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Con­fir­ma­tion Bias

TagLast edit: 27 Feb 2023 16:09 UTC by Yoav Ravid

Confirmation bias (also known as positive bias) is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or strengthens one’s prior personal beliefs or hypotheses [1]. For example, one might test hypotheses with positive rather than negative examples, thus missing obvious disconfirming tests.

“I had, also, during many years followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least noticed and attempted to answer.”—Charles Darwin (autobiography)

See also: Motivated skepticism, Privileging the hypothesis, Falsifiability, Heuristics and Biases, Availability heuristic, Surprise, Narrative fallacy

External Links

Trapped Pri­ors As A Ba­sic Prob­lem Of Rationality

Scott Alexander12 Mar 2021 20:02 UTC
141 points
32 comments14 min readLW link3 reviews

Pos­i­tive Bias: Look Into the Dark

Eliezer Yudkowsky28 Aug 2007 3:55 UTC
129 points
58 comments3 min readLW link

Sub­tle Forms of Con­fir­ma­tion Bias

abramdemski3 Jul 2017 23:00 UTC
18 points
4 comments5 min readLW link

Con­fir­ma­tion Bias As Mis­fire Of Nor­mal Bayesian Reasoning

Scott Alexander13 Feb 2020 7:20 UTC
43 points
9 comments2 min readLW link
(slatestarcodex.com)

Case Study: Test­ing Con­fir­ma­tion Bias

gwern2 May 2012 14:03 UTC
51 points
63 comments1 min readLW link

Suffi­ciently sincere con­fir­ma­tion bias is in­dis­t­in­guish­able from science

Benquo15 Mar 2017 13:19 UTC
36 points
19 comments2 min readLW link

Ide­olog­i­cal Bayesians

Kevin Dorst25 Feb 2024 14:17 UTC
94 points
4 comments10 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)

[Valence se­ries] 3. Valence & Beliefs

Steven Byrnes11 Dec 2023 20:21 UTC
62 points
6 comments21 min readLW link

Priv­ileg­ing the Hypothesis

Eliezer Yudkowsky29 Sep 2009 0:40 UTC
114 points
130 comments5 min readLW link

Linkpost: Choice Ex­plains Pos­i­tivity and Con­fir­ma­tion Bias

Gunnar_Zarncke1 Oct 2020 21:46 UTC
8 points
0 comments1 min readLW link

Con­fir­ma­tion Bias in Action

Jacob Falkovich24 Jan 2021 17:38 UTC
37 points
1 comment13 min readLW link

“Nahh, that wouldn’t work”

lionhearted (Sebastian Marshall)28 Nov 2010 21:32 UTC
95 points
50 comments2 min readLW link

Ex­pert trap: What is it? (Part 1 of 3) – how hind­sight, hi­er­ar­chy, and con­fir­ma­tion bi­ases break con­duc­tivity and ac­cu­racy of knowledge

Paweł Sysiak9 Jun 2023 23:00 UTC
6 points
2 comments8 min readLW link

The Temp­ta­tion to Bubble

gressettd23 Sep 2015 23:34 UTC
35 points
29 comments5 min readLW link

Ex­pert trap: Why is it hap­pen­ing? (Part 2 of 3) – how hind­sight, hi­er­ar­chy, and con­fir­ma­tion bi­ases break con­duc­tivity and ac­cu­racy of knowledge

Paweł Sysiak9 Jun 2023 23:00 UTC
3 points
0 comments7 min readLW link

Pos­i­tive Bias Test (C++ pro­gram)

MBlume19 May 2009 21:32 UTC
30 points
79 comments4 min readLW link

ChatGPT challenges the case for hu­man irrationality

Kevin Dorst22 Aug 2023 12:46 UTC
4 points
10 comments7 min readLW link
(kevindorst.substack.com)

The Think­ing Lad­der—Wait But Why

Liron29 Sep 2019 18:51 UTC
19 points
1 comment1 min readLW link
(waitbutwhy.com)

The Plan − 2022 Update

johnswentworth1 Dec 2022 20:43 UTC
239 points
37 comments8 min readLW link1 review

ChatGPT vs the 2-4-6 Task

cwillu25 Jan 2023 6:59 UTC
20 points
4 comments3 min readLW link

Se­man­tic Stopsigns

Eliezer Yudkowsky24 Aug 2007 19:29 UTC
138 points
110 comments3 min readLW link

Seek Fair Ex­pec­ta­tions of Others’ Models

Zvi17 Oct 2017 14:30 UTC
60 points
17 comments9 min readLW link
(thezvi.wordpress.com)

Rea­son­able Explanations

Alicorn16 Jun 2019 5:29 UTC
78 points
7 comments1 min readLW link

Epistemic Luck

Alicorn8 Feb 2010 0:02 UTC
107 points
133 comments3 min readLW link

The Crack­pot Offer

Eliezer Yudkowsky8 Sep 2007 14:32 UTC
101 points
72 comments3 min readLW link

Rea­son­ing isn’t about logic (it’s about ar­gu­ing)

Morendil14 Mar 2010 4:42 UTC
66 points
31 comments3 min readLW link

Scien­tific mis­con­duct mis­di­ag­nosed be­cause of sci­en­tific misconduct

GLaDOS10 Jun 2011 14:49 UTC
61 points
55 comments2 min readLW link

An­thro­po­mor­phic Optimism

Eliezer Yudkowsky4 Aug 2008 20:17 UTC
73 points
60 comments5 min readLW link

Fre­quently Asked Ques­tions for Cen­tral Banks Un­der­shoot­ing Their In­fla­tion Target

Eliezer Yudkowsky29 Oct 2017 23:36 UTC
52 points
30 comments35 min readLW link

The Statis­ti­cian’s Fallacy

ChrisHallquist9 Dec 2013 4:48 UTC
63 points
69 comments3 min readLW link
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