The Smart Bias

Oddly, the I'M-SPECIAL-ism bias seems to increase the more intelligent you are. Studies suggest that the smarter and more experienced you are, the more overconfident you're likely to become. In particular, we seem to believe that our intelligence makes us immune to biases. But that's just not true! The philosopher Nigel Warburton puts it nicely:

“Many of us would like to believe that intellect banishes prejudice. Sadly, this is itself a prejudice.”

No, You're Not

One of my favorite topics is I'M-SPECIAL-ism. Psychological research has repeatedly shown that most Americans overestimate their own abilities. This is one of the biggest hurdles to proper reasoning: the natural tendency to think that we're more unique--smarter, or more powerful, or prettier, or whatever--than we really are.

You've probably noticed that one of my favorite blogs is Overcoming Bias. Their mission statement is sublimely anti-I'M-SPECIAL-ist:

"How can we better believe what is true? While it is of course useful to seek and study relevant information, our minds are full of natural tendencies to bias our beliefs via overconfidence, wishful thinking, and so on. Worse, our minds seem to have a natural tendency to convince us that we are aware of and have adequately corrected for such biases, when we have done no such thing."

This may sound insulting, but one of the goals of this class is getting us to recognize that we're not as smart as we think we are. All of us. You. Me! That one. You again. Me again!

So I hope you'll join the campaign to end I'M-SPECIAL-ism.

The Importance of Being Stochastic

Statistical reasoning is incredibly important. The vast majority of advancements in human knowledge (all sciences, social sciences, medicine, engineering...) is the result of using some kind of math. If I had to recommend one other course that could improve your ability to learn in general, it'd be Statistics.

Anyway, a few links:

• I brought up this article before, but I'll mention it again: most of us are pretty bad at statistical reasoning.
• That radio show I love recently devoted an entire episode to probability:
  
  
• Here's a review of a decent book (The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives) on our tendency to misinterpret randomness as if it's an intentional pattern.
• This ability to see patterns where there are none may explain why so many of us believe in god (see section 5 in particular).
• What was that infinite monkey typewriter thing we were talking about in class?
• What's up with that recent recommendation that routine screenings for breast cancer should wait to your 50s rather than 40s? Math helps explain it.
• Another radio show I love ran a great 2-part series on the screening for diseases called "You Are Pre-Diseased":
  

  Listen to Episode 1

  Listen to Episode 2

• Statistics in sports is all the rage lately. It can justify counterintuitive decisions, like going for it instead of punting on 4th down... though don't expect the fans to buy that fancy math learnin'.
  

Quiz You Twice, Shame on You

Quiz #2 will be held at the beginning of class on Monday, November 29th. It will last 25 minutes, and is worth 7.5% of your overall grade. The quiz is on everything we've discussed since the midterm:

• Fallacies (starting with begging the question to the end of chapter 5)
• Psychological Impediments (chapter 4)

The quiz will contain a mix of short answer questions and arguments that contain fallacies.

The Conspiracy Bug

Here's an article on a 9/11 conspiracy physicist that brings up a number of issues we're discussing in class (specifically appealing to authority and confirmation bias). I've quoted an excerpt of the relevant section on the lone-wolf semi-expert (physicist) versus the overwhelming consensus of more relevant experts (structural engineers):

While there are a handful of Web sites that seek to debunk the claims of Mr. Jones and others in the movement, most mainstream scientists, in fact, have not seen fit to engage them.

"There's nothing to debunk," says Zdenek P. Bazant, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University and the author of the first peer-reviewed paper on the World Trade Center collapses.

"It's a non-issue," says Sivaraj Shyam-Sunder, a lead investigator for the National Institute of Standards and Technology's study of the collapses.

Ross B. Corotis, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a member of the editorial board at the journal Structural Safety, says that most engineers are pretty settled on what happened at the World Trade Center. "There's not really disagreement as to what happened for 99 percent of the details," he says.

And one more excerpt on reasons to be skeptical of conspiracy theories in general:

One of the most common intuitive problems people have with conspiracy theories is that they require positing such complicated webs of secret actions. If the twin towers fell in a carefully orchestrated demolition shortly after being hit by planes, who set the charges? Who did the planning? And how could hundreds, if not thousands of people complicit in the murder of their own countrymen keep quiet? Usually, Occam's razor intervenes.

Another common problem with conspiracy theories is that they tend to impute cartoonish motives to "them" — the elites who operate in the shadows. The end result often feels like a heavily plotted movie whose characters do not ring true.

Then there are other cognitive Do Not Enter signs: When history ceases to resemble a train of conflicts and ambiguities and becomes instead a series of disinformation campaigns, you sense that a basic self-correcting mechanism of thought has been disabled. A bridge is out, and paranoia yawns below.

