Category Archives: Rationality - Page 3
Shermer and confirmation bias
Michael Shermer in the LA Times:
Confirmation bias explains why so many rumors about candidates were eagerly embraced recently. On the left, commentators glommed onto false gossip about Sarah Palin’s ignorance (she doesn’t know that Africa is a continent) and bigotry (she tried to ban books from the public library) because liberals think that conservatives are dumb and dogmatic, and after eight years of George W. Bush’s malapropisms and Palin’s interview fumbles, such rumors merely confirmed what liberals already believed.
It’s been my experience that confirmation bias is one of the most powerful (powerful in the sense of most likely to lead us astray) faults of the human mind. Shermer’s op-ed piece is a nice overview of the pitfalls found within.
It’s a pretty difficult bias to counteract, as it requires you to consciously step back from everything you learn and think about why you agree or disagree with it.
No, the economic downturn doesn’t prove you right
In a post entitled “The Relevance of the Great Depression“, David Friedman states:
One can imagine a future in which President Obama, supported by Democratic majorities in both houses, engages in massive interventions in the economy following the massive interventions already under way and the result is a serious economic downturn prolonged for years, perhaps for two terms. If that happens many people–most obviously, the same people who insist that the collapse of Fannie Mae and the associated difficulties are the fault of laissez-faire and deregulation–will conclude that only massive intervention preserved us from a still worse outcome.
He is absolutely correct and beat me to a blog post about it. As soon as I heard people blaming the free market, it rung as a false claim to me. Or, perhaps not false, but a conclusion not justified by the evidence at hand.
Whether or not free markets are “bad”, the current crisis says little about them. Economic markets are already heavily regulated, but whether or not we need more, different, or less regulations is by no means clear.
Income redistribution is ok because it’s already done?
» I Voted for Barack Obama on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity
As for the big focus on “wealth redistribution?” We’ve been doing it for years, it’s called the progressive tax system. While it seems like you’re punishing success and being a bit socialist, the alternative is far worse. Imagine a nation where there is an upper class and a very large lower class with few economic opportunities, filled with anger, desperation, and despair, and with very few options. Not pretty huh? America is still the land of opportunity, even if success is taxed a little more.
The above quote is taken from a blog about personal finance that I enjoy following. Can you see the logical fallacy contained within? I’ll give you a minute…
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Ok, time is up.
Apparently, the author is attempting to say “Don’t worry about income redistribution because it’s already being done.” This is a mashing up of several logical fallacies.
Let’s say that you are of the opinion that income redistribution of the type we already have (progressive tax system), is a good thing. It doesn’t automatically follow that another type, or more, or less is also a good thing.
Dishonesty in political advertising
I cannot think of a political ad that I’ve seen, read, or heard this year that didn’t have a degree of dishonesty in it. I don’t know how people can accept people behind these as leaders and be persuaded by them. The following example, is one I just heard for the billionth time and it’s ridiculous.
I’m sure we’ve all heard the Obama ads that posit that McCain is a bad choice because he voted with Bush 90% of the time.
Do you see the dishonesty there?
I have no idea if that statistic is true, but let’s say it is. For it to matter to a potential voter you have to know a couple of things not provided in the advertisement. Is 90% of Bush’s legislation “bad”? I have a hard time believing that is true, despite all of the horrible things coming out of the Bush camp. There are many, many laws passed about mundane, non-consequential things. Add that to the good things Bush has done, and it surely seems that 90% bad legislation is a stretch. Does this supposed 90% of the time that McCain voted with Bush align with the bad legislation Bush provided?
It’s all a ploy to get you to vote your emotions.
The news
I’m constantly learning about new ways to look at things when reading one of my favorite sites, Overcoming Bias.
A recent post has me thinking a lot about what the stock market actually is.
Speculators were blamed for rising oil prices a few months back, but not for recent falling oil prices. Short-selling speculators were recently blamed for falling stock prices, and actually banned for a few weeks, but no one proposed banning buying speculators two years ago when stocks were rising. Now Steven Pearlstein of the Post wants to close financial markets for a week:
The author of this post, Robin Hanson, goes on to describe the stock market as a new outlet in which stock prices, and the market as whole, merely informs us about the future prospects of companies.
Aside from times when firms issue stock or buy it back, stock trades do not change a firm’s total capital; they just gives us news about its future prospects. Sure some of of these stock “reporters” can have incentives to mislead us, but newspaper reporters can also have incentives to mislead us. Systems for detecting and punishing misleading reporters are far stronger and more effective in financial markets than in newspapers.
eSkeptic: Puncturing the Acupuncture Myth
Acupuncture. Ha. (Scroll down a bit for the acupuncture article.)
In this week’s eSkeptic, Skeptic magazine’s very own Skepdoc, Harriet Hall M.D., punctures the acupuncture myth and tells you why “almost everything you’ve heard about acupuncture is wrong.”
DNA could reveal your surname
This seems quite crazy, but if it works it seems like it would be quite a tool for law enforcement.
Scientists at the world-leading Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester – where the revolutionary technique of genetic fingerprinting was invented by Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys- are developing techniques which may one day allow police to work out someone’s surname from the DNA alone.
The below started out as a comment on The Speculist, but as the comment grew I thought it’d make a good blog post.
In a post there, Phil Bowermaster states:
To which I replied:
His response:
(See the comments on his post to see all of his response, but the above seems to summarize his position.)
His original statement didn’t specifically say it, but his statement automatically means what he says he didnt say. If you say that it’s reasonable to expect that anything that can happen, will happen, you are automatically including something like lightening striking everyone! There is no natural law preventing lightening from striking everyone. It’s just lower on the spectrum of probabilities.
In order of probability:
Personally, I would put the Reasonable-To-Expect line between 1 and 2, maybe 2 and 3.
The crux of my point is this: It seems like Phil is drawing an arbitrary line in the spectrum of probabilities and saying anything above this line will happen. The problem with that is that it does not actually help us predict anything. Anything that doesn’t happen you can just say, “Well, I didn’t mean anything with that low of a probability.”
This leads me to guess at what Phil is actually trying to say. My guess is that his actual point is that there are many things that, while possible, some (many?) people don’t think it’s reasonable to expect them with no solid reason for thinking that. If this is indeed his point, I agree. However, I don’t think his statements lead to this conclusion. After all, the Reasonable-To-Expect is a minuscule subset of the Possible. Because of this, merely stating that something is possible says little about it’s probability of happening.
Phil goes on to state:
Astoundingly large in what sense? As mentioned above, and demonstrated by the above series, the Reasonable-To-Expect is an infinitesimal subset of the Possible. After all, as far as we know the universe has a limited life span.
Don’t get my point wrong. I am totally a fan of the idea that what people think is reasonable to expect has no bearing on what actually is reasonable to expect. This is why so many people are incredulous when you talk to them about most of the transhumanist ideas.
I’m just pointing out that misstating the case or being imprecise is not likely to win any converts. I’m not trying to bash you, Phil, I just found the subject matter to be interesting!