Forum Archive Index - December 2001
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[sharechat] On Statistics
Capitalist - obviously a hidden message in that post
Then there's the matter of bias
Studies by Einhorn and Hogarth in 1978 argued that the illusion of validity
persists because people fall prey to the confirmation bias; they focus on
info that is consistent with their beliefs while neglecting inconsistent
information.
And physicist Robert Park once said about some faulty research - 'Its often
not deliberate fraud....people are awfully good at fooling themselves.
They're so sure they know the answer that they do want to confuse people
with ugly looking data.'
We are supposedly meant to overcome this confirmation bias by examining all
data, confirming as well as disconfirming.
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