Tetronian comments on [LINK] Cracked on PitMK, Fundamental Attribution Error, Confimation Bias and More - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (14)
After re-reading the article, "awful" was too strong a word. But I still think their advice is bad.
On rationalization (#5):
This is actually pretty good, it's definitely the best piece of advice in the article. The reason I linked to Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People: when I first learned the concept of rationalization (I was pretty young), I went around accusing all my friends of doing it during our political discussions. It's wasn't until I read Knowing About Biases Can Hurt People that I recognized the retrospectively-obvious wrongness of using "rationalization!" as a counterargument. This isn't explicitly stated in the Cracked article, but it is more strongly implied than I thought after my first read-through, so I'll retract my criticism on this point. The rest of their advice, though, is much worse:
On neglect of probability (#4):
Saying "don't throw probability out the window" doesn't really accomplish anything--you have to be aware of the cognitive landmines that stand in your way when you do use probability, otherwise you may end up being worse off than before. Additionally, there are specific ways in which we abuse probability, and each of these errors have to be overcome. (Examples: base rate neglect, gambler's fallacy, conjunction fallacy, scope neglect.) You also need to know how to correctly use probabilities (Bayes' theorem, simple probability theory, etc.).
On paranoia (#3):
Maybe I've been reading too much Robin Hanson, but this isn't always good advice. People generally don't believe things for the reasons they claim, and though taking other people at face value is usually the most polite option, it isn't always the most correct.
On correspondence bias (#2):
This may be good relationship advice, I don't know, but it definitely won't help you overcome the fundamental attribution error. They don't really tell you how to overcome this bias at all.
On ignoring the facts (#1):
This is mostly true--and frighteningly so--but, again, it isn't helpful. It's basically saying that nothing will stop you from believing what you want to believe, and no amount of studying cognitive science will change that. While it is true that completely overcoming cognitive biases is probably impossible without significant brain modification, to argue that this invalidates studying rationality is a fallacy of gray.