As a Gemini I’m a natural skeptic so I have to say I don’t believe in horoscopes.

Like Doranne, I find it hard to believe I can share the traits of a gazillion other people around the world! Hello, I’m an individual?

Plus there was that survey where they had group of randomers given a slip of paper with a description of their personality based on their star sign and they were all like OMGSOTRUE and each one of them had the exact description? So it is probably a case of selectivity and confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias).

But, having said that, there is no such thing as true individuality, is there? I also can’t deny they’re fun to read and tend to the narcissist in me. Personally speaking however, though I’m inclined to say the Gemini is the best sign of the lot,  I don’t really like how we’re portrayed. We seem to have more bad traits than other signs! Not cool. Maybe that’s why I don’t like to believe in horoscopes

So I went to http://www.findyourfate.com/astrology/Gemini.htm and decided to find out more…

The Geminis interact with the environment, investigate, learn, know and exchange ideas.  (True.)

The intellect dominates Gemini, and all things intellectual are valued greatly by them. As communication is also of importance to Geminis, knowledge is never a thing to be hoarded. Rarely is a Gemini more entertained than in the midst of exchanging ideas with others of an intellectual nature. (Thank you, I like to be seen as ‘intellectual’. This is extremely true.)

Being the most versatile of the signs, Geminis are seldom what they seem to be. Chameleon like, they will take a stand, voice an opinion, decide on an option and then completely change their mind tomorrow. (Yes, I am very mysterious; I also enjoy bullshitting…)

Nothing is ever written in stone by the Gemini. (That just means I cannot make up my mind. This is very true. And annoying.) They are truly a free soul, driven by curiosity and a desire to know . (Yes, I’m a true KPO, I don’t actually care, I just need to know)

They usually have several things going at once, and within such chaos, they thrive. (Man, story of my life. I’m not sure about the ‘thriving’ part though.)

Geminis are bright, witty, entertaining and rarely get deeply absorbed in any one task. They prefer to skim the surface of many things, than to get deeply involved in any one particular interest. Even if they do become drawn into something, they always feel they are missing out something. Anything they haven’t touched intrigue them the most. (Yes, I have a damn short attention span. Don’t know about witty / entertaining.)

Often gifted with their hands, it seems whatever they touch does turn to gold. (Really? Try telling that to the person who gave me a ‘D’ for my ‘Michael Jackson’ Sphinx GCSE Art project… but maybe I am gifted with my hands in other ways… heh. )

Their love of communication may also express itself as an affinity for languages. (Yes I am damn good at languages except Chinese but still I beat Pat at O-Levels so I would agree with this.)

Geminis have a knack of making life a little more interesting for the rest of the zodiacs. (Ask my friends I don’t know, I’m just trying to live my life…)

Geminis are optimistic people. (Actually despite popular notion and the fact I need medication I am an optimist.)

All things are fresh and fascinating for the them. (Ya, I’m a KPO, why they keep repeating this? Do Geminis not have any other good traits?)

Restless, with an active imagination and a keen intellect,  life must be lived to the fullest for theGeminis. Gemini analyzes everything.  (Yes, over analyze and drive myself crazy. Pure hell.) Gemini’s are usually affectionate, courteous, kind, generous, thoughtful and superficial

Main positive traits: Versatile, adaptable, inquisitive, intelligent, quick to learn

Negative Traits

On the turn of a moment, Gemini can become cynical, biting, moody and quickly angered. Inseparable as two sides of a coin, those born in this sign can be dazzling and irresistible or inconstant and irrational. Once something is familiar , the interest wears thin and the need for new worlds to investigate grows strong again. Geminis are fickle. This is not intentional, it is their basic nature to be so.

Main negative traits: Superficial, short attention span, restless, nervous, nervous, lacks concentration, conniving. (Conniving? Very insulting. Perhaps I’m not aware of that part of myself yet. Restless and nervous – they include nervous twice and a very big YES. Superficial? I’m not sure… I probably am if this says so. You be the judge.)

Also apparently Gemini’s are damn fickle ‘players’ when it comes to love. What a reputation-spoiler. People might shun a relationship with me if they believed in horoscopes. (So please don’t take it too seriously…)

So apparently all I am is a fickle KPO (but intelligent). Okay lah, I’ll take it I guess it’s better than being a bore.

