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COGNITIVE_BIAS_BIASES
February 05, 2019
Up at wikipedia, you will find
a very long listing of "cognitive biases",
showing an impressively long list of them,
all impressively named with one-liner
descriptions.
The odds are fairly good-- for someone taking
the trouble to read this-- that you've looked at
this listing and been tremendously impressed by The sheer length of the
the length of it. You, like me, may have made a list puts over a particular
mental note to study it more carefully and put view of human nature
it aside for years. as weak reeds that are
even flimsier than you
Consider the way this list is actually used: supposed.
You're involved with a discussion on one of
the critical issues of our time, say, the I started looking at them
great debate on the appropriate type of more closely recently
paper to publish comic books. for odd reasons--
I wanted to read them
Someone may suggest that the proponents on the air as part of
of traditional cream-colored paper are some sound art.
clearly wrong, and that they are
exhibiting the well-known cognitive bias COGNITIVE_BIAS_PENTAMETER
of the Nerf Ball Effect. They will no
doubt provide a helpful link to the Any way of engaging
massive list of cognitive biases, where with the material,
there is indeed a one-liner repeating no matter how silly,
what they just said about The Nerf Ball is better than none.
Effect.
At this point, you may go
away with a sense that the More experienced debaters are more likely
scientific authorities to contrive an alternate interpretation
support slick white paper. showing that it is actually those damn
white paper supremacists who are guilty of
If you read the list more the Nerf Ball Effect.
carefully you might realize
that there's another
identified bias called "The
Aluminum Bat Effect" that's
the precise opposite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias#cite_ref-38
The actual behavior being exhibited
doesn't really matter: either way Wikipedia at present has this bit
the Cognitive Biases have you of disguised editorial (bristling
covered, with an impressive sounding with "citation neededs"):
name that can be used dismissively.
"... from psychology's making
up of multiple opposed
cognitive bias theories that
can be non-falsifiably used to
Cognitive Bias List Bias: explain away any viewpoint."
the tendency to think that
an aspect of human behavior (The two extant references
is more significant if it on that are remarkably
appears in the list of junky, essentially a
cognitive biases. handwave at Popper and, of
all things, Feynman's
"Surely You're Joking".)
Since the lists of biases are often in
opposing pairs then there may actually
be no overall bias: The ones with cutsey,
folksy names reminiscent
sometimes we get things wrong, and of the business management
sometimes it's in this direction, and press aren't very reassuring.
sometimes it's in that other direction.
But it could be that one is more
common than the other.
And it could be that there are
specific circumstances where one You might object to the label
is more likely than the other. "biases": the evolutionary
psych people like to argue that
all human behavior must serve
The wikipedia article on some sort of evolved function,
Cognitive bias claims: thus it is likely there's some
"... state the content survival advantage to these
and direction of "biases"-- they might be better
cognitive biases are not thought of as "heuristics":
'arbitrary'". short-cuts that are frequently
(but not always) very useful.
The provided reference:
Haselton et al, (2005), p 730
"The evolution of cognitive
bias" in "The Handbook of
Evolutionary Psychology".
So, a program for future (informal) study
of the cognitive biases:
o arrange them in opposing pairs
o are there different oppositions along
different axes?
o look for alternate methods of classifying them
o perhaps many of the specific biases
are manifestations of some larger,
more general bias.
o a question about the "memory biases":
"Are simpler things always easier
to remember than complex things?"
Some of them imply the answer
is "no, not always"--
But then the question would be
"when"-- what kinds of complexity
fits into our heads?
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