human. It would stand to reason that there would be the possibility false positives. Sp patterns might be seen which have low external validity.

Superstition has a very specific meaning in behaviorism.
http://www.psychology.uiowa.edu/Faculty/wasserman/Glossary/Superstitious%20behavior.html

Where is the data that says confirmation bias being confronted is linked to pleasurable sensations? I missed it.

[blutoski]

I'm not really focusing on superstition.

My main curiosity is in the connection between ignoring evidence that contradicts your beliefs and stimulating the pleasure center. I'm ready to believe that a single genetic mutation resulted in a connection between these two groups of neurons, and that this bit of accidental neuron wiring was then selected for.

In pseudocode one would write this as follows:

FUNCTION Confirmation Bias(input,model)
IF(input doesn't agree with model)
THEN
discard input
stimulate pleasure center()
END

FUNCTION Stimulate Pleasure Center()
whatever you just did, do it again ASAP and with more gusto
END FUNCTION

That's where the disconnect happened: what you're describing above is not confirmation bias - it's wilful ignorance. They're not the same.

I'll give you an example of confirmation bias:

Hypothesis: all apples are safe to eat.
Fact: I ate one
Fact: I didn't get sick or die
Conclusion: hypothesis supported

Confirmation bias has occured.

Really, all we know is that *at least one* apple is safe to eat. There is no evidence that other apples are unsafe at this time, but neither have we invested in further exploration of this possibility by sampling more available apples to see if the original sample was too small.

This is very much the way we operate on a day-to-day basis, and is only important when dealing with situations where the chance of confirmation bias revealing an incorrect conclusion is mission-critical. In the example above, if we felt that apples had a lot of variation, confirmation bias would be a bigger problem than if we already understand that they're pretty uniform. One may actually be enough to represent the category, and confirmation bias is not a big problem.

Confirmation bias is not the *rejection* of contrary information - it's the decision not to pursue it. It's the probably the major cause of Type I Error.





Could some dyed-in-the-wool skeptics have a damaged confirmation bias gene?

As mentioned above, you have made a huge leap to use the expression 'gene' for this. Before moving to such a nonsequitur, i'd start by seeing if the property is independently inherited, as opposed to an artefact of our general intelligence.

[Pixel42]

From Richard Dawkins' recent TV programme The Enemies of Reason:

Even in the 21st century, despite all that science has revealed about the indifferent vastness of the universe, the human mind is a wanton storyteller, creating intention in the randomness of reality. The delivery of rewards by a one-armed bandit is determined at random, but many gamblers want to think that what they do can increase their chances of winning the jackpot. They stand on one leg, or wear a lucky shirt. Are these superstitious behaviours a byproduct of our evolution?

All wild animals have to be kind of natural statisticians, looking for patterns in the apparent randomness of nature, when they're looking for food or trying to avoid predators. There are two kinds of mistake they can make: they can either fail to detect pattern when there is some; or they can seem to detect pattern when there isn't any - and that's superstition.

Spotting a flash of yellow in the long grass, filling in the rest from your imagination, thinking "lion" and running like hell, wastes energy if it's not really a lion. Not spotting the flash of yellow and running like hell gets you eaten, if it is really a lion. So the first kind of mistake has far worse consequences than the second kind. So natural selection favoured those who saw patterns that weren't there, over those who didn't see patterns that were there.

[Ranillon]

I think we may be missing a deeper aspect to Confirmation Bias (and similar psychological effects). It's main aim isn't per se to just keep on believing an old idea in the face of new conflicting evidence, but more fundamentally a mechanism for incorporating new facts into an old worldview.

In other words, Confirmation Bias isn't just a yes/no process where someone either accepts a fact or not. Rather, it is part of the all-too-common process of converting ideas we find psychologically threatening into something that does not threaten us or even which supports our overall worldview. Note that this doesn't necessarily mean the new fact is just discarded. Far more likely is that the new fact will be kept, but reinterpreted in such a way as to fit the old worldview.

Take this as an example of what I mean (and one that goes beyond just Confirmation Bias):

Let's say that I believe that Homeopathy actually works. I believe it so much that finding out that I was wrong would be a severe psychological blow -- maybe my belief is the basis for many of my friendships or even career, for example. At the very least I don't want to be shown as gullible or stupid.

So, when I conduct an otherwise scientific experiment to (from my p.o.v.) confirm Homeopathy, but come back with results I don't like my first reaction isn't going to be to give up my belief. Remember, I am already confident that Homeopathy is real so I am no more inclined to quickly accept that isn't the case than a skeptic would be that the Moon is made of cheese. In fact, my natural (and unconscious) reaction is to find some way to fit the result into my current belief system in a way that does not damage it if not actually strengthen it.

Maybe I do this is a more straightforward paranoid way -- my detractors must have polluted my data! It's a conspiracy! However, more likely I will just tend to unwittingly massage the data. Any hits I tend to give more credience -- "The person who wrote down that data is a better and more accurate worker" -- while the many misses get downplayed -- "Those patients aren't good at taking their medicine." Even more subtly, I might very well get indications that Homeopathy really does "work", but fail to notice more likely explanations such as the Homeopathy cures that "worked" were the ones for either minor ailments that tend to clear up anyway or which were given along with more conventional treatments or it was just the Placebo Effect.

And, all that assumes I didn't put any bias into the study in the first place! There are all sorts of ways I could unconsciously influence my circumstances to guarantee I confirm my bias. Just sit down for a while and I am sure you can think up many more examples.

My point is that Confirmation Bias (and logical fallacies in general) don't really make complete sense (IMHO) unless one sees them as ultimately all-too-human ways to not just prevent psychological angst and disappointment, but more importantly to build and maintain a coherent mental worldview. Without that a person has no sense of themselves and thus no drive to do anything.

Defending yourself from such damage has a clear evolutionary advantage -- how well would our ancestors have succeeded if they fell to pieces psychologically in the face of the many difficulties they doubtlessly struggled through? They needed to maintain their overall confidence and belief in success (in the broadest sense). Same is true now -- You aren't likely to accomplish very much if you think you're doomed to failure or, even more fundamentally, if you lack any sense of self to do anything.

Of course, the obvious problem is that this sort of "mental defense mechanism" all-too-often goes too far and "defends" us from information that is ultimately beneficial to us.

[bpesta22]

I think it's more important for survival pre culture that we identify correlations versus causes. The most basic form of learning-- classical conditioning-- is all about discovering things in the environment that correlate with biologically significant events. Once the correlation is present, we respond with a reflex. This seems about as basic as it gets and the survival value seems obvious.

It doesn't matter whether the bell actually causes food to magically appears. From the dog's point of view, the bell being a reliable signal for food (even though not causal) is all that's needed (plus some mechanism for extinction, when and if the bell no longer correlates with the presence of food).

I'd bet that confirmation bias and confusing correlation with cause are the two most frequently committed fallacies.

Maybe one causes the other? Still looking to prove that...

[bpesta22]

Also confirmation bias is the fallacy of affirming the consequent, which "makes sense". The opposite would be modus tolens, which I think is less intuitive.

[Taffer]

It is important to remember that evolution does not produce perfect organisms, only adequate ones.

[Taffer]

Also confirmation bias is the fallacy of affirming the consequent, which "makes sense". The opposite would be modus tolens, which I think is less intuitive.

What? Unless I'm missing your meaning, confirmation bias is when you only take those cases which agree with your belief, and ignore those which do not. Affirming the consequent is a formal logical fallacy relating to the rules of logic.

[bpesta22]

What? Unless I'm missing your meaning, confirmation bias is when you only take those cases which agree with your belief, and ignore those which do not. Affirming the consequent is a formal logical fallacy relating to the rules of logic.

Yeah, I think the confirmation bias implies we seek to prove theories (ac) versus falsify em (mt).

Smoking causes cancer.

If so, smokers should die sooner than non smokers.

They do!

See, smoking causes cancer.

I think it's the allure of the above fallacy that makes confirmation bias so common.

[Jeff Corey]

I think it's more important for survival pre culture that we identify correlations versus causes. The most basic form of learning-- classical conditioning-- is all about discovering things in the environment that correlate with biologically significant events. Once the correlation is present, we respond with a reflex. This seems about as basic as it gets and the survival value seems obvious.

It doesn't matter whether the bell actually causes food to magically appears. From the dog's point of view, the bell being a reliable signal for food (even though not causal) is all that's needed (plus some mechanism for extinction, when and if the bell no longer correlates with the presence of food).

I'd bet that confirmation bias and confusing correlation with cause are the two most frequently committed fallacies.

Maybe one causes the other? Still looking to prove that...

Noncontingent reinforcement can produce superstitious people, pigeons and rats. Intermittant reinforcement can produce superstitions that are extremely resistant to extinction. Add that to selective memory for hits and the sharpening and leveling of our internal discourse about past events, la temps perdu.

[Taffer]

Yeah, I think the confirmation bias implies we seek to prove theories (ac) versus falsify em (mt).

Smoking causes cancer.

If so, smokers should die sooner than non smokers.

They do!

See, smoking causes cancer.

I think it's the allure of the above fallacy that makes confirmation bias so common.

But affirming the consequent is a different fallacy then confirmation bias. They are often associated, but are not to be equated. Your example is an example of both affirming the consequent and confirmation bias.

[bpesta22]

But affirming the consequent is a different fallacy then confirmation bias. They are often associated, but are not to be equated. Your example is an example of both affirming the consequent and confirmation bias.

I think they're closely linked. Maybe JC can share some data on the frequency of AC versus MT using the Wason card task?

[Taffer]

I think they're closely linked. Maybe JC can share some data on the frequency of AC versus MT using the Wason card task?

I disagree on the fundamental basis that they are different fallacies. One deals with data (confirmation bias, i.e. only choosing supporting data and ignoring all others), and the other deals with a logical argument. You can have one and the other, or any variation thereof.