In his latest Wall Street Journal column, Jason Zweig discusses one of the behavioral pitfalls that can drag down many investors’ portfolios: confirmation bias.

What is confirmation bias? “In short,” Zweig explains, “your own mind acts like a compulsive yes-man who echoes whatever you want to believe. … A recent analysis of psychological studies with nearly 8,000 participants concluded that people are twice as likely to seek information that confirms what they already believe as they are to consider evidence that would challenge those beliefs.”

Scott Lilienfeld, an Emory University psychologist Zweig interviewed, says part of confirmation bias involves assessing past decisions. “We’re very good at cooking up post-hoc explanations of why our predictions didn’t work,” Lilienfeld says. “We reinterpret our failures as near-misses: ‘This stock would have gone up if only X had happened,’ or ‘99 times out of 100 I would have been right if not for this freak event.’”

The more you research, the more information you thus find to support your beliefs, Zweig says. “Each new fact makes you more inclined to find another fact that resembles it, reducing the diversity and value of your information,” he writes.

Zweig offers a number of suggestions for how investors can overcome confirmation bias. A few examples:

• Look out into the future and imagine that the investment you’re considering goes bust. Then try to come up with the best reasons this might happen;
• Before making your investment, determine what you think are the odds that it will not work out. This way, you’ll be prepared for the possibility of failure, and won’t be as likely to “dig in your analytical heels and desperately try to prove that you are still right” if it does go bad;
• Before investing, write down a list of things that could occur that would change your opinion of the investment.

from Ed Brayton’s Dispatches from the Culture Wars: “The Mind of the Conspiracy Theorist.”

Confirmation bias is a tendency to search for, interpret or remember information in a way that confirms preconceptions or working hypotheses. People can reinforce their existing attitudes by selectively collecting new evidence, by interpreting evidence in a biased way or by selectively recalling information from memory. Some psychologists use “confirmation bias” for any of these three cognitive biases, while others restrict the term to selective collection of evidence, using assimilation bias for biased interpretation.

Part 1

Part 2

On my way to work this last Monday I couldn’t help but notice that it seemed as if squirrels at the side of the road would wait until the van was almost upon them before rushing across the street in a mad suicidal dash.

Would it be a valid inference to conclude that the local squirrel population was hell-bent on destroying itself, or that the presence of an oncoming vehicle made them risk their lives in this manner, to become road pizza? I suspect not, fortunately for the majority of the urban tree-dwelling wildlife gene pool.

It turns out that I was engaging in a sort of self-deception known as confirmation bias, and since the sight of small animals running across the street stands out more than the vast majority that don’t rush out in front of oncoming traffic, it’s easier to notice and remember, as per the following observation by Francis Bacon:

It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives.

Events that are more cognitively significant, and forgetting, for not having paid much attention to those fauna that stay off the road, is a typical example of this error.

Confirmation bias is a form of selective thinking in which one remembers, more closely considers, or looks for observations affirmative to one’s beliefs, and forgetting, dismissing, ignoring or downplaying data that contradict one’s beliefs. It’s the human tendency to ‘count the hits and ignore the misses,’ and something we all do if we aren’t careful.

Confirmation bias is one reason for many paranormal and occult beliefs, such as that of the powers of alleged psychics, who often use cold reading techniques such as shotgunning, where a lot of random guesses, some of them highly likely to be true for almost anyone (common names, numbers, dates, etc.), are made, during which the psychic relies on his or her subject to forget or dismiss the incorrect guesses and keep in mind only the ones that subjectively seem accurate, thus seeming to the subject to possess special knowledge obtainable only by paranormal means, while really relying on verbal and non-verbal feedback cues unknowingly given by the subject.

This tendency is also responsible for belief in so-called lunar effects, such as the supposed increase in hospital admissions during nights of a full moon, such things as childbirths, or injury from accident or violence. Some hospital staff will pay more notice to those admissions during a full moon, and pay little or no mind to those times during a full moon when admissions aren’t high as being the exceptions that prove the rule.

A perusal of hospital admission records over time will reveal nothing special about these nights. So if I document my observations of the road on the way to work more carefully, and go back over them later, it speaks much better for the survival instincts of the local squirrels that they aren’t risking their lives to become roadkill as much as they seem to be through casual observation. Fnord.

