First off, if you’re not reading Overcoming Bias, you’re doing yourself a disservice. I’d say it’s one of the best, if not the best blog on the Internet. Most blogs–my own included–have a relatively low “wow” ratio; they might be solid overall, with lots of stuff to enjoy if you like the creator, but there is often much that falls into the noise category–even if it’s decent noise.

That’s not the case with Overcoming Bias. It’s basically good…all the time. You should read it.

Right then, with that out of the way, here’s a case in point on why you should:

[ Near and Far Thinking (A Tale of Two Tradeoffs) | overcomingbias.com ]

This isn’t me asking; this is a question asked on the GSS, which, according to the website:

The General Social Survey (GSS) conducts basic scientific research on the structure and development of American society with a data-collection program designed to both monitor social change within the United States and to compare the United States to other nations.

Basically, this is the largest and highest quality dataset we have on how Americans feel about things, combined with other information about those answering the questions. What this provides us is the ability to learn from correlations that exist between various data points.

So, for the question at hand–whether you think there should be a law against interracial marriage between blacks and whites–a few things jump out immediately. Here’s the chart for age of the interviewee.

Old people are stuck in the past, basically, and I look forward to their viewpoints losing hold of public discourse.

Then we have education:

It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

Next we look at the breakdown by belief in the Bible:

Startling. No, just kidding.

Here’s another education/intelligence correlation: this time based on number of correct vocabulary words:

And then here’s by region, with this being the breakdown:

Again, not surprising. The south leads the pack, followed by the midwest and northeast. So basically, all the stereotypes are correct: people who oppose white/black marriage tend to be old, religious, uneducated/unintelligent, and from the south.

What I’d really like to see is this same survey asking the question: “Can a black man do as good of a job as president as a white man?” I predict that this would yield almost identical results to the current question, and I think this explains the 2008 election more than any data we’ve seen previously.

Anyway…extremely interesting stuff. I found this story, and the images, over at Gene Expression. If you’re not following that blog, you really should be. ::

Links

[ Gene Expression | http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/ ] [ General Social Survey | wikipedia.org ]

This is one of the new propaganda videos that they’re playing before movies now in certain markets. This one is for the Nascar folks; they’ve got another one for Hispanics. It’s shameless and pathetic. No, it’s a fucking disgrace.

An interesting post over at Overcoming Bias:

We feel a deep pleasure from realizing that we believe something in common with our friends, and different from most people. We feel an even deeper pleasure letting everyone know of this fact.

This feeling is EVIL.

Learn to see it in yourself, and then learn to be horrified by how thoroughly it can poison your mind. Yes evidence may at times force you to disagree with a majority, and your friends may have correlated exposure to that evidence, but take no pleasure when you and your associates disagree with others; that is the road to rationality ruin.

Image from weber.edu

As I sit here at my allergist waiting on the all-clear after my shots, I’m thinking about something that’s been bothering me for a while.

It’s called Confirmation Bias, and it essentially means that once you’re in a camp, you tend to take inputs that agree with that camp. And as you do so you become more and more convinced that your camp is right. You essentially isolate yourself from information that might change your opinion, and as time goes on you become more and more convinced that you are correct.

This is bad.

It severely limits the ability for logical people to intelligently discuss the issues. Each participant is subscribed to his own reality, and each is convinced that he is the logical one. It becomes a futile endeavor to even debate, as each is already convinced based on belief rather than fact.

I’m worried about this with myself. I read Reddit quite a bit, and there is zero pro-McCain content on the site. None. This troubles me greatly, as the odds of him not being right about something are very low. It says to me that even if he were to be right it would be squelched. At this point I have to doubt the non-biased integrity of the medium.

So here’s a question in point: are the Democrats/Liberals not significantly to blame for the sub-prime problem due to their insistence on “everyone” being able to own a home? Doesn’t that directly lead to pressure to loan to those who are unqualified? And don’t they stand to gain politically from the appreciation of those with sub-prime mortgages?

This seems quite logical to me, yet it’s not the type of thing you’d ever see on Reddit. Why? Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s stupid, and if that’s the case then great. But there’s a more sinister possibility, i.e. that it is logical, but that it points to a flaw in the liberal narrative. That option is what troubles me.

Don’t get me wrong–I already voted for Obama and I’m rather sure that McCain is even more dangerous than Bush, but I’m uncomfortable with the fact that so few intelligent people disagree with me within the circles I frequent.

Quite simply, I need to expand my inputs. I need to seek out those who can find problems in my understanding, not simply reinforce it. If you have any suggestions for logical, right-leaning content, please let me know. I’m all over the Ron Paul economic theory stuff already; what I’m looking for is intelligent pro-McCain commentary.

If it doesn’t exist, that’s fine. But I’m damn sure going to look. I refuse to succumb to the bias of groupthink.:

[ Evangelism and Conversion Methods ]

I dislike the song, but the video, and the concept, are awesome.