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binbashjip comments on The Cognitive Science of Rationality - Less Wrong
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What would you expect to see if people have become steadily less "critical" over the last thousand years?
What would you expect to see if people have become steadily more "critical" over the last thousand years?
What would you expect to see if people have remained equally "critical" over the last thousand years?
What would you expect to see if people's "critical"ness has varied in non-steady ways over the last thousand years?
I don't believe that people have become steadily less or more critical, but it seems plausible that this has varied in non-steady ways, increasing or decreasing depending on the circumstances. I would expect that in this case the degree to which people make common thinking errors also varies. In fact, I suspect that the 2 4 6 test yields different results depending on the subjects' education, regardless of whether they know of positive bias.
Wait, now you've confused me. Earlier, you said:
....which I assumed you meant in the context of the 1000-year period you'd previously cited. I don't know how to reconcile that with:
Can you clarify that?
I see how that might have been confusing. The 1000 years ago was simply an example to question whether people have always made the same thinking errors. The criticalness is based only on recent history, mostly on the people around me and is an attempt to argue in favor of possible external factors.
Well, OK, but still: over whichever period you have in mind, does it seem to you that people are becoming less and less critical, or that they haven't become steadily less critical?
Regardless, I would agree that some common thinking errors are cultural.
Over the last 1000 years: varying criticalness Over the last 20-30 years or so: less and less critical
Has there been some research on culturalness of thinking errors? I thought the claim was that these thinking errors are hardwired in the brain, hence timeless and uncultural.
That would be a part of the whole Nature vs. Nurture debate, wouldn't it? I think it would be very hard to prove that any given thinking error is biologically hardwired (as opposed to culturally); and even if a bias is biologically hard-wired, an opposing cultural bias might be able to counter that.
Many people are largely exposed to only a single culture; widespread, pervasive errors in that culture would, I expect, be indistinguishable from hardwired biases.