(Last Updated 16:20, 10/30/2009: Grammar & Verbiage Corrections)

One thing that I find very interesting in the whole left/right division in America is that while conservatives, overall, espouse a distrust in government bureaucracy in getting things done effectively this same logical framework is not applied to the state security/intelligence apparatus.

The CIA and FBI and NSA are also big government business, and the same self-sustaining survival mechanisms that other government departments practice to ensure their own growth naturally apply to them too.

The CIA/NSA have to continue to prove themselves useful by generating useful intelligence.

Unlike other government departments though, the internal workings and happenings within them are not subject to a great deal of oversight in the name of the very security which they are supposed to be delivering to our country.

I doubt any day of the week that you will see Glenn Beck arguing that we need to reduce the amount of our tax dollars that are being wasted in CIA operations.

Why this divide? Why is the intelligence community given a free pass?

They, above all other government agencies and departments, are assumed to be legitimately doing their best to serve the country’s interests rather than their own continuation and precious budget numbers.

This makes me think of Public Enemies and the founding of the FBI. The necessity of bringing Dillinger under in order to help justify the existence of the new agency.

And then this in turn brings me to the question of torture.

The necessity to have some information. To have our intelligence agencies generating some kind of data. And the need for this data to be correct. And the confirmation biases that must be happening.

If people are being apprehended on the basis of information given under torture, and if they are in turn confessing their crimes and giving more information under further torture, then where is the confirmation that anything in this cycle is grounded in reality?

I’m already a bit conspiracy minded, but for those that may not be as much as myself, in the unlikely event that you somehow end up here… who are holding these people at all accountable for the validity of the work they are doing?

And why are the people we have caught and apprehended in preventing future terrorist plots not being courted in the public square.

“Look we got ‘em! America is the greatest!”

If the war on terror could be said to be lacking one crucial element, it’s tangible villains for us to appropriate our fear and hate upon.

Osama is the beginning and the end here as far as I can tell.

Unless you count Hussein.

But it’s well established that he is not the leader of a terrorist cell plotting against the United States. He’s just another bastard dictator living off the fat of his people, which sucks, don’t g et me wrong, but is not the enemy that we are supposedly fighting and which the intelligence community is behind the scenes protecting us from every day.

There is a frustration in America, no doubt, of a government gone completely out of control with no real connection to the people, but that frustration is not, I think, well directed.

What can be done to change that?

There’s this thing, which I ran into recently on the forge and I’ve seen it quite a few times before, where you get assertion overload.

It’s kind of like the equivalent of a service denial attack – a bunch of assertions are given at once and apparently it’s entirely up to the other guy to probe, question and disprove them (if needed).

The thing is with that idea, it’s incredibly easy to keep piling on more and more assertions, usually in responce to those questions (like the old ‘if the earth rests on an elephants back, what does that elephant rest on’ ‘another elephant’…there’s always another fookin elephant). And alot of people who seem to believe stuff have many, many, many assertions to give. It amounts to a service denial attack, where the other guy is swamped in work.

I’m writing this in advance to say, no, your not making a point, your just swamping the other guy. Writing this in advance to show it’s not just some dodge tactic made up in the moment. Well before the arguement ever came to exist, this was written.

Provide supporting evidence for your assertions and even more importantly/more directly to the point, attempt to disprove your own assertions before giving them!!! Yes, attempt to disprove your own assertions – don’t give in to confirmation bias.

Or alternatively, tell me one assertion you had, but you disproved yourself because you found it faulty. Perhaps can’t think of any? Nothing you do is ever faulty? Is that god like perfection on your part, or have you been failing to actually weed out and disprove assertions on your part which are faulty? Is it someone elses job to do that? Even if it was, can they when you pile on a bunch of other assertions which you haven’t vetted for errors? And then pile on even more unchecked assertions when those get questioned, and so on?

Your a force on this earth, despite what you might think. Do you want to be applying that force onto other people in the name of those assertions, if you can’t name any you’ve weeded out as faulty in the past? Because unless you have god like perfection, if you can’t name any assertions you’ve weeded out, then they’re still in there and your acting upon other people in their name.

