Confirmation bias is a tendency for people to favor information that
confirms their preconceptions, independently of whether they are true.
As a result, people gather new evidence and recall information from
memory selectively, and interpret it in a biased way. The biases appear
in particular for emotionally significant issues and for established
beliefs. Biased search, interpretation and/or recall have been invoked
to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more
extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same
evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence
for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a
stronger weighting for data encountered early in an arbitrary series)
and illusory correlation (in which people falsely perceive an
association between two events or situations). Explanations for the
observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity
to process information. Confirmation biases contribute to
overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen
beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Hence they can lead to
disastrous decisions, especially in organizational, military and
political contexts.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1793:
After a siege of 18 weeks, French troops in Mainz surrendered to
Prussian forces, effectively ending the Republic of Mainz, the first
democratic state on the current German territory.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Mainz>
1881:
The International Federation of Gymnastics, the world's oldest
international sport federation, was founded in Liège, Belgium.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9d%C3%A9ration_Internationale_de_Gymnastique>
1983:
Air Canada Flight 143 crash-landed in Gimli, Manitoba, Canada, without
loss of life after the crew was forced to glide the aircraft when it
completely ran out of fuel.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider>
1995:
Hale-Bopp , one of the most widely observed comets of the twentieth
century, was discovered by two independent observers, Alan Hale and
Thomas Bopp, at a great distance from the Sun.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Hale-Bopp>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
cwm (n):
A valley head created through glacial erosion and with a shape similar
to an amphitheatre
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cwm>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms
and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and
act — and if necessary, to suffer and die — for truth and justice;
eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international
morality shall not go undetected and unremedied. These lessons must be
learned anew by each succeeding generation, and that generation is
fortunate indeed which learns from other than its own bitter
experience.
--Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Haile_Selassie_I_of_Ethiopia>
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