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Modern Skepticism
Reed Esau21-Mar-2008
bias & the informed consensus
Avoiding the traps of faulty reasoning
Modern Skepticism
Respect for reliable evidence
Traps?
Cognitive Bias
Our brains aren’t wired for objectivity
They are wired for adaption & survival
Cognitive biases are instances of evolved mental behavior
Mental shortcuts that can enable faster* decisions
or reduce distraction
*but not necessarily the best
An ExperimentFour empty wine bottles
Visible stickers ranging $5-90
Same wine goes into all bottles;
re-cork
A taste test with friends!
Expected Results?
More ‘expensive’ wine reported to taste better
Not terribly surprising
Lot of noise in this test
Can we remove the noise?
Can we measure what people actually experience, rather than what they say
they experience?
Functional MRI
The basic idea
Touch DSee C
Taste A Hear B
This has been done
Caltech & Stanford Teams
Expectations & effectiveness of medication
Why are generics less effective than name-brand drugs?
What would we expect?
The brain reacts to the wine in consistent manner, no matter its price
Subjects consistently experienced more pleasure with the ‘expensive’ wine
- or -
It’s the latter!
What’s going on?
Expectations shape our experience of the world -- what we taste, see and hear
The cortex is ‘cooking the books’ by adjusting
its inputs to sensory data
Interesting ImplicationsWe experience the
world not as it is but rather how we expect it to be.
Evidence that our brains aren’t wired
for objectivity
But what does this have to do with skepticism?
A big part of being a skeptic is compensating for our biases
Our expectations are yet another of these biases
To deny or ignore them is to risk deluding yourself
Forer Effect
Tendency to consider vague descriptions of personality to be accurate.
Confirmation Bias
When interpreting new information...
• Emphasizing that which confirms one’s preconceptions
• Ignoring that which contradicts
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does
knowledge”
Charles Darwin
Dunning-KrugerEffect
those who have little knowledge tend to think that they know more
than they do
others who have much more knowledge tend to think that they know less
It gets worse!
Incompetent individuals...
tend to overestimate their own level of skill
fail to recognize genuine skill in others
fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy
Bias blind spot
The tendency not to compensate for one’s own biases
World of Pain
How to avoid these biases?
Study and talk about them
Review you own beliefs
Understand methods to avoid bias
Build upon expertise of others
Building upon expertise?
Understand the value and limitations of
The Informed Consensus
Informed Consensus
Theory Test Review
Body of expert opinion
Repeat
What is an ‘expert’?
“An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in
his subject, and how to avoid them.”
Werner Karl Heisenberg
Examples of Informed Consensus
Bulletproof IC
Common Descent
Relativity
Strong IC• Man landed on the
moon
• Man contributing to climate change
• Natural selection
• Smoking increases risk of heart disease
• Age of earth is 4.54By
Other ICs
• Red wine is healthy
• Government reports
• Accident investigations
• ET’s haven’t visited Earth
• Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven consecutive times
‘Failures’ ofInformed Consensus
Pre-Copernican Astronomy
Copernican Heliocentrism
Plate tectonics
Disputes of the IC
• Apollo moon landings were a hoax
• Vaccines cause autism
• Solar variation accounts for climate change
• Most cancers are viral-based
• WTC7 was a controlled demolition
How to evaluate?
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Considering Totality of evidence
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Considering Totality of evidence
Cherry-picking & anomaly-hunting
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Considering Totality of evidence
Cherry-picking & anomaly-hunting
Engaging critics
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Considering Totality of evidence
Cherry-picking & anomaly-hunting
Engaging critics Preaching to converted
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Considering Totality of evidence
Cherry-picking & anomaly-hunting
Engaging critics Preaching to converted
Adapting to course of debate
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Considering Totality of evidence
Cherry-picking & anomaly-hunting
Engaging critics Preaching to converted
Repeating discredited claims
Adapting to course of debate
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Considering Totality of evidence
Cherry-picking & anomaly-hunting
Engaging critics Preaching to converted
Repeating discredited claims
Adapting to course of debate
legit minority opinion“maverick”
Crafting cohesive alternative theories
Nitpicking - scoring rhetorical points
Considering Totality of evidence
Cherry-picking & anomaly-hunting
Engaging critics Preaching to converted
Repeating discredited claims
Adapting to course of debate
“crank”legit minority opinion“maverick”
Justify ‘crank’ position
Your science ain’t perfect; consensus has failed in the past
Looser standards for evidence
There’s a conspiracy!
As a skeptic, when talking about weird things
Steer towards empirical and testable claims
Don’t use a paternalistic or mocking tone
Explore mundane explanations
Bring science into the discussion
Ask questions and listen carefully
Finally
Modern Skepticism isn’t a set of beliefs
It’s about avoiding faulty reasoning
It’s about recognizing and compensating for bias
It’s about respecting good evidence
Thank You!