[Elaedith]

Confirmation Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) is one of my research projects right now. After our discussion on it in the thread "Why the militant atheism?" (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=91246) I
Woo-Me argues forcefully that he is right and that the paw prints are just the sky spirit's trick to confuse us. Woo-Me is so emphatic and persuasive, because of the pleasure he experiences from ignoring ran-De's evidence, that the clan believes him and banishes ran-De. Babies continue to disappear and the colony becomes extinct, along with the confirmation bias gene.

So, why is the confirmation bias gene still around?

(After I started this I thought of an answer, but still want to see the discussion play out here untainted by my own confirmation bias. I've written what I think is the answer into a text file and will paste it here after the discussion approaches maturity.)

I don't really get the example. There are two alternative explanations presented, and the implication that confirmation bias explains the incorrect one. But confirmation bias may reinforce correct as well as incorrect explanations. The difference between the two explanations is that one is natural and one supernatural; both may depend on bias. In this example, the belief that a dingo takes the baby may in fact be based on bias for remembering cases where there were signs of a dingo and neglecting those cases where there were none. It just so happens that it is more likely to be correct in this case. There is no reason to think that the majority would not infer causation from correlation in the case of the dingo's footprints regardless of whether they also construct supernatural explanations.

The cost of being too reluctant to believe something when it is in fact true, may well be higher in general than the costs of being willing to believe something when it is in fact false. Where there is correlation, there will frequently be causation. Failure to infer causation when it exists will frequently have dire consequences. Incorrectly inferring causation and maintaining the belief through confirmation bias is likely to result in no more than some wasted energy or opportunities, and in many cases the activities that result may serve a social function that compensates for their costs.

[Dancing David]

I think it's more important for survival pre culture that we identify correlations versus causes. The most basic form of learning-- classical conditioning-- is all about discovering things in the environment that correlate with biologically significant events. Once the correlation is present, we respond with a reflex. This seems about as basic as it gets and the survival value seems obvious.

It doesn't matter whether the bell actually causes food to magically appears. From the dog's point of view, the bell being a reliable signal for food (even though not causal) is all that's needed (plus some mechanism for extinction, when and if the bell no longer correlates with the presence of food).

I'd bet that confirmation bias and confusing correlation with cause are the two most frequently committed fallacies.

Maybe one causes the other? Still looking to prove that...


Add to that that variable reinforcement is a very strong reinforcement. If you ring the bell on a variable schedule per food event then you get an even stronger reinforcement than if you ring the bell every time.

[Dancing David]

There is also the important human fallacy of determinism to be avoided in approaching evolution. It is almost impossible because of contingent history to ask "why did this trait evolve?", we can ask "what is this trait possibly associated with the other trait that might benefit reproductive success?"

For example asking "Why did humans evolve intelligence?" is not as useful a strategy as asking "What led to humans upright gait and infant neotany?"

[Jeff Corey]

Add to that that variable reinforcement is a very strong reinforcement. If you ring the bell on a variable schedule per food event then you get an even stronger reinforcement than if you ring the bell every time.
I think you are confusing respondent and operant conditioning here. Pairing a bell with food is Pavlovian respondent conditioning.
Intermittent reinforcement in operant conditioning is when reinforcement does not follow every response. A slot machine pays off on a variable ratio schedule and produces behavior that is difficult to extinguish. This is probably relevant to confirmation bias. Looking for data to confirm some hypothesis pays off enough of the time to maintain that strategy.
Just as it is difficult to convince people that the correct solution to the Wason card problem is to pick the card that could disprove the statement that "All cards with a vowel on one side have an even number on the other", it is difficult to convey Popper's emphasis on falsifiability.
And BPesta, "AC vs MT" is too cryptic for me right now. Maybe after two more cups of coffee...

[Dancing David]

I think you are confusing respondent and operant conditioning here. Pairing a bell with food is Pavlovian respondent conditioning.
Intermittent reinforcement in operant conditioning is when reinforcement does not follow every response. A slot machine pays off on a variable ratio schedule and produces behavior that is difficult to extinguish. This is probably relevant to confirmation bias. Looking for data to confirm some hypothesis pays off enough of the time to maintain that strategy.
Just as it is difficult to convince people that the correct solution to the Wason card problem is to pick the card that could disprove the statement that "All cards with a vowel on one side have an even number on the other", it is difficult to convey Popper's emphasis on falsifiability.
And BPesta, "AC vs MT" is too cryptic for me right now. Maybe after two more cups of coffee...

Sorry i took most of my classes in 76-79 and some more 84-86, my terminology is horrible.

[bpesta22]

I think it's this:

If a card has a vowel on the front, it has an even number on the back:
if p then q


Cards

a (a vowel-- p; modus ponens, you should flip this one)
b (a consonant, not p; denying the antecedent; dont flip it)
1 (odd number, not q; modus tollens; flip it)
2 (even number; q, affirming the consequent, don't flip)


My point was that the fallacy AC is more intuitive / "makes sense" relative to modus tollens. I think this is an important aspect of confirmation bias (I know the literature calls it that).

I was wondering if you had knowledge on the % of people who flip the AC card versus those who filp the MT card.

[bpesta22]

It's not a huge deal, I would concede the point, but I wonder if every instance of confirmation bias is logically the same as the human tendancy to flip the AC card but not the MT card (i.e., look to confirm whether than falsify)

[Jeff Corey]

It's not a huge deal, I would concede the point, but I wonder if every instance of confirmation bias is logically the same as the human tendancy to flip the AC card but not the MT card (i.e., look to confirm whether than falsify)

At TAM1, when presented with the Wason Reduced Array task (a choice between 1 or 2), a statistically significant majority picked 2. If you're interested, I'll locate the exact numbers when I go to my office Monday.

[Taffer]

It's not a huge deal, I would concede the point, but I wonder if every instance of confirmation bias is logically the same as the human tendancy to flip the AC card but not the MT card (i.e., look to confirm whether than falsify)

No, you're right, it isn't a big deal.

I'm a little confused by your example, though. Where does flipping come into it?

[blutoski]

What? Unless I'm missing your meaning, confirmation bias is when you only take those cases which agree with your belief, and ignore those which do not. Affirming the consequent is a formal logical fallacy relating to the rules of logic.

Nope. It's the way you try to confirm your hypothesis by seeking a confirmation, instead of seeking disconfirmation.

Hypothesis: crows are black

Strategy: look for black crows

Fact: I found a 100 black crows

Conclusion: crows are black

This is confirmation bias.

[blutoski]

I disagree on the fundamental basis that they are different fallacies. One deals with data (confirmation bias, i.e. only choosing supporting data and ignoring all others), and the other deals with a logical argument. You can have one and the other, or any variation thereof.

Confirmation bias is not about 'choosing' - it's about 'seeking'.

Rejecting or ignoring contrary evidence is just ordinary wilful ignorance or rationalization. Not confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias happens in legitemate science quite a lot, and it's related to the expected variation in the sample.

Another example of confirmation bias is when people read their horoscopes looking for 'hits' - something that is predicted that came true.

It's not that they're wilfully ignoring the misses - they're just not looking for them in the first place. They're not doing a comprehensive review of the astrologer's predictions. One (big) hit is sufficient to support the hypothesis that the astrologer is legit.

[Jeff Corey]

No, you're right, it isn't a big deal.

I'm a little confused by your example, though. Where does flipping come into it?

The question is "Which card would you turn over..?" I think that's what B P means.

[Dr Adequate]

No, no, no. No.

How did absence of confirmation bias fail to evolve?

[JoeTheJuggler]

No, no, no. No.

How did absence of confirmation bias fail to evolve?

Exactly!

My speculation is that logical thinking in general is another byproduct of big brains that were mostly selected for their advantages living in a social group.

[Dogdoctor]

There are things that are more important evolutionary wise than critical thinking and so they were selected for. I mean just look around at populations of humans and you will quickly come to that conclusion (unless you have a confirmation bias :))

[bpesta22]

I think humans are born being only potentially rational. One must be taught or discover the laws of logic (the later being impossible for most people).

[Taffer]

Nope. It's the way you try to confirm your hypothesis by seeking a confirmation, instead of seeking disconfirmation.

Hypothesis: crows are black

Strategy: look for black crows

Fact: I found a 100 black crows

Conclusion: crows are black

This is confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is not about 'choosing' - it's about 'seeking'.

Rejecting or ignoring contrary evidence is just ordinary wilful ignorance or rationalization. Not confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias happens in legitemate science quite a lot, and it's related to the expected variation in the sample.

Another example of confirmation bias is when people read their horoscopes looking for 'hits' - something that is predicted that came true.

It's not that they're wilfully ignoring the misses - they're just not looking for them in the first place. They're not doing a comprehensive review of the astrologer's predictions. One (big) hit is sufficient to support the hypothesis that the astrologer is legit.

Fair enough. :)

I'll be quiet then.

[Mr. Scott]

Here was my original hypothesis of the evolutionary advantage of confirmation bias:


Although there is a clear advantage to correctly assessing cause and effect, there is also a social advantage to saving face.

If you believe something strongly and are revealed to be wrong, you lose face, which is likely to cause you to lose social status with the result that you lose desirable mates and are less likely to reproduce.

By ignoring evidence that you are mistaken, confirmation bias allows you to lie to yourself, and this is the most effective way to lie because it is undetectable. Being exposed as a liar certainly involves considerable loss of face.

This is an example I think of competing selection pressures. There must be a disadvantage to steadfastly being wrong about something against all evidence, but that is balanced out by the social advantage of appearing infallable.

I also concluded CB involved more than just seeking only evidence that confirmed, but also ignoring contrary evidence, from this part of the wiki article on CB:

None of the [brain] circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged [when partisans evaluated political statements]. Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.... Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts'

Wiki article on Confirmation Bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias)

[Dancing David]

Well Mr. Scott, I think that is a little to specific, generally evolution works in broad strokes. It is usally more productive to ask, "What positive trait is this associated with?" Those are usually the traits that will pass on.

I will have to read the wiki article but that seems to lack an understanding of the issues discussed in the thread already.

Conscious reasoning is a rather specific series of traits and is not usually the sole determinant of judgement. there are many 'preconscious' and associative things going on in judgement.