It’s a challenge as a writer to build believable characters. Your readers must relate to them, grow to understand them, maybe even empathize with. That requires a cautious mix of reality (unless you’re writing fantasy, readers demand characters, setting and plots that could happen) and fiction (a world that could be theirs if only). Together, these two ingredients build a story that readers can get lost in.

What if those reader memories (the ‘fact’ in this scenario) are false? That’s what writers face in setting their stories in post WWII, when “all the women are strong, men good looking, and children above average”. Because none of that is true. Yet, this type of false memory is so pervasive, it’s been christened the Lake Wobegon effect. It afflicts everyone from CEOs to college students to parents. The effect is closely related to the Confirmation bias, a tendency to search for, interpret or remember information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions.

So the question is: Should your characters behave in a manner that matches people’s memories or as life was?

Here are some examples, from Stephanie Coontz’s book, The Way We Never Were:

The Ozzie and Harriet Family

That loving nurturing family where Dad always had a job and Mom never had to. Where the 2.2 kids went to school without question, never dropped out, did their homework and helped with chores.  Where was I?

My Mother Was a Saint

Mom was always patient, wise, with eyes in the back of her head and time for kids and dad whenever they needed her. She was brilliant despite not going to college and rarely leaving the house to go to the gym, take an evening class, hold down a parttime job, those places where moms get to talk to adults. She cooked, cleaned, gardened, helped with projects, PTA’d, ironed, entertained friends. All with a calm equanimity that taught her children that every girl could be SuperMom.

We Always Stood on Our Own Two feet

No one was on welfare. Everyone’s family took care of themselves and those around them. Kids got paper routes to buy their extras and Dads got raises just in the nick of time.

We Never Did That

• talked back to our parents or teachers
• did drugs or alcohol
• parents never argued in front of kids
• families always had heart-warming reunions
• The other guy always got laid off and lost his job
• Big Business was kind and generous to its employees

One of the things I really like about me is that I am right most of the time. On top of that, I cannot recall a single time in my life when I left my house in the morning with the thought, “I am going to go out and today and prove to myself how wrong I am!” No I pretty much embrace the day with my perceptions in tact and ready with a big old bag of “See I told you so’s”, “But of courses..” and Well, duhs…”

Not only am I right most of the time, I have managed to surround myself with good friends who are also right most of the time. I know they are right most of the time because they tend to agree with me. With enough diversity of thought and lifestyle to keep things interesting without becoming a bother, I have managed to pull together a whole network of “like precious souls”.

I watch the right TV shows too, especially news shows. The folks I watch are right on as far as I am concerned. While they can beat dead horses to death sometimes, I do appreciate their insights because they are usually right within an acceptable range of difference of opinion. My talk radio hosts…oh my gosh! they are just so on target. They are so right and so filled with fresh insights that they help me to be righter and Righter and RIGHTER!

 
My church? You guessed it! Absolutely right about everything that matters.  How could it be otherwise?  We are the church for Christ’s sake!   Sure we have our little disagreements but again, they are all within the range of acceptable disagreement. We are so attuned to one another, so unified in our outlook that I know, since it feels so right, that this fellowship can only be a “God thing”.

My family? All right, alright! Well, except for my kid. Sometimes he’s wrong but what are you going to do, he’s at THAT age. I am sure with time he will come around and be right. (After all, he’s got my genes and, on top of that, I’ve trained him up in the right way to go!) On top of that, even when he’s wrong, I can’t help but think: “Well, he’s just so darn lovable that he can’t be all wrong!”

And my country? Right! Right! Right! A city set on a hill! The light of the world! The greatest country in the world in part because we are so tolerant of those who are wrong! That’s one of the things that make us so right! Nobody else tolerates fools as well as we do! That is just so right!

Wow! What a good life I have! I am going out today and share my blessings with others. I am going to be bold about too. Just wait, you’ll see…I’ll do that when God gives me the right opportunity and shows me the right person.

My friend and mentor Bob Klein introduced me to the marketing “retrospectograph” some years ago.  As I recall, we had been reviewing the analysis of data from a consumer study that was part of a simulated test market for a new product.  Something about a particular result was counterintuitive, and I was developing–out loud–a plausible after the fact cause for this finding when Bob said something like, “Well, if you turn on the marketing retrospectograph, you can explain anything.”

