Is Overcoming Bias Important?
Arnold Kling says he "does not buy this argument" of mine:
If you have a cause, then other people probably disagree with you … When other people disagree with you, they are usually more right than you think they are. … Before you go and attach yourself to this cause, shouldn’t you try to reduce the chances that you are wrong? Ergo, shouldn’t you work on trying to overcome bias?
Tyler Cowen riffs:
[Such] views are tautologically true and they simply boil down to saying that any complaint can be expressed as a concern about error of some kind or another. … draw an analogy with statistics. Biased estimators are one problem but not the only problem. There is also insufficient data, lazy researchers, inefficient estimators, and so on. Then I don’t see why we should be justified in holding a strong preference for overcoming bias, relative to other ends.
We have never claimed bias is the only problem. But to let Arnold and Tyler more clearly identify where they disagree, let me outline an argument for the importance of overcoming bias:
Our beliefs have many errors, i.e., deviations from truth.
Reducing error is important goal, for which we are willing to pay substantial costs.
The causes of our errors can be seen as ranging from context specific to general trends.
We in fact have many identifiable stable general error trends, in addition to legion context specific causes.
By reflecting on error causes, we can seek ways to adjust our pattens of thought and social institutions to reduce error.
For a substantial fraction of error causes, we can in fact find feasible adjustments.
It is often more cost-effective to seek and implement adjustments for general trends, than for context specific errors.
Together these points suggest we should be willing to pay substantial costs to reflect on and seek adjustments for general error trends. Our being here suggests we draw a similar conclusion. It seems a confident proposer bias to suggest we claim more.
Added: Bryan Caplan weighs in.
Jeff,
1. I agree that overcoming bias can offend some people who hold strong beliefs related to that area if one has imperfect deceptive ability. This has to be traded off against various benefits.2. The Copenhagen Consensus was a cost-benefit prioritization exercise to evaluate different solutions to global problems undertaken by a set of mostly prominent academic economists, initially in 2004.3. It only made recommendations and published its cost-benefit analyses, it doesn't deal with funding. The exercise was to attempt to figure out how development agencies *could* effectively spend $50 billion.4. Its work is not in Danish, but was conducted and published in English:http://www.amazon.com/Globa...5. I mentioned it because it collects voluminous evidence from a variety of literatures and directly compares the costs and benefits of different approaches, concluding that there are variations of several orders of magnitude in the cost-effectiveness of various causes. When such variance, or substantial uncertainty about it, exists the gains from reallocating effort can also be very great, and are likely to exceed the costs of analysis.
Carl,
Thank you for your response
In your first link: ( http://www.overcomingbias.c... ) poor Mr. Armstrong felt that his attempts at overcoming bias have made him "better at academia, and worse at business". Could this observation possibly be a result of Mr. Armstrong's decreased ability to function as part of a team or his coworker's perception of his ability to function as part of a team. He certainly indicated that it might effect his ability to rally the support of others to join his team. While I realize this is just one small example, and I'm currently plagued with the bias to see only supporting evidence, I believe it supports my hypothesis that overcoming bias makes individuals less adept at functioning in a group setting. What kind of effect might this have on society?
I couldn't access your second link.
I don't know much about the Copenhagen Consensus, and I don't speak Danish, so I have some questions for you.1) It seems like many of the staff members are not part of an independent research council, but rather 'project managers'. What conflicts of interest are present between the committee that rates projects and the people who manage various projects?2) How are members of the consensus committee selected?3) How are funds transfered to projects?
Call me biased, but I would have more faith in the Copenhagen Consensus if they simply rated charitable organizations or projects, published a report, and didn't deal with funding at all. In any case, it seems like a step in the right direction... but I'm not sure if we can make that evaluation with any amount of rational thinking.
Millions of years of evolution made humans with two arms. I feel like 4 arms might be more useful. I could throw more spears at saber tooth tigers, and my wife could pick twice as many wild berries. But evolution gave me and everyone I know only 2 arms. All the logic in the world indicates that I do not need nipples, but yet I have two. Could I build a better man? It would be fun to try, but I'd probably mess it up.
On the other hand, maybe overcoming bias is equivalent to exercise. Maybe it's less like trying to fly and more like trying to run faster.