[Mr. Scott]

Another quote suggesting an expanded idea of Confirmation Bias, this one about "Myside bias:"

The term "myside bias" was coined by David Perkins, myside referring to "my" side of the issue under consideration. An important consequence of the myside bias is that many incorrect beliefs are slow to change and often become stronger even when evidence is presented which should weaken the belief.

Again, that suggests that CB goes beyond simply not looking for evidence that one's treasured hypothesis may be false. It boggles my mind that evidence against one's belief can make that belief "even stronger."

Also, this about "Morton's Demon:"

Morton's Demon was devised by Glenn R. Morton in 2002[13] as part of a thought experiment to explain his own experience of confirmation bias. By analogy with Maxwell's demon, Morton's demon stands at the gateway of a person's senses and lets in facts that agree with that person's beliefs while deflecting those that do not.

Morton was at one time a Young Earth creationist (YEC) who later disavowed this belief. The demon was his way of referring to his own bias and that which he continued to observe in other YECs. With time it has become a common shorthand for confirmation bias in a variety of situations.

[Mr. Scott]

No, no, no. No.

How did absence of confirmation bias fail to evolve?

Maybe absence of confirmation bias is currently evolving, and skeptics are spearheading that trend which will allow the superstitious to drift towards extinction. There must be some reproductive disadvantage in being dead wrong about things.

[ImaginalDisc]

Maybe absence of confirmation bias is currently evolving, and skeptics are spearheading that trend which will allow the superstitions to drift towards extinction. There must be some reproductive disadvantage in being dead wrong about things.

There are all sorts of emergent behaviors that come out of our complex brains. How often have you found yourself getting angry at an inanimate object, perfectly aware of how silly that is? We are good at constructing models of other people and animals based on their behaviors to predict what might be causing their behaviors, and what their intentions are. When we deal with complex machines that fail to do what we like, I think the part of our brain that is dedicated to determining what motivates others to annoy us misfires, and attributes emotions to inanimate objects, the same way pareidolia is a misfiring of the parts of our brain dedicated to recognizing the faces of people.

I think the confirmation bias is a consequence of a brain that's evolved to try to make sense of the world around it using complex, predictive models using abstract concepts. That's not easy. The model making bits have to construct a model that's accurate, but they have to do it as quickly as possible, with whatever information happens to be on hand. apply it to future events, and remain accessible into the future. Which kind of error is worse, bad models quickly, or good models slowly? Are false positives worse, or false negatives? We're asking a lot of a pile of cells. Correcting and fine tuning a model takes a lot of work and our brains are clearly good enough to have gotten us here, even if they can fool themselves.

[wuschel]

Maybe absence of confirmation bias is currently evolving, and skeptics are spearheading that trend which will allow the superstitious to drift towards extinction. There must be some reproductive disadvantage in being dead wrong about things.How so? Isn't it the undereducated or the religious or the undereducated religious who replicate at far higher rates than the rest?

Plus, like any of them will tell you: Confirmation Bias did not evolve, it was, of course, created!

[Dogdoctor]

Our minds still see things as cause and effect even though we should know that a mechanical or electronic device has no intention of doing anything to get us upset. You have to train your brain not to react emotionally. Traits that are adopted offer some benefit that is clearly an advantage to a species. It seems obvious to me that emotions are more important than critical thinking since we all have emotions but we don't all have the ability to be skeptical of everything. We may be evolving but I don't think skeptics represent the way of the near future human. In my mind social issues are more important and long before skepticism becomes important as an evolutionary trait as a trait, humanism will be widespread. In a society, not everyone needs to be skeptical in order for skepticism to beneficial. A few can use it to figure things out and the rest can benefit. So there won't be much selection pressure and also being skeptical is not associated with a greater fecundity so it won't be selected for on that basis either. However it is important that we get along with each other for a society to prosper.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Maybe absence of confirmation bias is currently evolving, and skeptics are spearheading that trend which will allow the superstitious to drift towards extinction. There must be some reproductive disadvantage in being dead wrong about things.

Sounds like a goal-oriented sort of evolution you're talking about there!

Seriously, though, I think logical thinking is probably a by product of our big brains in general (which, I think, mostly evolved for their selective advantage to organism living in complex social groups--face recognition, ability to attribute intention, etc.) and probably our aptitude for language in particular.

[wuschel]

Maybe absence of confirmation bias is currently evolving, and skeptics are spearheading that trend which will allow the superstitious to drift towards extinction. There must be some reproductive disadvantage in being dead wrong about things.The reason why I comment once more on this is a very personal one.

I was born and raised in East Germany, basically under the influence of (at that time an already toned down version of) communist ideology. One remarkable aspect of the philosophy behind it was that humanity is sort of "bound to improve", IOW, that things are destined to get better as some sort of a natural law and the only choice one has is to either stand in the way or - help to speed up the natural way to eternal bliss.

I'm oversimplifying here, but that is what it eventually came down to. Do not make the mistake to assume anything about nature other than that "it" is perfectly indifferent and quite happy to develop into a state of affairs where organisms entirely focused on not being killed need to be killed by and in order for other organisms entirely focused on not being killed to survive.

[Dancing David]

Maybe absence of confirmation bias is currently evolving, and skeptics are spearheading that trend which will allow the superstitious to drift towards extinction. There must be some reproductive disadvantage in being dead wrong about things.


More deterministic thinking, only if you are dead wrong about things that effect reproductive success.

You don't get the way evolution most likely works.

You are showing the same errors of thought in insisting that confirmation bias should have an impact on survival leading to reproductive fitness.

[Mr. Scott]

You don't get the way evolution most likely works.

:mad: How do you know what I get and don't get? I'm asking provocative questions at the edge between the ordinary and the mysterious and on occasion playing devils advocate. You don't get the way Mr. Scott most likely works.

I've always found it mysterious that many people would rather appear right than actually be right. I've encountered too often people who use smoke and mirrors to make them seem to be successes to delay being outed as failures.

However, in our society, competency in many areas often reduces our fitness to reproduce, like careers that so dominate one's life that one avoids reproduction altogether. Then there are genes for delusional proximate mechanisms like "gotta make babies no matter what the costs" that may indeed spread faster than genes for more rational thinking.

Having the right answers about how to eat, find mates, increase your status, and raise your offspring has to have a reproductive advantage. Holding on to the wrong answers has to have a disadvantage in conflict with the advantage of saving face, so I see at as an example of competing genes within the species and/or individual.

I do indeed get how genes for stupid delusional (and fraudulent) woo may spread better than genes for rationality.

[Mr. Scott]

New question:

Do other animals have confirmation bias? Other higher primates? How could a hypothesis that non-human animals have confirmation bias be confirmed or falsified? What test could we invent for, say, a canine or feline subject?

[JoeTheJuggler]

I do indeed get how genes for stupid delusional (and fraudulent) woo may spread better than genes for rationality.

How do you account for woo-to-rational (or vise versa) conversions if these things are genetic traits?

At best you're talking about a predisposition to a particular way of thinking--it's not hard-wired like hair or eye color.

[Mr. Scott]

How do you account for woo-to-rational (or vise versa) conversions if these things are genetic traits?

At best you're talking about a predisposition to a particular way of thinking--it's not hard-wired like hair or eye color.

No. Generally speaking, in higher mammals, genes that affect behavior do so with proximate mechanisms that ordinarily push them towards reproductive advantage but can be overruled by contingencies, conflicting tendencies, rational reassessments, etc.

Here's an excerpt from wiki's article on sociobiology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociobiology) which explains a bit of what I'm trying to get across:

the proximate mechanism (e.g., brain anatomy and hormones).
Sociobiologists are interested in how behaviour can be explained logically as a result of selective pressures in the history of a species. Thus, they are often interested in instinctive, or intuitive behavior, and in explaining the similarities, rather than the differences, between cultures. For example, mothers within many species of mammals – including humans – are very protective of their offspring. Sociobiologists reason that this protective behavior likely evolved over time because it helped those individuals which had the characteristic to survive and reproduce. Over time, individuals of species that did not exhibit such protective behaviors likely lost their offspring and ultimately died out. In this way, the social behavior is believed to have evolved in a fashion similar to other types of nonbehavioral adaptations, such as (for example) fur or the sense of smell. Sociobiologists may therefore argue that the evolutionary mechanism behind the behavior is genetic.



For example, a mother who accurately evaluates threats to her offspring will surely pass on her genes better than one that goes with her first impression about a threat and repels evidence that she's wrong. Ergo Confirmation Bias should be selected against. My question form the OP was: Why isn't it?

I don't have a problem with the possibility that there was a genetic mutation that sent a nerve cell from the cluster that registered "I'm ignoring what isn't consistent with what I know" to the cluster that generates pleasure. Such a connection won't mean that woo is as inevitable as eye color, and suggesting it doesn't imply I think evolution is deterministic. I bet that genetic mutations are sending nerve cells in all kinds of weird directions. The connections that result in reproductive advantage stay, the ones that don't many stay around if they're harmless or go away if they are harmful. It could mean that we'd tend to be wooish (because it "feels right") unless our higher brain is able to process how the woo is silly and won't get the results we want.

[robinson]

Worst topic ever.

[Mr. Scott]

Worst topic ever.

Why?

[Dancing David]

:mad: How do you know what I get and don't get? I'm asking provocative questions at the edge between the ordinary and the mysterious and on occasion playing devils advocate. You don't get the way Mr. Scott most likely works.

I've always found it mysterious that many people would rather appear right than actually be right. I've encountered too often people who use smoke and mirrors to make them seem to be successes to delay being outed as failures.

And where does it intersect with reproductive success? That would be the rub for evolution. The issues you are talking about might not be genetically determined in the sense that they would be a part of natural selection. There are so many ways that the brain generates the perceptions that confirmation bias could just be a byproduct of the structure of the brain.


However, in our society, competency in many areas often reduces our fitness to reproduce, like careers that so dominate one's life that one avoids reproduction altogether.

