mstevens comments on Open thread, 18-24 March 2014 - Less Wrong

1 Post author: David_Gerard 18 March 2014 12:26PM

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Comment author: mstevens 18 March 2014 04:57:30PM 10 points [-]

Is there a name for the situation where the same piece of evidence is seen as obviously supporting their side by both sides of an argument?

eg: New statistics are published showing ethic group X is committing crimes at 10 times the rate of ethic group Y.

To one side, this is obvious evidence that ethic group X are criminals.

To another side, this is obvious evidence the justice system is biased.

Both sides are totally opposed, yet see the same fact as proving they are right.

Comment author: Emile 18 March 2014 10:07:12PM 13 points [-]

Both sides are totally opposed, yet see the same fact as proving they are right.

If redheads are 10 times more likely to be in jail for violent crimes, it is evidence for both "redheads are violent" and "judges hate redheads" - and both might be true!

And "redheads are violent" and "judges hate redheads" are not totally opposed, they only look that way in a context where they are taken as arguments in support of broader ideologies who, them, are totally opposed (or rather, compete with each other so oppose each other).

More generally, many facts can be interpreted different ways, and if one interpretation is more favorable to one ideological side, that side will use that interpretation as an argument. Seen like that, facts looking like they support "opposite sides" seems almost inevitable.

Comment author: Kaj_Sotala 19 March 2014 04:04:48PM 3 points [-]

Confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.[Note 1][1] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).

Also more specifically attitude polarization:

Attitude polarization, also known as belief polarization, is a phenomenon in which a disagreement becomes more extreme as the different parties consider evidence on the issue. It is one of the effects of confirmation bias: the tendency of people to search for and interpret evidence selectively, to reinforce their current beliefs or attitudes.[1] When people encounter ambiguous evidence, this bias can potentially result in each of them interpreting it as in support of their existing attitudes, widening rather than narrowing the disagreement between them.[2]

Comment author: Dahlen 18 March 2014 09:34:54PM 3 points [-]

Apologies for the nitpick, but didn't you mean ethnic group?

Comment author: Randy_M 18 March 2014 10:57:35PM 7 points [-]

Everyone knows utilitarians are more likely to break rules.

(This is mostly a joke based on the misspelling. I know a sophisticated utilitarianism would consider the effect of widespread lawbreaking and not necessarily break laws so much as to be overrepresented in prison)

Comment author: Alejandro1 18 March 2014 11:42:55PM 1 point [-]

I don't know if you intended your disclaimer to be funny, but I found it funnier than the original joke.

Comment author: mstevens 19 March 2014 12:24:46PM 0 points [-]

I did actually mean ethnic group, but now I see my typo I'm actually quite liking it this way as it's less likely to trigger real-world connotations.

Comment author: Plasmon 18 March 2014 05:33:28PM 4 points [-]

You know what they say: one man’s Modus Ponens is another man’s Modus Tollens

Comment author: Gurkenglas 18 March 2014 07:38:49PM *  1 point [-]

That's only once you reformulate grandfather's scenario as "If the justice system is unbiased, racism is justified.". It surprises me that father would cut grandfather's class along its joints... can mstevens think up examples of his class not covered by father, or nonexamples covered by father?

Comment author: David_Gerard 19 March 2014 09:48:58AM 3 points [-]

Why the Bombings Mean That We Must Support My Politics

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