Confirmation bias – Human origins
(Interjection by Don Chapin, PhD: I purposely swapped the words in the title of this article to point out that professional biases are not limited to one area of “expertise.” Yes, human origins is one professionally-held bias (the Out-of-Africa theory-accepted-as-fact), the Big Bang is another, a third is held by NASA “professionals” declaring Richard Hoagland’s claim of an ancient city on Mars after thoroughly examining countless NASA photos is simply a “trick of lighting.” Yet someone within our government is ready to destroy that same evidence, because “the people (us taxpayer) aren’t ready to
accept” ET cultures, much less a city on another planet that is probably millions of years old… older than Earth’s Humanity is known to be.
Unfortunately, PhDs are, for the most part (and yes, there are always a few exceptions), essentially what I would call “super technicians,” people steeped in erroneous theories-accepted-as-facts because it is what they have been taught through XX number of years spent in the ‘discipline’ they have chosen…i.e., unconscious professional bias. Surprisingly, what is not well known is that many major discoveries are made by the “lay public” those well outside of a discipline. Why? Because the PhDs of that discipline probably disregarded the same evidence as “inconsequential,” as it conflicted with his/her background/training and would threaten is/her preconceptions, and probably standing in that discipline. Ego-based assessments/evaluations.)
Ojibwa for DAILY KOS UNIVERSITY, Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Sunday January 30, 2022 · 8:30 AM PST
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1/30/2077321/-Human-Origins-Confirmation-bias
Human origins—both physical origins, such as the evolution of human anatomy and the brain, and behavioral origins, such as the evolution of language, religion, and social organization, there are
several biases which can interfere with our ability to obtain data and to understand what it means. These biases include but are not limited to hindsight bias (the tendency to use the present as the model for the past), availability bias (giving personal memories and experiences greater importance), and, most importantly, confirmation bias.
In his book The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths, Michael Shermer defines confirmation bias this way: “the tendency to seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirming evidence.”
In practice, research which begins with a conclusion, premise, or idea and then seeks out the data which would substantiate it is the classic example of confirmation bias in action. This is an approach which is commonly found among college students, as well as people seeking to bolster arguments in the public arena.
Humans live in a world filled with information. In addition to seeking out information, we must filter through, organize, and understand this mass of information. In seeking harmony in our lives, we retain some of this daily information and discard most of it as being irrelevant to our lives. As humans, we have a “working hypothesis” about the nature of the world around us—the physical world, the social world, the spiritual world—which helps us make sense out of reality. In his entry on cognitive science in The New
Encyclopedia of Unbelief, David Noelle writes:
“Aspects of our experiences that are consistent with these ‘working
hypotheses’ are more easily retained in our memory, as well, with
violations of expectations being lost unless they are particularly
salient. This ‘hypothesis-driven’ nature of learning also gives rise to
the phenomenon known as ‘confirmation bias,’ in which evidence in
favor of the current hypothesis is recognized and remembered much
more reliably than evidence against the hypothesis.”
In an article in Skeptical Inquirer, social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson report:
“…that we notice and remember information that confirms what we
believe and ignore, forget, or minimize information that disconfirms
it. We might even call it the consonance bias, because it keeps our
beliefs in harmony by eliminating dissonant information before we
are even aware of it.”
Chemistry professor Marc Zimmer, in a report in The Conversation, writes:
“People tend to give credence to news that fits their existing beliefs.
This tendency helps climate change denialists and anti-vaccine
advocates believe in their causes in spite of the scientific consensus
against them.”
In their book Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson write:
“At the simplest level, memory smooths out the wrinkles of
dissonance by enabling the confirmation bias to hum along,
selectively causing us to forget discrepant, disconcerting
information about beliefs we hold dear.”
In other words, confirmation bias is a human characteristic, one which enables us to live in relative harmony with the world as we perceive it. Attempts at overcoming, understanding, and minimizing confirmation bias in seeking to understand human origins may, at times, be uncomfortable.
In general, researchers who begin with confirmation bias tend to have a narrow focus, seeking out only information which is directly relevant to their conclusions. This approach often requires that data which does not reinforce a priori assumptions, beliefs, and biases must be rejected, ignored, and not considered. At its worst, confirmation bias must result in what Stuart Firestein, in his book Ignorance: How It Drives Science, calls “willful stupidity”:
“One kind of ignorance is willful stupidity; worse than simple
stupidity, it is a callow indifference to facts or logic. It shows itself
as a stubborn devotion to uninformed opinions, ignoring…contrary
ideas, opinions, or data.”
On the other hand, those using a scientific approach which focuses on asking questions and seeking data, will generally take a very broad approach which includes collecting information which may not prove to be useful. This is an approach which is often driven by a curiosity about the unknown, by a desire to reduce ignorance.
While confirmation bias may occur in all research endeavors, it is most evident in research about religion. This occurs in several areas. The first involves the definition of religion in which the most important characteristics of the researcher’s religion are used to define religion in general. Thus Christian researchers, for example, may begin looking at religion by seeking data on gods, faith, and religious social structures which resemble those of a Christian Church. Information about animistic religions, such as those of the
aboriginal Americas, Australia, and Africa, may not fit this model and be discarded by the researcher. Similarly, since Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Shinto, and other religions may not be considered religions in this viewpoint, information about them may be ignored.
Theology, particularly Christian theology, often engages in research which is based on confirmation bias. In his book Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible, Jerry Coyne writes:
“In the end, religious investigations of ‘truth,’ unlike those of
science, are deeply dependent on confirmation bias. You start with
what you were taught to believe, or what you want to believe, and
then accept only those facts that support your prejudice. This is the
basis for the theological practice of ‘apologetics,’ designed to defend
religion against counterarguments and disconfirming evidence.”
With regard to confirmation bias in studying the history of Christianity, philosophy professor Matthew McCormick, in his book Atheism and the Case Against Christ, writes:
“That is, since Jesus must come first, the only acceptable historical
methods for proving Jesus was real must be ones proving he was
real. If our historical methods do not produce the correct
conclusion, then it must be the methods, not the conclusion that
are wrong.”
Confirmation bias often restricts the kind of information which can be collected. For example, many Christian fundamentalists and creationists begin with an assumption that their creation myth is factually accurate, and that the world is only a few thousand years old. Thus, they reject data regarding evolution and evidence showing that the earth is millions of years old. On the other hand, Hindu creationists start with the assumption that the human lineage is tens of millions of years old. Thus, they often accuse the archaeological “establishment” of suppressing fossil evidence showing this great antiquity.
Research into the origins of language was hindered by the a prior assumption that language was expressed vocally—that is, that language was spoken and that deaf sign languages were somehow related to spoken languages. This cognitive bias was overcome as increasing data showed that deaf sign languages were truly
autonomous languages. Overcoming this cognitive bias has allowed for a new perspective, for new hypotheses about the origins of language and its significance for human behavior.
More Human Origins
Human Origins: Theistic Evolution
Human Origins: Lamarckian Evolution
Human Origins: Religion and the brain
Human Origins: Schizophrenia and religion
Human Origins: Fossil Evidence
Human Origins: Pseudo-Archaeology
Human Origins: Cultural Evolution
Human Origins: The Great Chain of Being
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