If you can make a baby then you can pass on your genetic material. That doesn't have much to do with success at work. Your children can live in squalor as long as they end up reproducing.

Then there are genes for delusional proximate mechanisms like "gotta make babies no matter what the costs" that may indeed spread faster than genes for more rational thinking.

That is a very specific behavior that would be unlikely to be coded into the genome. And I am not sure that is an appropriate use of delusional. Are you sure there could not be a beneficial trait that it is associated with?

[quote]

Having the right answers about how to eat, find mates, increase your status, and raise your offspring has to have a reproductive advantage. Holding on to the wrong answers has to have a disadvantage in conflict with the advantage of saving face, so I see at as an example of competing genes within the species and/or individual.

Only when it directly impacts the act of reproduction. So putting babies in the oven would be a bad trait. Believing that George Bush is the Emperor of Mars would not.

And most specific behaviors are not coded in the genome. There are overall patterns of the way the brain works and grows.

There is benefit to seeing the trees and dogs and lions. There is benefit to seeing the patterns of where these things and food occur. Our brains acts like matching machines, searching for and generating patterns. It is likely that this beneficial pattern of the way the brain works can also create perceptual patterns where they don't exist (confabulation of the material in the blind spot) so it is likely that this pattern producing machine will generate patters that have less external validity than others.

So to say that there would be a specific benefit to holding a false belief in the face of evidence would come down to:
Does holding this false belief impact reproduction?
A belief in god is not usually going to effect reproduction. A belief in spirits is generally not going to effect reproduction. A belief that turning three times to the left every morning wards off illness is not going to effect reproduction.

But the benefit of being able to see colors, patterns of where food grows, predators hang out and when other humans are pissed off might have reproductive benefit even if it leads to frequent false positives.


I do indeed get how genes for stupid delusional (and fraudulent) woo may spread better than genes for rationality.


Again that would be hard to show, how does being stupid lead to the act of reproduction? The desire to have sex, the rewards of sexual behavior lead to success in reproduction.

How would being stupid lead to reproduction?

[Dancing David]

New question:

Do other animals have confirmation bias? Other higher primates? How could a hypothesis that non-human animals have confirmation bias be confirmed or falsified? What test could we invent for, say, a canine or feline subject?


Would other animals running from the shadow of a kite because they think it is a hawk count?

I think that is the kind of mechanism at work, a stimulus that looks like another stimulus is responsded to.

or when a fish eats a fishing lure?

[Jeff Corey]

Would other animals running from the shadow of a kite because they think it is a hawk count?

I think that is the kind of mechanism at work, a stimulus that looks like another stimulus is responsded to.

or when a fish eats a fishing lure?
Those are examples of stimulus generalization. I think a better example might be Skinner's "Superstition" in the Pigeon, and that's a stretch.

The striking aspects of Wason's demonstration of confirmation bias are that it is so strong, hard to unlearn and occurs in cases where there is no emotional commitment to the statement being tested.
About 90% of people tested on the 4 card problem get it wrong. Many students still get it wrong after it has been explained repeatedly and some skeptics argue about the correct answer. And who could have any emotional baggage attached to "All cards with a vowel on one side have an even number on the other"?

[Michael C]

To go back to the OP:

The particular aspect of Confirmation Bias which I think is remarkable is this: It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs (explaining why woos take on skeptics here with addictive persistence).

I don't find this surprising. It just shows that people like being right. It's obviously an evolutionary advantage to have a good feeling if you really are right - you'd not be much use if you felt sad and let down in this situation. Confirmation bias is no more than an exaggeration of this useful behaviour.

Another parable with the cave people:

Two mothers, Ai-no and Da-ut, see a sabre-toothed tiger for the first time. They watch the strange animal as it approaches the group of playing children, then snatches a child and eats it. Their reactions are different:

- Ai-no immediately deduces that all animals like this one are dangerous child-eaters.

- Da-ut simply draws the conclusion that this particular tiger may sometimes eat a child.

A few days later they see a very similar tiger (maybe it's the same one, maybe not) not far from the group of children. Ai-no immediately snatches up her own child and runs into the cave. Da-ut says

- "We need more data on this question. Maybe this animal could be useful to us?"

and moves towards the group of children. The tiger pounces on her and eats her.

OK, it's a silly story. We could go on making up stories where confirmation bias is either helpful or unhelpful in the battle for survival. In fact, I doubt if it plays a big role at all.

[robinson]

"It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"

I keep wondering why such an outrageous claim as this hasn't been challenged. It is such a earth shattering scientific discovery, on so many levels. But is there a shred of truth in it?

I mean, isn't it obvious that such an amazing phenomenom has immense value? I simply ignore some evidence that challenges a strong belief, and I am high as a kite! Pleasure center stimulation baby! Whoo Hoo! Fantastic.

In fact, because I don't believe that claim for a second, I must be experiencing intense pleasure right now! How cool is that?

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'd mostly underscore what Dancing David said. You've yet to show that Confirmation Bias is an inherited trait (i.e. that it affects reproductive success either way), so looking for theoretical models to explain why it helps or hurts is putting the cart before the horse.

For comparison: I think it's a fair assumption that pareidolia is related to humans' face-recognition (and more generally pattern recognition) skills. Those abilities were probably selected for, and NOT the ability to see Jesus in a tortilla or unicorns in the clouds. So if you were to ask how pareidolia could have evolved, I'd say it didn't.

New question:

Do other animals have confirmation bias? Other higher primates? How could a hypothesis that non-human animals have confirmation bias be confirmed or falsified? What test could we invent for, say, a canine or feline subject?
I don't know that anyone's looked at it--even in humans really. Is there a questionnaire or "tool" for measuring the presence of confirmation bias in humans?

In non-human animals, I think the closest you can come is something that stands in for it. I don't think anyone's done any work on that or anything very similar, but I'm pretty out-of-touch. I am familiar with some older work that talks about proto-language, pattern recognition, deception, self-awareness, and other aspects of non-human (mostly primate) animal cognition.

Check out Cheney & Seyfath's work with vervet monkeys. I also read a decent book called Animal Minds, by Donald R. Griffin (based on research from the '80s and '90s I'm afraid).

[Mr. Scott]

"It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"

I keep wondering why such an outrageous claim as this hasn't been challenged. It is such a earth shattering scientific discovery, on so many levels. But is there a shred of truth in it?


Westen, Drew; Kilts, C., Blagov, P., Harenski, K., and Hamann, S. (2006). "The neural basis of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on political judgment during the U.S. Presidential election of 2004.". Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Shermer, Michael (July 2006). The Political Brain. Scientific American.

Emory University Health Sciences Center (2006-01-31). Emory Study Lights Up The Political Brain. Science Daily.

[robinson]

Where is there any evidence that "ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"?

[kellyb]

The mechanism behind confirmation bias is probably useful, and a little excess probably doesn't hurt enough to be selected against.

[blutoski]

I'd mostly underscore what Dancing David said. You've yet to show that Confirmation Bias is an inherited trait (i.e. that it affects reproductive success either way), so looking for theoretical models to explain why it helps or hurts is putting the cart before the horse.

It's like dealing with healthfraud: how does homeopathy work? (not does homeopathy work), how does spinal adjustment cure whooping cough? (not does spinal adjustment cure whooping cough).

A child was able to show that the question "How does a Therapeutic Touch practitioner manipulate the human energy field," must wait until "Does a Therapeutic Touch practitioner manipulate the human energy field?" is answered.


Skeptics know this problem by a formal name: "Loaded question." eg:


When did you stop beating your wife?
How does homeopathy work?
How does telepathy work?
How does water witching work?
Why are black people genetically inferior?
How did confirmation bias evolve?

[kellyb]

It's like dealing with healthfraud: how does homeopathy work? (not does homeopathy work), how does spinal adjustment cure whooping cough? (not does spinal adjustment cure whooping cough).

A child was able to show that the question "How does a Therapeutic Touch practitioner manipulate the human energy field," must wait until "Does a Therapeutic Touch practitioner manipulate the human energy field?" is answered.

But it's more or less a universal trait among humans, isn't it?
It's just part of how we humans think?
I mean, I doubt dogs and cats do it. They can't.
So it sort of has to be hereditary, right?

[blutoski]

But it's more or less a universal trait among humans, isn't it?
It's just part of how we humans think?
I mean, I doubt dogs and cats do it. They can't.
So it sort of has to be hereditary, right?

Who knows? What if animals do explore their environments with a confirmation bias? That won't tell us whether it's an evolved trait - they could learn it during their lifetimes via trial-and-error.

I'm not comfortable filling in the knowledge gap by fiat. I have no reservation about rephrasing the question to: "if we were to discover that confirmation bias is inherited, what would be a possible explanatory mechanism to drive this feature?"

But that would bring us to the obvious fact that we don't have enough information to answer the question. One thing we know about heritable features is that the more beneficial they are, the more times they show up independently. For example, sickle-cell anemia and Tay-Sach's have dozens of independent origins. The population specificity, timing, and abundance of these mutations leads us to understand the forces that preserved and amplified them in the population.

I would be very happy to be presented references that show that the trait is inherited. In the meantime, the topic should be "How could we identify whether this trait is inherited, rather than learned?"

This is a question that scientists have wrestled with for a long time, and I'm not sure that it's resolved to the level of satisfaction to move on to the explanatory stage.

[Elind]

The particular aspect of Confirmation Bias which I think is remarkable is this: It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs (explaining why woos take on skeptics here with addictive persistence).

However, isn't there an advantage to being the one with the right belief -- to correcting a belief you find evidence is wrong?

My guess would be that it has leadership benefit. People don't follow those who change their minds based on evidence. Evidence that the followers likely don't know about or can understand. They don't want truth, they want guidance (see religion). That can be applied to the leader of the clan, or to daddy who uses it on the wife and kids.

[kellyb]

Who knows? What if animals do explore their environments with a confirmation bias? That won't tell us whether it's an evolved trait - they could learn it during their lifetimes via trial-and-error.



