More Confirmation of the Confirmation Bias

I’m one of those people who reads five books at once – sometimes fewer, sometimes more. And as I read, I continually look for patterns, connections, and recurring themes that I can work into The Daily Improviser blog.

Lately, it seems as if the confirmation bias has been particularly persistent in dogging my reading path. As I’ve mentioned, the confirmation bias is our tendency to overlook evidence that runs counter to our pre-set opinions, as well as our near-mania to find patterns in the world’s workings that confirm our assumptions and prejudices. As Leonard Mlodinow points out in The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives, “patterns” of occurrences, even if they do occur, do not always reflect an underlying cause but can simply be the products of randomness (aka “coincidences”).

Mlodinow goes on to say:

"The human brain has evolved to be very efficient at pattern recognition, but as the confirmation bias shows, we are focused on finding and confirming patterns rather than minimizing our false conclusions. Yet we needn’t be pessimists, for it is possible to overcome our prejudices. It is a start to simply realize that chance events, too, produce patterns. It is another great step if we learn to question our perceptions and theories. Finally, we should learn to spend as much time looking for evidence that we are wrong as we spend searching for reasons we are correct." [emphasis added]

Mlodinow’s observation, I think, provides more support for the “bumper sticker” headline I attached to one of my recent articles:

Want to Defeat the Truth? Then Start Arguing!