Rationalizing Away from the Truth

A big worry that the confirmation and disconfirmation biases raise is the difficulty of figuring out what counts as successful, open-minded reasoning, versus what amounts to after-the-fact rationalization of preexisting beliefs. Here are some links on our tendency to rationalize rather than reason:

• Recent moral psychology suggests that we often simply rationalize our snap moral judgments. (Or worse: we actually undercut our snap judgments to defend whatever we want to do.)
• The great public radio show Radio Lab devoted an entire show to the psychology of our moral decision-making:
  
  
• Humans' judge-first, rationalize-later approach stems in part from the two competing decision-making styles inside our heads.
• For more on the dual aspects of our minds, I strongly recommend reading one of the best philosophy papers of 2008: "Alief and Belief" by Tamar Gendler.
  
• Here's a video dialogue between Gendler and her colleague (psychologist Paul Bloom) on her work:

Second-Hand News

Angelo heard it through the grapevine:

More to Forget

Here's more on the less of memory:

• Here's an overview on the way our memory is faulty by psychologist Gary Marcus. He's written a book called Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind.
  
• Even strong "flashbulb memories" like what you were doing on 9/11 are not very accurate.
• One leading expert on memory is psychologist Elizabeth Loftus. Here is a pair of articles that summarize her research on false memories, and here's a video of her presenting on it.

Filling In Memory

Here's a section (pages 78-80) from psychologist Dan Gilbert's great book Stumbling on Happiness about how memory works:



The preview cuts off at the bottom of page 80. Here's the rest from that section:

"...reading the words you saw. But in this case, your brain was tricked by the fact that the gist word--the key word, the essential word--was not actually on the list. When your brain rewove the tapestry of your experience, it mistakenly included a word that was implied by the gist but that had not actually appeared, just as volunteers in the previous study mistakenly included a stop sign that was implied by the question they had been asked but that had not actually appeared in the slides they saw.

"This experiment has ben done dozens of times with dozens of different word lists, and these studies have revealed two surprising findings. First, people do not vaguely recall seeing the gist word and they do not simply guess that they saw the gist word. Rather, they vividly remember seeing it and they feel completely confident that it appeared. Second, this phenomenon happens even when people are warned about it beforehand. Knowing that a researcher is trying to trick you into falsely recalling the appearance of a gist word does not stop that false recollection from happening."

Too many words, Sean! Can't you just put up a video? You better make it funny, too!

Fine. Here's Dan Gilbert on The Colbert Report:

Direct Experience

Here's two videos on stuff we've been talking about in class lately. First, watch this:


Next, watch this:


Finally, here's an article on this issue. Still trust your direct experience?

Deoderant Gender Norms

If you don't buy these products, you're being unnatural:

Hearsay, You Say?

-via GraphJam

-via xkcd

Ask Friends... Old Friends

Here's a case for more deference in our lives from one of my favorite websites:

• Often times, our friends know more about us than we do.
• While talking to your friends, you might want to ask more about them. It turns out that they're less like us than we might think.
• Also, consider listening to advice from older people. We're not as different from them as we think.
  

All Email Forwards are False?

I got the following email last Spring:

-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: Papa Landis
To: Mama Landis; Me; My Twin; My Older Brother; My Older Sister
Subject: Fw: Really Important After Sunday's Vote

-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
Forwarded by Colleague
To: Papa Landis [and dozens more]

-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: Friend of Colleague
To: [Dozens]

.
.
.

From: Gilbert Turrentine (original source?)
Subject: Really Important After Sunday's Vote

I have passed it onto over 100~~~please pass on to how ever many you can.

Really Important After Sunday's Vote
It may well be time for this approach; it's tough to argue against the principle! This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.

An idea whose time has come
For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they didn't pay into Social Security, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that is being considered...in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop. This is a good way to do that. It is an idea whose time has come.
...

Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution
"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."

Here was my response:

From: Me
To: Papa Landis
Subject: Re: Really Important After Sunday's Vote

The claims about Congress aren't true:
http://www.factcheck.org/2010/01/lawmaker-loopholes

His response to me:

From: Papa Landis
To: Me
Subject: Re: Really Important After Sunday's Vote

OK, thanks for that.

An Expert for Every Cause

Looking for links on appealing to authority? This is your post! First, here's an interesting article on a great question: How are those of us who aren't experts supposed to figure out the truth about stuff that requires expertise?

Not all alleged experts are actual experts. Here's a method to tell which experts are phonies (this article was originally published in the Chronicle of Higher Education).

It's important to check whether the person making an appeal to authority really knows who the authority is. That's why we should beware of claims that begin with "Studies show..."

