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Robin Hanson's avatar

Adrian, it is not obvious that that all our institutions reduce confirmation bias; some of them may increase it. It is important to carefully evaluate our institutions on this issue, and seek improvements.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

Arnold: I think that it is very hard for us to avoid confirmation bias. As a society then, we create a number of institutions to counteract or nullify it: 1st Amendment, the adversarial legal system with trial by jury, double-blind testing, the econ publication process of ideas->conversations with colleagues->brown bag seminars->working papers, and conference and other seminars->peer review->publication), political debates, etc. Perhaps one could argue that societies that progress do so by creating such rules and institutions.

An additional thought. You seem to be arguing that elites follow what Philip Tetlock has characterized as hedgehog strategies. But are there not elites who pursue fox strategies. I suspect that Tetlock would argue that we are born foxes or hedgehogs; as long as there are foxes to tip the balance, we may be OK.

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