Quotes About Biases

So is language change progress or degeneration? It is neither, of course. To assert that language change is for the better or worse requires some measure of what good or bad language is, and the issue of language change needn't come into question here. But no coherent criterion has ever been given: upon examination, the pronouncements of the self-appointed pundits are always a mix of cultural biases, half-understandings of languages, and an obvious compulsion for telling people what to do.

Kahneman, Nobel laureate and one of the fathers of behavioral economics, calls overconfidence "the most significant of the cognitive biases.

The proliferation of material means that people might start to become selective about what they consume and, if my instincts are correct, they are likely to read only that which confirms what they already know. This means they will never have their ideas tested. I worry that as a result, people will form tight groups around those who confirm their biases, mistrusting those whom they encounter who think differently.

ahead. The proliferation of material means that people might start to become selective about what they consume and, if my instincts are correct, they are likely to read only that which confirms what they already know. This means they will never have their ideas tested. I worry that as a result, people will form tight groups around those who confirm their biases, mistrusting those whom they encounter who think differently. All of this might cause problems for our fledgling democracy.

The problem with not having a camera is that one must trust the analysis of a reporter who's telling you what occurred in the courtroom. You have to take into consideration the filtering effect of that person's own biases.

Objectivity" means nothing more than reflecting the biases and serving the interests of entrenched Washington. Opinions are problematic only when they deviate from the acceptable range of Washington orthodoxy.

Whatever the superior group has will be used as proof of its superiority. Thus, if men could menstruate, it would become a great thing. Without this inbuilt measure of time and the movements of the universe, how could any woman become a mathematician? An astronomer?

The systematic experimental study of reproducible errors of human reasoning, and what these errors reveal about underlying mental processes, is known as the heuristics and biases program in cognitive psychology. This program has made discoveries highly relevant to assessors of global catastrophic risks.

If you join the Boy Scouts without understanding the underlying agendas and biases of the organization, you might grow up to believe that being gay is a bad thing.

What is food to one man may be fierce poison to others

People are making the most unbelievable statements about the other based on that kind of insistence that the person who disagrees with you fundamentally can't exist. These are political statements as well as biological and everything else.

An audience that is unwilling to suspend its own presuppositions and biases while considering an opposed (or even unopposed) viewpoint not only frustrates the function of extended argument but effectively denies its own beliefs a rational basis.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

Every one of us is prone to implicit sexual prejudices, including women.

Women's Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's the men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one's likely to do anything about that.

A lack of openness can doom social learning efforts. Without openness, we tend to network with people like us — who don't challenge us and who know little more than we do. Because these people share the same biases and blind spots, interacting with them only reinforces groupthink.

Language has to be partly innate, simply because human babies are born with the ability to learn the language of their parents. While this can justifiably be called a language instinct, there is no one gene compelling us to produce language. Instead, a set of genetic settings gives rise to a set of behaviors and perceptual and cognitive biases, some of which may be more general and others of which are more language specific.

I think, look, you have to be aware of the language, and you have to be aware a little bit of your own biases if you're going to overcome them.

Have you ever observed that when a man gets a son he takes all the credit, and when he gets a daughter he blames his wife? And if they do not breed at all, we say it is because her womb is barren. We do not say it is because his seed is bad.

When the mind is full of established biases, it will not be able to graft Sufism on top of them.

Analysts, scholars, business people, diplomats, and journalists involved with China spend so much time questioning one another's biases and loyalties that they have even settled on two opposing categories: 'panda huggers' versus 'panda sluggers.'

The role of dissent is to force all of us to question our dogmas and biases. It is to stretch the spectrum of discourse.

The psychological concept is known as "escalation of commitment to a failing course of action." It's one of the many cognitive biases that can pollute our decisions.

Maintaining one's vigilance against biases is a chore—but the chance to avoid a costly mistake is sometimes worth the effort.