The Importance Of The Confirmation Bias

We all want to live comfortable lives that are free of persecution and beliefs that are contradictory to our own. Surely, we must know what is best for us? We must be able to see whenever someone is clearly wrong and whenever someone is right. This, however, is completely wrong. There is an issue with this idealized world, and it leaves us susceptible to one of the most common and powerful biases: the confirmation bias. The confirmation bias is the “tendency to interpret new information so that it becomes compatible with our existing theories beliefs and convictions” (Dobelli 19). You succumb to this bias whenever you disregard information that contradicts your established beliefs. Thus, to protect your beliefs, you simply disregard contradictory information as “a special case” or a “mistake”. This extreme filtration of information can cause us to diverge further from the actual truth and closer to a deluded perception of the world. This bias is present in all kinds of aspects in our lives, from our daily conversation, news, learning, …show more content…
It’s so much easier just to accept what you believe and allow others to have their own beliefs on things. While this is a very modest and openminded approach to the search for truth. It is not the most accurate way to gain more true information. It is an epistemic responsibility to call out bullshit, which keeps inaccurate or misleading information out of circulation. If we take in bullshit and accept it as truth just because it satisfies our current set of beliefs then we will spout it to others and it will continue to spread. Bullshit in, bullshit out. If we do not reduce the amount of confirmation bias in our lives, then it will only lead to the pollution of our beliefs as a society and cause us to have an incredibly distorted view on the world. It is something we do not enjoy doing, but we must expose ourselves to contradictory ideas just as readily as validating