And here's a Saturday Night Live sketch in which Christopher Walken completely flunks the competence test.

Penguin Digestion Experts? You Bet!

So you didn't believe me when I said that there are experts on the subject of penguin digestion? Oh, you did? Fine, well, I'll prove it to you, anyway. Here are some academic articles on the topic:

• Adjustments of gastric pH, motility and temperature during long-term preservation of stomach contents in free-ranging incubating king penguins from a 2004 issue of Journal of Experimental Biology
  
• Feeding Behavior of Free-Ranging King Penguins (Aptenodytes Patagonicus) from a 1994 issue of Ecology

Of course, no list would be complete without the often-cited, groundbreaking 1985 Ornis Scandinavica article:

• Differential Digestion of Fish and Squid in Jackass Penguins Spheniscus demersus

Perhaps my favorite, though, is the following:

• Pressures produced when penguins pooh—calculations on avian defaecation from a 2003 issue of Polar Biology
  

If any of these articles are above your head (I think they're all above mine!), you might like this, uh, simpler video demonstration of penguin digestion.

Have You Stopped Loading Questions?

Begging the Dinosaur

I couldn't resist giving you some stuff on begging the question. Here's my favorite video for Mims's logically delicious song "This is Why I'm Hot":

Paper Guideline

Due Date: the beginning of class on Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Worth: 5% of final grade

Length/Format: Papers must be typed, and must be between 300-600 words long. Provide a word count on the first page of the paper. (Most programs like Microsoft Word & WordPerfect have automatic word counts.)

Assignment:
1) Pick an article from a newspaper, magazine, or journal in which an author presents an argument for a particular position. There are some links to potential articles here. I recommend choosing from those articles, though you are also free to choose an article on any topic you want.

TIP: It’s easier to write this paper on an article with a BAD argument. Try finding a poorly-reasoned article!

You must show Sean your article by Wednesday, November 24th for approval. The main requirement is that the article present an argument. One place to look for such articles is the Opinion page of a newspaper. Here’s a short list of some other good sources:

• The New Yorker
• Slate
• New York Review of Books
• London Review of Books
• Times Literary Supplement
• Boston Review
• Atlantic Monthly
• The New Republic
• The Weekly Standard
• The Nation
• Reason
• Dissent
• First Things
• Mother Jones
• National Journal
• The New Criterion
• Wilson Quarterly
• The Philosophers' Magazine
  

(for even more sources, check out the left-hand column of Arts & Letters Daily)

2) In the essay, first briefly explain the article’s argument in your own words. What is the position that the author is arguing for? What are the reasons the author offers as evidence for her or his conclusion? What type of argument does the author provide? In other words, provide a brief summary of the argument.
NOTE: This part of your paper shouldn’t be very long. I recommend making this about one paragraph of your paper.

3) In the essay, then evaluate the article’s argument. Overall, is this a good or bad argument? Why or why not? Systematically evaluate the argument: Check each premise: is each premise true? Or is it false? Questionable? (Do research if you have to in order to determine whether the author’s claims are true.) Then check the structure of the argument. Do the premises provide enough rational support for the conclusion? Does the argument contain any fallacies? If you are criticizing the article’s argument, be sure to consider potential responses that the author might offer, and explain why these responses don’t work. If you are defending the article’s argument, be sure to consider and respond to objections..
NOTE: This should be the main part of your paper. Focus most of your paper on evaluating the argument.

4) Attach a copy of the article to your paper when you hand it in. (Save trees! Print it on few pages!)

Possible Paper Articles

Here are some links to a variety of articles you could use for your paper on explaining and evaluating an article's argument. I strongly recommend using one of these articles, since many contain bad arguments:

1. Down With Facebook!: it's soooo lame
2. Do Fish Feel Pain?: "it's a tricky issue, so I'll go with my gut"
   
3. In the Basement of the Ivory Tower: are some people just not meant for college?
4. Study Says Social Conservatives Are Dumb: but that doesn't mean they're wrong
5. A New Argument Against Gay Marriage: hetero marriage is unique & indispensable
   
   
6. You Don't Deserve Your Salary: no one does
   
7. The Financial Crisis Killed Libertarianism: if it wasn't dead to begin with
8. How'd Economists Get It So Wrong?: Krugman says the least wrong was Keynes
9. An Open Letter to Krugman: get to know your field
10. Consider the Lobster: David Foster Wallace ponders animal ethics
11. Are Dolphins People?: an ocean full of sea-people
    
12. The Dark Art of Interrogation: Bowden says torture is necessary
13. The Idle Life is Worth Living: in praise of laziness
14. Should I Become a Professional Philosopher?: maybe not
    
15. Blackburn Defends Philosophy: it beats being employed