But if an animal learned it via trial and error, it would still technically be inherited. The nature to test a theory by looking for a patterns would be an inherited trait. And actually, come to think of it, a lot of animals probably do do it on some very basic level. It seems like it would just be a by-product of intelligence and curiosity, which are very much genetic.

[Dymanic]

My guess would be that it has leadership benefit. People don't follow those who change their minds based on evidence. Evidence that the followers likely don't know about or can understand. They don't want truth, they want guidance (see religion). That can be applied to the leader of the clan, or to daddy who uses it on the wife and kids.Bingo. That's pretty much what I had in mind here: http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2938305&postcount=13

But if an animal learned it via trial and error, it would still technically be inherited.Ehhh... sorry, I can't quite get that to work for me; not even with one eye closed. Nice try and all. But there is a possible mechanism by which learned behavior might be converted to inherited behavior. Ever heard of the "Baldwin effect"? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwinian_evolution)

[Mr. Scott]

Where is there any evidence that "ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"?

You said there was "no shred of truth," so I offered you the shreds that convinced me. Now you ask for "any evidence" which I feel I gave you. A goalpost move?

Why don't you offer something positive to the discussion instead of just tearing down?

How do you think confirmation bias works?

[robinson]

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
~Tolstoy

[robinson]

I searched the information you provided. There was no evidence that "ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs". There was MRI data that suggest that the emotional regions were active, rather than the logic and higher reason centers were being used. Which I can understand. It is obvious from even casual conversations that deeply held beliefs are not based on reason or logic, but by emotional needs and strong motivation to avoid thinking, which often leads to stress. Having to think about something causes one to feel uncomfortable, it produces unease, most people desire comfort and relaxation, not conflict or change. Having to face that ones deeply held beliefs are wrong, is incredibly stressful, and can lead to all kinds of side effects, and no sense of peace until the situation has been resolved.

I find the entire idea fascinating. I haven't really felt qualified to jump into the conversation, not having spent the time educating myself on the matter, in regards to the published data and various research into this.

It is a rare bird that will buck the tide of common knowledge, social opinion, the Mores if you will. In the past going against the ruling class, or the ruling religion, could get you ostracized, banished, tortured, or even killed, in very unpleasant ways. In fact, that is still the case in many places. If this is an inherited trait, it is obvious why it was selected for. Anyone who didn't have the ability to fit in, to not ask questions, to not point out the obvious flaws in things, would never survive to adulthood, much less have any chance to reproduce.

I tend to agree that it is a type of selection bias, especially in regards to politics and interpreting new information. There is a great difficulty in even examining the nature of the thing, due to the way information is transmitted by Television and Newspaper reporting. Even scientific papers and publications suffer from this unconscious tendency to not see what is, but what we want to see.

Paul Simon noted this with great precision in his song, "The Boxer".

"A man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the rest..."

Herbert Spencer is well known for phrasing it as,
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

But I think good old Tolstoy said it best,

"Most men can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, have proudly taught to others, and have woven thread by thread into the fabric of their lives."
~~ Tolstoy

Mark Twain seemed to have been quite aware of this human condition, as well as many other authors, playwrights and artist of all kinds.

If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. It mean, it does nowadays, because now we can't burn him.
Mark Twain, - Following the Equator

Between believing a thing and thinking you know is only a small step and quickly taken.
Mark Twain, - "3,000 Years Among the Microbes"

How does this happen? How do we go from being wide eyed questioning children, full of wonder, curiosity and delight, to the close minded and dumb adult? Certainly it isn't an inherent condition, for if so it would be observable in children and primitives. Which it certainly is not.

[kellyb]

Ehhh... sorry, I can't quite get that to work for me; not even with one eye closed. Nice try and all.

Let me try again.
Human children, around toddlerhood, universally start doing things like pouring their drinks on the floor. They do it for a while and then just get over it one day.
Is this an inherited behavior?

[Michael C]

How does this happen? How do we go from being wide eyed questioning children, full of wonder, curiosity and delight, to the close minded and dumb adult?

I don't think we do. Certainly young children ask a lot of questions, but these questions are not about putting cherished beliefs to the test. A child will ask things like "what's that?", "what's this for?" or "why does such and such happen?" and will believe any convincing answer from Mummy of Daddy. It's normal for children to believe everything their parents tell them, be it about the Tooth Fairy, Santa or God.

At some point, as they grow up, the children will begin to question the truth of what Mummy and Daddy say. Children of religious parents don't turn atheist when they're six, but they might when they're fifteen, or twenty, or even later. If we can learn to question beliefs that we have been taking for granted for years, it's a sign that we're growing up. The idea of looking for evidence against a belief in order to test its veracity is not something we pick up easily.

Maybe the close-minded and dumb adults are the ones who haven't grown up enough?

[Jeff Corey]

Let me try again.
Human children, around toddlerhood, universally start doing things like pouring their drinks on the floor. They do it for a while and then just get over it one day.
Is this an inherited behavior?
Universally? I think not. This is worse than your example of trial and error learning (operant conditioning) in which the ability to learn is due to the genetic endowment, but the specific behaviors learned are not.

[kellyb]

Universally? I think not. This is worse than your example of trial and error learning (operant conditioning) in which the ability to learn is due to the genetic endowment, but the specific behaviors learned are not.

You don't think the basic stages of child development are evolutionarily programmed? I'd say even at the very beginning, crying to signal hunger was selected for.

Do you agree with this statement?

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8248%28199612%2963%3A4%3C485%3ATSAC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage


This paper argues that there are powerful similarities between cognitive development in children and scientific theory change. These similarities are best explained by postulating an underlying abstract set of rules and representations that underwrite both types of cognitive abilities. In fact, science may be successful largely because it exploits powerful and flexible cognitive devices that were designed by evolution to facilitate learning in young children.

Nevermind if science exploits the process, but do you think the way we think and learn to navigate through our environment and experiment with the world is genetically programmed into us?

Look at the way felines play when they're young...from the domesticated cat up to young tigers, they are driven to immitate catching prey in a way that closely resembles how they'll later get food. They are gaining certain cat-specific skills. I find it hard to believe that this is not an inherited, genetic, evolutionarily programmed behavior, or that humans don't do human-specific things while developing, as well. The effects of having the environment respond in a predictable way would, I guess, be vaugely similar to operant conditioning (sort of) but the drive to experiment and learn in a specific way would have to be inherited to some degree.

ETA:
There are experiments that demonstrate that how intelligent species think is specific to their environments. It's not simply behavior that's inherited, but the thought process behind those behaviors, as well.

http://wjh.harvard.edu/%7Emnkylab/publications/recent/stevens2005c.pdf

Nonhuman animals steeply discount the future,
showing a preference for small, immediate over large,
delayed rewards [1–5]. Currently unclear is whether
discounting functions depend on context. Here, we
examine the effects of spatial context on discounting
in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and common
marmosets (Callithrix jacchus), species known
to differ in temporal discounting [5]. We presented
subjects with a choice between small, nearby rewards
and large, distant rewards. Tamarins traveled farther
for the large reward than marmosets, attending to the
ratio of reward differences rather than their absolute
values. This species difference contrasts with performance
on a temporal task in which marmosets waited
longer than tamarins for the large reward. These comparative
data indicate that context influences choice
behavior, with the strongest effect seen in marmosets
who discounted more steeply over space than over
time. These findings parallel details of each species’
feeding ecology. Tamarins range over large distances
and feed primarily on insects, which requires using
quick, impulsive action. Marmosets range over shorter
distances than tamarins and feed primarily on tree exudates,
a clumped resource that requires patience to
wait for sap to exude [6–9]. These results show that
discounting functions are context specific, shaped by
a history of ecological pressures.

[robinson]

Where is the data that says confirmation bias being confronted is linked to pleasurable sensations? I missed it.

Me too. I can't find anything that associates ignoring evidence with the same effect as addictive drugs.

[Jeff Corey]

You don't think the basic stages of child development are evolutionarily programmed? I'd say even at the very beginning, crying to signal hunger was selected for. ..

What has any of that got to do with the alleged universal tendency to spill drinks on the floor?

[kellyb]

What has any of that got to do with the alleged universal tendency to spill drinks on the floor?

Child development experts consider the "spilling drinks on the floor" thing one of the aspects of the toddler "little scientists" phase. While there's variation in the exact month it sets in, it's a normal and expected part of child development.

http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,3899,00.html

Piaget believed that human development proceeds in stages that are the same for everybody. Through a careful description of these stages, he explained how an infant with little ability to think abstractly comes to be able to understand how things work, to reason logically, and to invent new ideas that he has never seen or heard before.

Lots of little experiments
Piaget viewed infants and children as "little scientists," born with a drive to make sense of the world. Consider the fact that children are constantly experimenting.



A Swiss psychologist named Jean Piaget described stages of cognitive development. An example of the first stage - which he called "sensorimotor" - is the baby dropping things off his highchair.


What drives the development of thinking is the child's inborn urge to understand the world of people, things, and ideas. At each stage, the child creates theories about the way the world works.

Young children cannot tell us about these theories, but we can observe them in action. As the child gathers more and more experience, eventually she is forced to give up her old theories, and create new ones. This process drives the child from one stage in cognitive development to the next.

[robinson]

Worst topic ever.

Why?

Because the basis of the conversation hasn't been discussed in a rational or skeptical manner. You just jumped into talking about something, rather than explaining why your theory is even possible! It is like discussing "why did the ability to throw a Frisbee evolve?".

You make broad sweeping assumptions, and discuss stuff like it is just a known fact, rather than using logic and reason to defend your position, your conclusions, your though process. For example,

Generally speaking, in higher mammals, genes that affect behavior do so with proximate mechanisms that ordinarily push them towards reproductive advantage but can be overruled by contingencies, conflicting tendencies, rational reassessments, etc.

WTF? Where did that come from? What does it even mean?

For example, a mother who accurately evaluates threats to her offspring will surely pass on her genes better than one that goes with her first impression about a threat and repels evidence that she's wrong. Ergo Confirmation Bias should be selected against. My question form the OP was: Why isn't it?

