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A Simple Strategy for Shaking Confirmation Bias

29 points| MaysonL | 11 years ago |ritholtz.com

6 comments

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[+] stygiansonic|11 years ago|reply
Confirmation bias can be a huge problem but I'm not sure the methods outlined in the article do much to prevent it. For example, the (guest) author indicates he relies on the given blog for a source of unbiased information and then goes on to say that the blog often links back to his own website, to articles that he has found to be his most useful and informative.

He then comes to the conclusion that this demonstrates the quality of the aforementioned blog. Besides being circular reasoning, is this not a source of confirmation bias in and of itself?

[+] px|11 years ago|reply
I don't know. This seems to be the thrust of his arguments:

"By delegating information curation to multiple independent parties with demonstrated domain knowledge and critical ability, I ensure that what I read is not a mere reflection of what I believe."

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Do you have any specific critique of "Abnormal Returns" and "The Big Picture," the curators he cites?

[+] mef|11 years ago|reply
Agreed. How does one know that the person curating their source of unbiased information is not themselves biased?
[+] ASneakyFox|11 years ago|reply
The only way to deal with confirmation bias is to know it happens, and consider that when drawing conclusions.