byrnema comments on Should we be biased? - Less Wrong

-13 Post author: James_Miller 27 April 2009 03:42PM

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Comment author: byrnema 27 April 2009 04:49:48PM 0 points [-]

So, should we ever be biased?

Are you asking whether it would ever be justified to

(a) hold negative opinions against a group, even if the individual group members may vary on the negative quality

or

(b) hold a negative opinion that isn't based on any evidence?

For example, being afraid of all spiders because some are poisonous would be (a), while being afraid of spiders because you believe they have mind control powers would be (b).

Comment author: James_Miller 27 April 2009 05:40:50PM 0 points [-]

Assume that on average members of a group are more likely to have a negative quality than are members of the general population.

Comment author: byrnema 27 April 2009 05:51:05PM 0 points [-]

No kidding.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 27 April 2009 04:57:20PM *  -1 points [-]

There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.

--Daniel Dennett (hat tip: Steven).

The judgment is the bottom line. What you write above it doesn't change the nature of the judgment, doesn't change whether it's biased, systematically mistaken. You may be accurate in deciding to be afraid of spiders, even if you do that only because you believe that God told you to do that.

Comment author: byrnema 27 April 2009 05:04:20PM *  0 points [-]

This is the second time you've criticized what I've written due to some semantic quibble. Are you saying that being afraid is not an opinion? Are you asserting some weird distortion of the meaning of "accurate"?

(Just so you know: I agree that a bias not based on evidence could be accurate by accident, but I'm still going to call it inaccurate.)

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 27 April 2009 05:07:15PM *  0 points [-]

Just so you know: I agree that a bias not based on evidence could be accurate by accident, but I'm still going to call it inaccurate

That's exactly how I interpreted your message (modulo s/bias/opinion, I assume, bias by definition can't be accurate, however heuristic can). My reply is an explanation of why I disagree that one should call that opinion inaccurate.

Comment author: byrnema 27 April 2009 05:21:20PM 0 points [-]

Well, we understand each other then. Maybe you would be happy (or less unhappy?) to know that everywhere in my draft I had written "inaccurate until substantiated" instead of "accurate" before I edited it out.

The edit wasn't because I'm biased against statements that are not substantiated. But, really, I didn't think the extra precision was worth the cost in simplicity.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 27 April 2009 05:37:15PM *  1 point [-]

Maybe you would be happy (or less unhappy?) to know that everywhere in my draft I had written "inaccurate until substantiated" instead of "accurate" before I edited it out.

Well, since the accuracy of a statement doesn't causally depend on whether it's substantiated, so you can't flip the accuracy of a statement by finding substantiation, I don't see how that helps.

Comment author: byrnema 27 April 2009 05:57:11PM *  0 points [-]

So "inaccurate until substantiated" isn't good enough either.

How about "inaccurate unless possibly substantiated"?

Or, "inaccurate unless possibly substantiated or just happens to be true but is unverifiable"?

Do you really love accuracy this much?

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