See? What the hell kind of reasoning is that? You assume that a huge, complex set of behaviors is something simple, "evaluates threats to her offspring", becomes a genetic trait, and somehow is passed on by DNA, which is absurd. "Ergo Confirmation Bias should be selected against." WTF? How can you make such a huge leap of faith like that? Suddenly a vast range of behaviors, including learned behaviors, becomes a genetic trait. In what Universe is this considered reality?

I don't have a problem with the possibility that there was a genetic mutation that sent a nerve cell from the cluster that registered "I'm ignoring what isn't consistent with what I know" to the cluster that generates pleasure.

What? Do you have any idea of what you are talking about? I mean, really?

[kellyb]

You assume that a huge, complex set of behaviors is something simple, "evaluates threats to her offspring", becomes a genetic trait, and somehow is passed on by DNA, which is absurd.

Is it absurd?
Do you think the way animal mothers protect their offspring (also a huge, complex set of behaviors) is a genetic trait, passed on by DNA?
Why do mammal mothers eat their placentas (sans humans)?
Have you ever had a dog or cat that had kittens or puppies? Ever seen the way they move them around from room to room? Why? Why would a domesticated animal in a safe environment keep transfering the babies into different rooms like that?

[cyborg]

robinson - there is both hardware and software when we talk about behaviour.

The way the hardware (brain) is built will dictate the type of software (mind) that will develop.

Hence: certain types of software behaviour are advantageous, others are not. Evolution selects based on the software, not on the hardware. However the hardware influences how the software works. Therefore behaviours can evolve.

It is roughly analogous to the pheno/genotype distinction. The tertiary structures DNA create are not explicitly coded and are subject to environmental constraints. As such you should really think of this in terms of sets, or groups, of related behaviours/expressions and ranges of variation within them. (I.e. what is it that is constant? What is it that can vary?)

[blutoski]

But if an animal learned it via trial and error, it would still technically be inherited. The nature to test a theory by looking for a patterns would be an inherited trait.

But that's not what we're not talking about vaguely testing a theory by looking for a pattern. We're talking about a specific strategy for doing so: confirmation bias.

They/we could have learned that confirmation bias is more efficient than other means. Testing the environment: genetic; confirmation bias: learned.

The same way that we have the capacity for language, but the language is culturally learned. Language: genetic; Bushman tongue-clicking: learned.

[kellyb]

But that's not what we're not talking about vaguely testing a theory by looking for a pattern. We're talking about a specific strategy for doing so: confirmation bias.

They/we could have learned that confirmation bias is more efficient than other means. Testing the environment: genetic; confirmation bias: learned.

The same way that we have the capacity for language, but the language is culturally learned. Language: genetic; Bushman tongue-clicking: learned.

Well, even with the bushman tongue clicking, what's interesting is that (this is a popular theory in child development at the moment...not sure if it'll still be thought of as "the truth" in 20 years or whatever) in the pre-verbal stage of development, babies/toddlers actually go through and practice all the sounds used in cultures all over the world, and they only retain the ones specific to their culture. So in a way, you could say the tongue clicking is probably genetic to some extent. It just usually gets trumped by some drive to stop making sounds no one around you makes.

Either way, regarding confirmation bias, I don't think anyone really knows for sure how the nuts and bolts of cognitive evolution work yet. My own "intuitive feeling" on the matter is that the thought process behind it is probably genetic, and it's probably part of being human. But since that's just a guess, and no one really knows much about any of this yet, I can see the point that speculating about how it works is kind of silly.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Language: genetic. Ability to speak a particular language: learned.


I still say the tendency to commit confirmation bias might just be a by product of something else, and I'd worry about whether it's a trait that is selected for before asking the how or why.

Would you say pareidolia is a trait that evolved? (See my previous post.) Is there a reproductive advantage or disadvantage to seeing the Virgin in a tortilla?

[cyborg]

Is there a reproductive advantage or disadvantage to seeing the Virgin in a tortilla?

Don't forget neutrality...

[Mr. Scott]

Because the basis of the conversation hasn't been discussed in a rational or skeptical manner. You just jumped into talking about something, rather than explaining why your theory is even possible! It is like discussing "why did the ability to throw a Frisbee evolve?".

You make broad sweeping assumptions, and discuss stuff like it is just a known fact, rather than using logic and reason to defend your position, your conclusions, your though process. For example,

WTF? Where did that come from? What does it even mean?

See? What the hell kind of reasoning is that? You assume that a huge, complex set of behaviors is something simple, "evaluates threats to her offspring", becomes a genetic trait, and somehow is passed on by DNA, which is absurd. "Ergo Confirmation Bias should be selected against." WTF? How can you make such a huge leap of faith like that? Suddenly a vast range of behaviors, including learned behaviors, becomes a genetic trait. In what Universe is this considered reality?

What? Do you have any idea of what you are talking about? I mean, really?

Again, instead of adding substance to the conversation, you offer cracks like WTF and "Do you have any idea of what you are talking about?" A thousand repetitions of "WTF?" do nothing to refute my point.

robinson, you haven't provided a shred of evidence that this is the worst topic ever. A single worse topic disproves your assertion.

My conclusion about confirmation bias producing addictive pleasure is my synthesis of information from many sources, including decades of reading about how the brain works, chemical addictions, behaviorism, sociobiology, and personal observation.

I ask readers to consider the implications of this statement from the report on Dr. Westen's study:

partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones

To me, that has every earmark of a process that can lead to addiction. It's quite a leap to go from A) there's no specific study confirming confirmation bias addiction; to B) worst topic ever.

I'm fine with the comment that the OP has a loaded question. I knew it was loaded before I posted it. Loaded questions stimulate conversation.

Closing zinger:
I suppose you've made up your mind, robinson, that this is the "worst topic ever" and no evidence to the contrary will make any difference. Everyone's entitled to their addictions. Type WTF all you want if that's what gives you pleasure. :D

[robinson]

I was joking about the topic. It was a play on a popular TV show, The Simpsons. In which the Comic Book Guy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Book_Guy) says, "Worst episode ever".

Humor doesn't translate well to this medium, because you can't hear it being said in the Comic book Guys voice. You might also not be familiar with the show, meaning those three words might seem harsh, mean, terrible. I assure you, if I really thought it was the worst topic ever, I wouldn't post in it. There are many many more topics that suck, on a level that this topic will never be able to achieve. :D

Bias is an incredibly interesting subject. I would say bias is almost impossible to recognize in myself. Without input from others, especially skeptical, rational people, I wouldn't be aware of my own bias. And even when it seems I am suffering from bias, it is hard to get past it.

Is this a biological trait? Is it hard wired, soft wired, is it passed on in the genes? Can it be bred for? Bred out? If we assume it is a genetic trait, then of course we get to sidestep all the hard work of investigating if this is true or not, and simply start discussing something that may, or may not, exist.

Which might be a form of confirmation bias. Instead of looking for evidence, we start interpreting evidence based on our belief, which is called pseudoscience. Instead of a theory, we have a conclusion. Instead of looking at evidence that might disprove an idea, we are talking about some process of evolution, inherited complex brain functions, how did this occur? How is this beneficial? How did this get selected for? All kinds of interesting questions.

Without even having to show evidence that what we are discussing even exists. Yes we have an MRI study showing Political views are not rational, but emotional. That the test subjects used parts of their brain we associate with emotion, morals, conflict resolution, not logical reasoning. When dealing with Political figures, and statements they made. Which in my experience is like expecting a Catholic to use reason when they listen to the Pope speak.

Is this confirmation bias? From Wiki, "In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs."

I call it human nature. It was obvious to Plato and Socrates, based on ancient writings. Is it a survival trait? Is it a genetic thing? Or is it the way cultures bring up children? Is it the influence of religion? Does this "trait" or "tendency" work in all perceptions? In all our decisions? Or is it only involved when there is an emotional charge, a vested interest?

Do our beliefs matter when it comes down to reality? Let me just assume that CB is a gentic issue, that it "evolved". (Just because, this way I can give you my cool theory, which I just made up).

How did this happen? How did ignoring the facts about people become an advantage? How did it get passed on, when rational, honest, open minded traits did not?

Hmmm.... let me just look into the distant past ....

[cyborg]

If you build a learning machine then unlearning can only be done by learning.

[Elind]

Bingo. That's pretty much what I had in mind here: http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2938305&postcount=13



Always nice to find a like minded soul. I'm also impressed by your ability to find even last week's quote from somewhere else. A talent many seem to have, but I have trouble even remembering who insulted me last week. ;)

[Dancing David]

"It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"

I keep wondering why such an outrageous claim as this hasn't been challenged. It is such a earth shattering scientific discovery, on so many levels. But is there a shred of truth in it?

I mean, isn't it obvious that such an amazing phenomenom has immense value? I simply ignore some evidence that challenges a strong belief, and I am high as a kite! Pleasure center stimulation baby! Whoo Hoo! Fantastic.

In fact, because I don't believe that claim for a second, I must be experiencing intense pleasure right now! How cool is that?

I believe the request for a citation has been ignored.

[Dancing David]

Those are examples of stimulus generalization. I think a better example might be Skinner's "Superstition" in the Pigeon, and that's a stretch.

The striking aspects of Wason's demonstration of confirmation bias are that it is so strong, hard to unlearn and occurs in cases where there is no emotional commitment to the statement being tested.
About 90% of people tested on the 4 card problem get it wrong. Many students still get it wrong after it has been explained repeatedly and some skeptics argue about the correct answer. And who could have any emotional baggage attached to "All cards with a vowel on one side have an even number on the other"?

Perhaps it is the testing population being in college and all?

;)

I think a better example is the guy who says to every women he meets "Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?" , due to intermittant reinforcement they continue without success.

[Dancing David]

Westen, Drew; Kilts, C., Blagov, P., Harenski, K., and Hamann, S. (2006). "The neural basis of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on political judgment during the U.S. Presidential election of 2004.". Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Shermer, Michael (July 2006). The Political Brain. Scientific American.

