Imagine if all people are mindful of these biases, it would be a different world.
I think it's natural for human beings to ignore these biases. I think even if we were aware of these biases we would still fall for it from a time to another. Even the writer admit that he fell for it numerous times.
Can we really challenge our bias-prone nature?
I don't think we can
completely escape our bias-prone nature ... even if we did escape it completely, it would be impossible to know, because part of being biased is that you are not aware of it.
But, I do think we can make a lot of progress if we are mindful. The big dilemma in critical thinking is, it is impossible to evaluate every single idea that has ever occurred to anyone, or to consider every piece of data that has ever been recorded. We are forced to make some choices about where to focus our attention, otherwise we will be hopelessly lost in an endless sea of information. On the other hand, by focusing our attention this way, we are in danger of succumbing to our biases, i.e. we will choose to examine the information which we believe will confirm our beliefs.
Richard Dawkins calls this the problem of trying to "be open minded without letting your brain fall out". We want to be open minded to all relevant, reliable information, but we can't get buried under the irrelevant, unreliable information, to the point where it is impossible to form any conclusions at all.
So how do we face this dilemma? First, we must focus our attention. If I Google "astrophysics" I will be buried in a mountain of websites. If I buy a telescope and point it in any direction, in any weather conditions, again I will be lost in a sea of meaningless data.
So the key is to focus on the sources, and the information, which are most likely to
prove or
disprove a hypothesis; but we want to avoid arbitrarily choosing information that will conform to our biases. For example, suppose my hypothesis is that star A is a red star, not a white star. If I point my telescope at this star primarily during certain times, I should have a good reason for focusing on those times. E.g., I look at the star mostly at night, because the signal is stronger at night. Looking at the star when the
signal is stronger will help me prove or disprove my hypothesis, but my choice will not affect the color of the star. Nevertheless, I should try once or twice to look during the daytime. If I can't see anything during the daytime after a few tries, I do not need to continue looking every single day, to prove I am "objective". Thus, largely ignoring half the data (the daytime data) is a defensible choice, it's a focus on relevant data. This choice does not reflect my personal hope, or bias, that the star is red.
On the other hand, suppose I only show you photographs of the star when it is near the horizon. Couldn't this redden the star a little but, due to the light traveling through the atmosphere, just as the Sun and Moon appear redder when near the horizon? In this case, it would appear a personal choice I have made is influencing the outcome of the experiment. If I chose to look at the star when it is high in the sky, it would appear bluer. Thus, it seems an
arbitrary decision on my part (whether a result of my bias or not) is influencing the status of the hypothesis. That's not what we want. We want to eliminate human bias as much as possible.
This is the fundamental method of science .... we want to
prove or
disprove hypotheses, and we want the methods to depend as much as possible on Nature, and not human decisions or biases.
Great link by the way, thank you. It's a great addition to the discussion.
I am glad you liked it! This is a great thread.