Confirmation bias

It is ten o’clock in the morning when Michael Pollan takes the stage of Wheeler Auditorium at the University of California-Berkeley for his Global Sustainability class, where he scans the room to look into the eyes of 700 students, an impressive feat for any professor with an early lecture. The students are about what you would expect from a high-achieving university - eager and intelligent, all looking to make the food industry more sustainable. Upon Pollan’s invitation, Pam Ronald, a slight in…

Perspective is an individual process of considering thoughts. It is important because it affects the way people make decisions. What role does perspectives play in what we know? Ultimately, it plays a crucial role in the pursuit of knowledge. One’s perspective can hinder the pursuit of knowledge, and hence, it is important to understand the role perspective plays in this process. Knowledge from faith, memory and intuition significantly contributes to how a person views and perceives things. In…

In a study, called “Child Fatalities from Religion-Motivated Medical Neglect”, it women and men who assist in birth are not properly trained, and no women can make decisions over their husbands’ choices, no matter what the choice is. (Hall,8) Also, many times, people (children) are denied injury treatment or illness prevention because of this, such as when a child died of pneumonia, whereas another child had already died of the same disease years ago. The couple had clearly chosen faith healing,…

The first Donald Trump conspiracy theory Ben and Matt proposed was that Trump ran for president as a false flag candidate. The main theory is that Trump ran for president to help Hillary Clinton and The Democrats win the election. The theoretical plan being that Donald Trump would gain the Republican nomination and then basically embarrass the party. Matt starts the base of the theory when he said: “A few weeks before he announces his candidacy he has an off the record phone call with former…

had a negative effect on all parties through his depictions of enemy encounters vs. civilian encounters, how the Vietnamese civilians interacted with U.S. military, and soldiers’ experiences during military invasion. O’Brien shows the reader his bias on how just the Vietnam War was from the very beginning, claiming that it was a war of morality, not for a single justifiable reason. Although the author grew up in a veteran family, he asserts himself as more of a diplomat than a soldier, but…

Every action and attitude by others are derived from the society around him. The people around you-- and, most importantly, the groups they break up into-- affect your attitudes through the treatment the status quo causes them to give you; the norms they set. After being influenced by an ideal, other specific ideas will develop which will cause other specific actions. This kind of shaping leads to the creation of norms, obedience, and the way we interact in groups. Attitudes control actions.…

but at the same time I was also a nice guy who loved to help people and was very compassionate (and when I look back on it I’m still surprised at why I made so many friends and was “popular”). Today, I try to look at things objectively, without bias, at the facts and data, and base my opinions on those things instead of quick judgement and brash emotions. I do agree I share most of the traits of being a “green” when it comes to knowledge and understanding, but it is definitely balanced by the…

Science is the systematic study of structure and behaviour through observation and experiments. It is an intellectual and practical activity. Skinner (1965) noted that, “All scientists, whether giants or not, enable those who follow them to begin a little further along” (p.11). In the 14th century, Plato offered an alternative route to where science was; he did not see the need for observation, but instead highlighted the importance of other knowledge branches (Brysbaert & Rastle, 2009).…

The purpose of the authors was determine the effects of Facebook on self-perception and what factors determine the individual’s susceptibility to negative social outcomes. Information that supports a problem Social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook are famed for giving off the impression (which is often wrong) that other people are living the best of their lives. With that said, this information impacts how others perceived themselves and evokes negative self-perceptions through social…

affected me was all the feelings I had while I was persecuted all those years for being gay as I grew up. Next, each minute to minute news update seemed to echo the night’s gunshots that killed and wounded the innocent club goers like a societal confirmation that “the Gays should die because it was God’s will.” Lastly, I realized that I was not a kid, I was not in New York, and I was in the safety of my home even though my mind was in panic. I needed to get out of the house to help my friends…