Emory University Health Sciences Center (2006-01-31). Emory Study Lights Up The Political Brain. Science Daily.

Thank you.

[Dancing David]

Posted by Mr. Scott

Quote:
partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones

Is that a citation from Westen or someone else? I have to go to the library to read the actual article. Who said that?

[Ivor the Engineer]

Shouldn't the question be: Why has the tendency for confirmation bias not been eliminated by evolution?

Sorry if someone has already ask this, but I didn't want to look at the whole thread, so I only read a few posts that indicated that no one had;)

[ImaginalDisc]

Humor doesn't translate well to this medium, because you can't hear it being said in the Comic book Guys voice.

Really? Someone should notify The Onion.

[blutoski]

Well, even with the bushman tongue clicking, what's interesting is that (this is a popular theory in child development at the moment...not sure if it'll still be thought of as "the truth" in 20 years or whatever) in the pre-verbal stage of development, babies/toddlers actually go through and practice all the sounds used in cultures all over the world, and they only retain the ones specific to their culture. So in a way, you could say the tongue clicking is probably genetic to some extent. It just usually gets trumped by some drive to stop making sounds no one around you makes.

I'm aware of "natural syntax" (a la Chomsky) - you're just repeating what I said.

To continue the analogy - maybe we naturally use many mechanisms to test our environment, but our cultures whittle it down to a few strategies, such that confirmation bias ends up being dominant.

[blutoski]

Language: genetic. Ability to speak a particular language: learned.


I still say the tendency to commit confirmation bias might just be a by product of something else, and I'd worry about whether it's a trait that is selected for before asking the how or why.

Would you say pareidolia is a trait that evolved? (See my previous post.) Is there a reproductive advantage or disadvantage to seeing the Virgin in a tortilla?

Exactly. In this case, pareidolia is certainly a negative artefact of the otherwise highly-beneficial complex predisposed ability for pattern recognition. It's probably very primitive, and we have hints of examples outside the homo genus, such as the ability of animals to generalize connections with past trauma.

For example, my friend's dog was kicked by a man in black pants when he was a puppy, and now fears black pants. My other friend's dog was shot at by guns, so also fears balloons (because they pop, which sounds like a gun). We have decades of experiments with birds pecking at obscure objects (such as cricket bats or tennis shoes) that are merely similarly colour-patterned to their mother's beak. Last summer, I saw some plants drop their leaves after a cold snap in July, because they erroneously misrecognized it as part of the pattern to flag the start of autumn.

[Elind]

Shouldn't the question be: Why has the tendency for confirmation bias not been eliminated by evolution?

Sorry if someone has already ask this, but I didn't want to look at the whole thread, so I only read a few posts that indicated that no one had;)

Here's one opinion

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2965093#post2965093

[robinson]

I have a really good theory on this. Still working out the bugs in it, but I am counting on you, yes you, to help me avoid confirmation bias in the investigation of this matter.

[Elind]

You sound dangerously sure of that.

[robinson]

Aw c'mon. Skeptics are great at avoiding confirmation bias.

[Hellbound]

Just a thought here, but might not confirmation bias be directly linked to pattern-seeking?

I don't think any of us would argue that we're "hard-wired" to look for and find patterns (which leads to things like the aforementioned pareidolia). I think this may, to an extent anyway, be the same general type of thing at work in confirmation bias.

We develop an idea or hypothesis by observing a pattern. Since we're wired to find patterns, the patterns that match our idea are more easily noticed and found than things that don't match the pattern. IN other words, once we've identified a pattern, we look for other similar patterns rather than not-patterns. I don't think I'm explaining this clearly, but can't figure out exactly how to word it. Let me try again :)

We are wired to find patterns, and a mechanism to provide pleasure upon identifying patterns would seem beneficial. Once we've identified a particular pattern, it's easier to find that pattern again than to discern a new pattern, or re-arrange things. So, this might help explain confirmation bias...it;s easier for us to look for and identify a pattern we've already developed, thus getting the reward, than to find a new one. And all of this relates into our basic drive to find patterns.

Sound feasible?

[cyborg]

Sound feasible?

Yes. Like I said unlearning is harder. The more concepts linked to some learnt, incorrect, correlation the harder it is to unlearn. Quite possibly also because unlearning requires a significant amount of new routing rather than the simple removal of some, i.e. to unlearn you must learn - you cannot simply unlearn.

[Dancing David]

I agree, there would be no need to have pleasure involved, food and safety and mates would work.

[Mr. Scott]

Is that a citation from Westen or someone else? I have to go to the library to read the actual article. Who said that?

That was a quotation of Dr. Weston himself. The key phrase for me is "massively reinforced" behavior of exercizing one's bias.

[Mr. Scott]

I believe the request for a citation has been ignored.

I didn't ignore the request, just had too little time for JREF until now. I relocated the smoking gun that links confirmation bias with drug addiction-like psychology. Here's a quote and links:

Once partisans had come to completely biased conclusions -- essentially finding ways to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted -- not only did circuits that mediate negative emotions like sadness and disgust turn off, but subjects got a blast of activation in circuits involved in reward -- similar to what addicts receive when they get their fix, Westen explains.

2007 Confirmation Bias (Repost from AMNAP 1.0) (http://amnap.blogspot.com/2007/04/confirmation-bias.html)

Emory Study Lights Up The Political Brain (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060131092225.htm)

I keep wondering why such an outrageous claim as this hasn't been challenged. It is such a earth shattering scientific discovery, on so many levels. But is there a shred of truth in it?

I mean, isn't it obvious that such an amazing phenomenom has immense value? I simply ignore some evidence that challenges a strong belief, and I am high as a kite! Pleasure center stimulation baby! Whoo Hoo! Fantastic.

In fact, because I don't believe that claim for a second, I must be experiencing intense pleasure right now! How cool is that?

[Dabljuh]

I'm not really focusing on superstition.

My main curiosity is in the connection between ignoring evidence that contradicts your beliefs and stimulating the pleasure center. I'm ready to believe that a single genetic mutation resulted in a connection between these two groups of neurons, and that this bit of accidental neuron wiring was then selected for.

In pseudocode one would write this as follows:

FUNCTION Confirmation Bias(input,model)
IF(input doesn't agree with model)
THEN
discard input
stimulate pleasure center()
END

FUNCTION Stimulate Pleasure Center()
whatever you just did, do it again ASAP and with more gusto
END FUNCTION


That's not how it works. The stimulation comes from the "Yes, my ******* insane theory is right" effect. Because a human's perception is, by itself, "intelligent" (not just cameras and microphones like a computer), a sufficiently trained perceptive system can interpret any sort of input as confirming some ******* insane theory.

Being "Right" (confirmation) of course stimulates the pleasure center, just as does learning something completely new, or kicking some scumbag's ass, or jacking off.

Some people just (subconsciously) train their perceptive system to confirm a particular idea over and over, and this effect is - to a limited degree - self-reinforcing due to the pleasure center stimulus.

There's no gene for confirmation bias. If you've got trainable perceptive organs and a pleasure center (like *every* animal is going to have) then you've got all you need for experiencing confirmatory bias. Of course, there may be genetical factors (for example, a greater curiosity drive, or a less responsive pleasure system) that enhance or diminish confirmation bias, but more important is probably education, that educates about the trainable perceptive system, and that it is unwise to completely trust one's own perceptions.

Also, confirmatory bias is probably even a selective advantage. If we wouldn't constantly seek to confirm (rather than the intellectually much wiser falsification) our beliefs and assumptions, we probably wouldn't be able to make a single decision, since we were so completely unsure about everything.

[Dancing David]

That was a quotation of Dr. Weston himself. The key phrase for me is "massively reinforced" behavior of exercizing one's bias.

I looked that up, and thank you for the clarity.

It is from an article in the New York Times, hardly a citation that demonstrates the evidence for how it stimulates the pleasure centers.

More like a catchy sound byte.

[Dancing David]

I didn't ignore the request, just had too little time for JREF until now. I relocated the smoking gun that links confirmation bias with drug addiction-like psychology. Here's a quote and links:



2007 Confirmation Bias (Repost from AMNAP 1.0) (http://amnap.blogspot.com/2007/04/confirmation-bias.html)

Sorry this is blog and not the research article, I will read it but you know what thier headline is "Observations and experiments casting doubt on the model of reductionistic materialism"

farther down
"Is it true that skeptics of psi phenomena are being irrational about the facts?"

and further
"This definitely adds support to the charge that "scientific" opposition to psi phenomena is more about sociology than science."

Certainly good for entertainment but not as a citation source.

I will read it but this is not a research article.

Emory Study Lights Up The Political Brain (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060131092225.htm)

quote from Westen in quote marks:



says Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory who led the study. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts." Westen and his colleagues will present their findings at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Jan. 28.


this is not a direct quote of westen but a paraphrase:


not only did circuits that mediate negative emotions like sadness and disgust turn off, but subjects got a blast of activation in circuits involved in reward -- similar to what addicts receive when they get their fix, Westen explains.


This is what the article says about the research

While reasoning about apparent contradictions for their own candidate, partisans showed activations throughout the orbital frontal cortex, indicating emotional processing and presumably emotion regulation strategies. There also were activations in areas of the brain associated with the experience of unpleasant emotions, the processing of emotion and conflict, and judgments of forgiveness and moral accountability.

Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning (as well as conscious efforts to suppress emotion). The finding suggests that the emotion-driven processes that lead to biased judgments likely occur outside of awareness, and are distinct from normal reasoning processes when emotion is not so heavily engaged, says Westen


And the whole point to this is that there is still not a citation for the confirmation bias stimulating the pleasure centers of the brain.

Sorry.
:)

[Dancing David]

It seems that the real issue is the nature of perception, until people understand that the brain searches for patterns, creates patterns and manufactures patterns, we will have vauge gobbledy gook.

[Dancing David]

This statement has no research citation to back it, we can't evlauate the evidence because it has not been presented.


ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs


Please give us the data or the sources for the data?

So far we have Westen saying 'similar to' and that is it.

