So-called "confirmation bias" must have had some adaptive value. I wonder what it was or perhaps even is?
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 1:02 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <[email protected]>wrote: > This document by Bill Beaty is well worth reviewing, if the reader is not > familiar with it. > > http://amasci.com/freenrg/**rules1.html<http://amasci.com/freenrg/rules1.html> > > This doesn't just apply to inventors. Similar phenomena happen with > pseudoskeptics, and *who isn't pseudoskeptical* on occasion, at least? A > genuine skeptic does not forget to be skeptical of self. > > Bill lays out the psychology quite well. > > I received today an announcement of a remarkable video. > > ["Kim Sand," salsasas3996@ ...] wrote, to a list of prominent Vo > participants: > > In this video series the currently accepted theories of physics and >> astrophysics are shaken to the core by a radical new theory of the >> fundamental forces in all matter. >> >> You will be amazed as a magnetic model of the dome at CERN is used to >> create a 100 mm diameter plasma Sun with a 300 mm diameter equatorial disc >> of plasma around it! >> >> All the plasma videos are actual footage with no enhancement or >> manipulation other than speed. In other words, this is real thing. Hard to >> believe, but it is all true. >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?**v=9EPlyiW-xGI<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EPlyiW-xGI> >> > > > (I had no problem believing that the videos were real and not fake, > though, of course, some are "constructed." Not a problem.) > > The basic test device that LaPoint uses is a thing of wonder, the kind of > thing I'd have spent months playing with when I was young. The > astrophysical images are beautiful, the video is eye candy. > > The video had the best production values I've seen in the alternative > science field. Yet my mind was screaming at me, "Pseudoscience!"! > > Maybe. Maybe he has found something. However, I see nothing like an > adequate explanation of the experimental *basis* for his theory, and I > certainly don't see the attitude that Bill is pointing to, an attitude of > self-skepticism. I see no specific testable predictions (the lack of such > is a basic characteristic of "pseudoscience"). What it looks to me like is > that the theorist has discovered, in fact, a *pattern* that matches many > phenomena. He hasn't shown how this pattern explains *anything*. At least > not to me! > > I'm reminded of the claims of Rashad Khalifa, whom I knew. He believed he > had found a pattern in letter and word frequencies in the Qur'an. I know > almost exactly what led him to that, there was a minor statistical anomaly > that he'd discovered. As soon as he believed that the anomaly was real > evidence of a hidden message, he started to see it more and more. He became > convinced that he had made a monumental discovery, that, in fact, he was > specially chosen by God to deliver this to the world. He paid with his life > for this belief. > > I was able, years later, when he was assassinated and I tried to verify > his work, to see exactly what he had done. Counting words and letters in > the Qur'an is nowhere near as simple as people might think, one must make > choices. He made the choices that confirmed his pattern. That was, in his > mind, the "correct way to count." But every time he made such a choice, he > constrained future choices. Eventually, when he still found > "contradictions" to his theory (based on discovered counting errors in his > prior claims), he started to "correct" the text of the Qur'an to match his > theory. And he always found some excuse for his choices or his later > "corrections." > > The human mind is a pattern-recognition machine, a very efficient and > powerful one. We can readily find patterns in random data. For a scientific > theory, we must do more than see a pattern. We must then, from the pattern > we have detected, make predictions that can test the pattern, and we must > keep thinking about how we might be wrong, rather than about how we might > be right. > > Bill gets it right. The "scientific" explorer works as hard as possible to > *refute* the new discovery, and documents that work meticulously. Because > the *mind* -- which very much wants to be "successful," and we love to be > "right" -- will forget all contrary evidence and only remember confirmation. > > >
