Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias, to which almost all human beings are prone, is the tendency to find reasons not to accept evidence or apparent evidence which goes against your pre-existing opinions (or what you desperately want to believe) while uncritically accepting evidence which supports the evidence you want to believe.

It is what makes changing people's minds by argument so difficult.

Comments are allowed on this post - put up specifically to allow anyone who wants to make a constructive comment on the issues raised by today's "Quote of the day."

Comments

Chris Whiteside said…
Just to be crystal clear, calling any individual or group "stupid" or similar insults does not count as a constructive comment an any posts which do that will be deleted.
8:56 am
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