:)

[fls]

Here is the article.

http://www.psychsystems.net/lab/06_Westen_fmri.pdf

Linda

[Dancing David]

Here is the article.

http://www.psychsystems.net/lab/06_Westen_fmri.pdf

Linda

Thank You!

I only searched about five minutes.

Thanks.

[fls]

I only searched about five minutes.

Same here. If only I could translate googlefu into big bucks.

Linda

[Dancing David]

Wow what a great article!

i read it very briefly, the protocol and data gathering are very cool and seem well structured, the data was gathered from 30 men who were recruited for thier partisanship.

These are the relevant quotes I found at the end.


The large activation of the ventral striatum that followed the subjects’ processing of threatening information likely reflects reward or relief engendered by “successful” equilibrium to an emotionally stable judgment. The combination of reduced negative affect (absence of activity in the insula and lateral orbital cortex) and the increased positive affect or reward (ventral striatum activation) once subjects had ample time to reach biased conclusions suggests why motivated judgments may be so difficult to change (i.e., they are doubly reinforcing).
.....
Of potential relevance several researchers have found avoidance and escape conditioning to be associated with dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens and dorsal straitum in other animals.


So far there is no data in this article to state that the confirmation bias is something that creates a positive reinforcement of the type addicts experiece. we have reinforcement of both positive and the negative sort.

But no stimulation of the pleasure centers.

I think 'massive reinforcement' is a sound byte.

[robinson]

"Politics is the opiate of the masses."

[vacognition]

Just in case nobody had thought of this yet, confirmation bias is a very good reason to be a skeptic. One of its effects is that we can't really trust our own experiences. My experience may tell me that bee pollen always cures my sore throat, but that may just be confirmation bias.

Here's a post that elaborates on that point (http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/why-you-cant-beat-scientific-method-14151.html).

[Mr. Scott]

I think 'massive reinforcement' is a sound byte.

Does that make it false? Dancing David, your conduct in this thread seems to exemplify confirmation bias.

This may be my last posting in this thread, although I'll likely keep reading it until it peters out. Confirmation bias is certainly one of the most important of psychological phenomena affecting skepticism.

Thanks, everyone, for your input.

[robinson]

Best topic ever.

[robinson]

I've been mulling it over, and something is happening inside of peoples brains that is connected to that overwhelming feeling of "being right", either in a religious way, or in politics, even science or gaming. I believe "knowing without a doubt you are 100% right" triggers reward mechanisms in the brain, even if you are deluded.

The classic observation,"Religion is the opiate of the masses" was an astute statement on the phenomenom of "Faith" or belief that ignores any and all evidence or reasoning to the contrary. It does seem to create a positive feedback loop, reinforcing behavior or thoughts, no matter what anyone says or does.

As was pointed out, it could explain the unreasonable amount of time and energy people spend fighting over ideas, concepts, facts, opinions, whatever, in which the level of participation does seem to equal drug use. A good flame war can be like a crack run, even when it is over a Video game, or an episode of Star Trek from 1966.

Is this the same thing as confirmation bias? Or is this something else?

[dogjones]

Nope. It's the way you try to confirm your hypothesis by seeking a confirmation, instead of seeking disconfirmation.

Hypothesis: crows are black

Strategy: look for black crows

Fact: I found a 100 black crows

Conclusion: crows are black

This is confirmation bias.

Hypothesis: Us humans are amazing thinking machines, who search for and find truth.

Strategy: Marvel at our bodies of knowledge, like, erm... wikipedia!

Fact: I found this vast list of cognitive biases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases).

Conclusion: We're a bloody mess.

[JoeTheJuggler]

This may be my last posting in this thread, although I'll likely keep reading it until it peters out. Confirmation bias is certainly one of the most important of psychological phenomena affecting skepticism.

I agree. I just think that you've yet to prove that it is something that affects reproductive success. Until you can do that, coming up with theories as to how CB evolved--speculating about stimulating pleasure centers when you "confirm" that you are right, for instance--is premature.

Again, is it valid to ask how pareidolia evolved? (Unless the answer you want is that it is a byproduct of something else that was selected for or just something that was never selected against.)

[Dancing David]

Does that make it false? Dancing David, your conduct in this thread seems to exemplify confirmation bias.

This may be my last posting in this thread, although I'll likely keep reading it until it peters out. Confirmation bias is certainly one of the most important of psychological phenomena affecting skepticism.

Thanks, everyone, for your input.

And there is no evidence for the claim that confirmation bias "causes stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain."

That is not confirmation bias, just unsupported assertion on your part.

Did I say that it was false? I stated that it was a soundbyte and that it is unsupported by the paper the Westen wrote.

Funny how the actual discussion of the evolutionary development of things that might support confirmation bias was ignored by certain people.

[Mr. Scott]

Allow me to bump this thread with a recent news article that makes headway in answering the question in the OP. Capuchin monkeys exhibit Cognitive Dissonance (http://www.world-science.net/othernews/071106_rationalize.htm)/ Confirmation Bias / Rationalization.

Some psychologists postulate that rationalization is a type of defense mechanism, a mental process that lowers stress by expunging thoughts that might otherwise threaten our self-esteem.

[Dancing David]

Well, I read that article snipett, uh, there are very strong reasons that a biological bias could exist towards excluding a food choice of a certain color.

there are many mechanism where that could happen. I think further testing would be needed to decide what factors inflence the choice.

[Jeff Corey]

Allow me to bump this thread with a recent news article that makes headway in answering the question in the OP. Capuchin monkeys exhibit Cognitive Dissonance (http://www.world-science.net/othernews/071106_rationalize.htm)/ Confirmation Bias / Rationalization.

That's not confirmation bias as social psychologists use the term.

[Mr. Scott]

That's not confirmation bias as social psychologists use the term.

I think they are closely related. Confirmation bias is a behavior we use to cope with cognitive dissonance, no?

[Mr. Scott]

Well, I read that article snipett, uh, there are very strong reasons that a biological bias could exist towards excluding a food choice of a certain color.

there are many mechanism where that could happen. I think further testing would be needed to decide what factors inflence the choice.

I have a more detailed article in print in the Nov 6 New York Times.

What is important about the phenomenon is how once the monkey makes his choice, it's incredibly hard for him to change his mind.

The example they use M&Ms, is interesting to me because it played a role in one of my earliest skeptical exercises.

On a long car trip where one of the only remedies for boredom was candy, I wondered if M&Ms of different colors actually had different tastes. Are yellow M&Ms lemon? Red cherry? We really believed they did. So, I put one of each color in my hand, closed my eyes, and tasted them one by one. There was no difference!

Yet, you can convince a monkey that one color M&M is better than another by forcing him to choose. He then, afterwards, develops a distinct preference for the color he chose, seemingly to save face.

Confirmation bias comes into play if a person who believes a yellow M&M is superior unknowningly sets himself up to prove it against evidence and unconsciously sabotoges attempts to prove him wrong.

From this, I see different colored M&M's like different religions. After an early "choice" there's no shaking one from their chosen faith, no evidence they picked the wrong faith matters, and there seems to be some weird emotional process involved in the process of rejecting evidence against one's belief. Whether the choice is M&M color, religion, or political affiliation, the psychological process is the same.

That monkeys do this is fascinating.

It also alerts me to the importance of making a good "first impression."

[Jeff Corey]

I think they are closely related. Confirmation bias is a behavior we use to cope with cognitive dissonance, no?

Not that I know of. Confirmation bias is a known phenomenon as demonstrated by Wason's various problem solving tasks, while cognitive dissonance is a theory of motivation that has been criticized as not being falsifiable. Google for Bem+cognitive dissonance for another viewpoint.
In any case, even if one accepts dissonance as a negative drive state that people are motivated to reduce by various strategies, then how does that explain behavior when testing emotionally neutral statements such as, "All cards with a vowel on one side have an even number on the other"?

[Dancing David]

I have a more detailed article in print in the Nov 6 New York Times.

What is important about the phenomenon is how once the monkey makes his choice, it's incredibly hard for him to change his mind.

The example they use M&Ms, is interesting to me because it played a role in one of my earliest skeptical exercises.

On a long car trip where one of the only remedies for boredom was candy, I wondered if M&Ms of different colors actually had different tastes. Are yellow M&Ms lemon? Red cherry? We really believed they did. So, I put one of each color in my hand, closed my eyes, and tasted them one by one. There was no difference!

Yet, you can convince a monkey that one color M&M is better than another by forcing him to choose. He then, afterwards, develops a distinct preference for the color he chose, seemingly to save face.

Confirmation bias comes into play if a person who believes a yellow M&M is superior unknowningly sets himself up to prove it against evidence and unconsciously sabotoges attempts to prove him wrong.

From this, I see different colored M&M's like different religions. After an early "choice" there's no shaking one from their chosen faith, no evidence they picked the wrong faith matters, and there seems to be some weird emotional process involved in the process of rejecting evidence against one's belief. Whether the choice is M&M color, religion, or political affiliation, the psychological process is the same.

That monkeys do this is fascinating.

It also alerts me to the importance of making a good "first impression."


Again you are extrapolating a lot and adding a lot.

Color bias and taste bias has some strong mechanisms at work potentially that have little to do with confimation bias.

So to extend this one experiment to religion is a little extreme.


Whether the choice is M&M color, religion, or political affiliation, the psychological process is the same.

this is an unsupported assertion.

[Jeff Corey]

Captain, Mr. Scott has left the bridge. The last I saw him, he was muttering, "Tha fookin antimatter doont matter anymore and fookin Sulu snorted all tha dilithium crystals."

[Mr. Scott]

Captain, Mr. Scott has left the bridge. The last I saw him, he was muttering, "Tha fookin antimatter doont matter anymore and fookin Sulu snorted all tha dilithium crystals."

Well, if he says "not enough evidence" and I say "enough evidence for me" and it's repeated ad nauseum, what more is there to say?

[Dancing David]

Evidence is evidence, conclusions are conclusions. Extrapolatrion from different sets is unwarranted.

And Sulu warped out when he sneezed.