This was an important lesson and reminder of the potential fallacy of post hoc explanation (from post hoc ergo propter hoc–”after this, therefore because of this”).  All too often in the course of creating customer knowledge, I’ve seen marketers fashion a theory of the customer from a few facts–the results of a single survey or a few focus groups, for example–and that theory of the customer becomes the basis for action without any further testing.

Nassim Nicholas Talib explores this phenomenon in his book, The Black Swan, using the term “retrospective determinism.”   Taleb describes this mechanism–working backwards to a satisficing causal explanation–in his discussion of “silent evidence,” by which he means all the occurrences of something that are not observed.  Who is to say that the next set of survey results will provide the same facts on which our now codified theory of the customer is based?  His main point is that failing to take into account the possibility of different outcomes or input and outcome pairings not yet observed makes things seem much more deterministic (as opposed to random) than they really are.

Once a theory of the customer emerges, confirmation bias kicks in.  Our natural tendency is to give more attention and weight to events or observations that confirm our causal models than to those observations that are disconfirming.

The smaller the set of observations on which the theory is based, relative to the total number of possible observations, the more likely Taleb’s “silent evidence” is hiding disconfirming, if inconvenient, facts.  Of course, in the hypothetical situation where you have a perfectly identified population of these observations from which you can draw a large enough random sample, it’s possible to make inferences about the relationship between inputs and outcomes without worrying too much about “silent evidence” since we can make explicit statements about the likelihood of unobserved events.  However, this favorable circumstance rarely, if ever, occurs in the world of marketing research and customer knowledge creation.

There’s a lot of evidence coming from cognitive science indicating that we are more or less hard-wired to make erroneous causal inferences.  As one manifestation of this tendency, most fictional crime-solving, from Sherlock Holmes to CSI, relies on Taleb’s mechanism of retrospective determination, coupled with a strong dose of confirmation bias.  Of course, dramatic tension in these stories often comes from the discovery of disconfirming silent evidence that is too compelling to ignore.

The scientific method is supposed to protect us from these biases.  The main problem in marketing is that we do not–or cannot–take the time to execute the sort of programmatic research that treats each plausible explanation or theory of the customer as one of many possible theories that we must continually try to disconfirm.  Unfortunately, it’s all to easy to turn on the marketing “retrospectograph” and convince ourselves that we understand our customers.

Copyright 2009 by David G. Bakken.  All rights reserved.

Pick the one that best applies:

1. No you didn’t. The answer sounds plausible and you are a reasonably smart person so you quickly absorbed it as the correct one. So quickly, in fact, that in hindsight it now feels like you knew it all along. It is hard to have a memory of not knowing something, because way back when you did not know, you did not know that you did not know. So now you think you knew it all along, because you know it now and you don’t have a distinct memory of not knowing.

2. No you didn’t. You have previously wondered, or maybe just heard conventional wisdom that sounds like the answer you know now. Now that you know the right answer, the one you have just heard, you can search your memory and discover that you’ve thought or heard something vaguely resembling the answer before. But in fact, if you really thought about it, you could probably dig up a memory or some conventional wisdom that supports a completely different answer. Consider also that you never took a public stand, you never made it real, you never made yourself accountable for the answer you’re now claiming you knew all along. Which means that if the right answer had turned out to be completely different, it would be just as easy to say you knew that one all along instead.

3. No you didn’t. You thought it all along, but you didn’t know it all along. Your beliefs were based in your ideology or your worldview, not on any objective evidence. If you ever encountered somebody who believed differently because they had a different ideology or worldview, then at most the two of you stood there talking past each other, offering zero enlightenment to anybody approaching the issue without prejudice. Those people needed hard evidence, and you only had arguments. You didn’t know, you just thought you knew.

4. No you didn’t. You made a lucky guess. You are mentally engaged with the world, and so like all mentally engaged humans you form lots of guesses and speculations and opinions about lots of things. If you guess enough times about enough things, some of those guesses will eventually turn out to be right. That doesn’t mean you knew it all along.

5. No you didn’t. You knew the superficial version that everybody knew and that, to the scientists, was beside the point. The story you just heard or the press article you just read has omitted the scientifically interesting part. The scientists weren’t interested in the simple descriptive fact, the one that they, you, and everybody else knew all along. They were interested in how it worked or why it was the way it was.

