Confirmation bias means most of us assume our opponents are ‘morans’

By David McElroy · April 18, 2012

About half of my friends think the other half are moron. And the other half think the first group are idiots (or worse).

It’s not that I have stupid friend. I merely have friends who disagree with each other about political issues. Actually, I’m vastly oversimplifying to say that it’s half against half. Among my friends, I have libertarians, anarchists (of different stripes), social conservatives, progressives, “new Democrats” and some who are just plain hard to classify.

There’s overlap between the groups as well. The problem is that almost everybody is certain that his position is the right one — and it’s hard for him to understand how a right-thinking person could have to a different conclusion. Each person sees the weaknesses in the things the other person believes, not few see the potential weakness in their own positions. It’s just human nature.

This is why almost everyone believes that there’s a conspiracy against his position. Just Tuesday, Mitt Romney was talking about a “vast left-wing conspiracy” among the media and progressive left groups to stop his campaign. In 1998, Hillary Clinton spoke on NBC’s Today show of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” against Bill Clinton. So which side is telling the truth? Is there a left-wing conspiracy or a right-wing conspiracy? Or are they they just two different sides of the same coin?

The problem for every side is that humans have a tremendous tendency toward confirmation bias. I think about this frequently when I see things that my (very bright) friends say in opposition to one another about politics, but I thought about it in a much more serious way because of a great article that I read Tuesday by a libertarian economist who wrote an article in The Atlantic in December in which he had to admit to having been wrong. (Thanks to Andrew Coulson at the Cato Institute for linking to it.)

George Mason University economist Daniel Klein wrote a Wall Street Journal article almost two years ago that took a swipe at the progressive left for being more economically illiterate than conservatives and libertarians. The article was based on research that he had done with a colleague, so he wasn’t just making things up or expressing an opinion. He had some data. Klein explains what happened after that:

But one year later, in May 2011, Buturovic and I published a new scholarly article reporting on a new survey. It turned out that I needed to retract the conclusions I’d trumpeted in The Wall Street Journal. The new results invalidated our original result: under the right circumstances, conservatives and libertarians were as likely as anyone on the left to give wrong answers to economic questions. The proper inference from our work is not that one group is more enlightened, or less. It’s that “myside bias”—the tendency to judge a statement according to how conveniently it fits with one’s settled position—is pervasive among all of America’s political groups. The bias is seen in the data, and in my actions.

The entire article is worth taking the time to read, so I urge you to read how the original research was done and why the original wrong conclusion was drawn. The researchers thought they were being honest and fair in their survey and in their interpretation, but they weren’t able to see past their own bias. I admire Klein for having the guts to publicly explain it and retract his previous comments.

If someone told me that research showed that progressive liberals were more ignorant than social conservatives — or the other way around — my tendency would be to disbelieve it either way, because my experience is that both groups are blind to a large percentage of the facts. I can think of specific people among my conservative and progressive friends who are perfect examples of those who honestly believe their side is rational and the other side is ignorant.

With that said, it’s easy to pat myself on the back for being able to see things so clearly that those stupid conservatives and progressives can’t see. But I know I’m just as blind and biased as they are. I’m just too human to know where my blind spots are — and it frustrates me to know that I’m wrong about things that I’m currently sure I’m right about. Keeping that in mind keeps me from being as arrogant as I’d like to be. Sometimes, anyway.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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