Constant comments on What I've learned from Less Wrong - Less Wrong

79 Post author: Louie 20 November 2010 12:47PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 21 November 2010 12:37:18PM 2 points [-]

Now, for full disclosure, there are many reasons why I could be biased about this.

With emphasis on "could be" as opposed to "am". Different past experiences leading to different conclusions isn't necessarily "bias". This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I often see the naive, the inexperienced, quite often the young, dismiss the views of the more experienced as "biased" or by some broad synonym.

The implicit reasoning seems to be as follows: "Here is the evidence. The evidence plus a uniform prior distribution leads to conclusion A. Yet this person sees the evidence and draws conclusion B different from A. Therefore he is letting his biases affect his judgment."

One problem with the reasoning is that "the evidence" is not the (only) evidence. There is, rather, "evidence I'm aware of" and "evidence I'm not aware of but the other person might be aware of". It's entirely possible for that other evidence to be decisive.