6. Yes you did. Congratulations. You are hereby authorized to say things like, “Still no cure for cancer,” or “My tax dollars went to this?!?” Have at it.

Here’s another faulty argument from The ghetto of apologetics “science”. A trick that creationists use to discredit scientific findings and justify by default their own “supernatural” explanations. This is their mechanical classification of science into “historical science” and “experimental science.” The creationist NZ blog True Paradigm was promoting this recently (see Types of science).

The usual philosophical “authority” used for this classification is Stephen Meyers, Executive Officer and co-founder of the Discovery Institute’s Center for science and Culture. The intelligent design think tank and poliitcal promoter. He outlined it in his 1990 Ph D thesis “Of clues and causes: a methodological interpretation of origin of life studies.”

An opening for “supernatural agency”

Briefly, creationists argue that the scientific method really only applies in “experimental science” (sometimes also referred to as “operational” or “empirical science”). This is because laboratory experiments can be repeated and observations and measurements take place in the present. They sometimes also argue that this means “supernatural” explanations must be excluded – but  I think that’s just a tactical concession.

They claim scientific methodology has no special role in “historical science” (also called “inferential,” “event” or “origins science”). Because past events maybe one-offs, not repeatable and not capable of direct observation. They argue, therefore, that “supernatural agency” or “supernatural” explanations are just as valid, if not more so, than scientific “stories.” Notice that other apologetics/creationist trick? Critique a scientific approach and then declare the non-scientific one winner by default – without any critical assessment of it!

Now, at first sight, the layperson may at least buy into the argument that “historical science” has some differences to “experimental science”. After all we can’t put historical events into a test-tube. Nor can we repeat them under controlled conditions. Many events only occurred once. So far we have only one example of the formation of life, or of the universe.

A scientific approach

But the differentiation of science into “historical” and “non-historical” branches, let alone the denial of the legitimacy of the scientific method in “historical science,”  is not a real issue in science. Search for the term “historical” science and you will find most references are from creationist sources. However, the philosopher of science Carol Cleland provides a good scientific discussion of the concepts in her papers “Historical science, experimental science, and the scientific method” (download pdf here) and “Methodological and Epistemic Differences Between Historical Science and Experimental Science.” She provides a theoretical analysis and plenty of examples comparing experimental and historical scientific research. Her conclusion – “the claim that historical science is methodologically inferior to experimental science cannot be sustained.”

There are differences between all branches of science. All science is difficult but each branch has its own problems.We need to use different technologies and methods. The resulting data sets have different levels of statistical certainty.  Our ability to control other factors varies – actually “test tubes” are hardly ever used in scientific investigations these days. And even experimental laboratory science can, in essence, be historical. I can investigate the mechanism of a chemical reaction under controlled conditions in the laboraoty. But I don’t directly observe the mechanism. I measure the historical effects of the reaction by analysing the reaction products and determining changes in concentrations after the reaction event.

A balanced approach

To provide a balance here are some of the problems of “experimental science” and advantages of “historical science:”

We can control conditions and repeat experiments in the laboratory but this simple reductionism could mean that important factors are not considered. The conditions are artificial so results may not apply to real world situations. Extra work is usually required to put things into context. What seems like repeats of an experiment may actually be investigation of different conditions, or experimental redesign because the inital design was based on incomplete information.

A major problem with researching past events is loss of evidence over time. We can find fossil and isotope ratio evidence of soft bodied life forms back to 3.8 billion years but it’s hard to imagine what evidence the early stages of chemical evolution preceding life have left. (Although – don’t give up. Its amazing what we can find).

An advantage with past events is that there is usually multiple lines of evidence (instead of the single line in laboratory experiments). Consider the differtent evidential lines pointing to the reasosn for extinction of the dinosaurs – crater, ammonite fossils, shocked quartz, iridium in the K-T boundary, etc.  Multiple hypotheses can be compared and tested simultaneously. Usually lines of evidence will converge on one or a few hypotheses. And there can be new discoveries, and therefore new unexpected lines of evidence, occurring during the investigation.

The separate classification can be artificial also because laboratory experiment and “historical science” are often intertwined. An example is the laboratory investigation of chemical and mineralogical reactions at high temperature and pressure. This contributes to our understanding of geological and pedological transformations occurring over time. Investigations such as those planned for the Large Hadron Collider will contribute to our understanding of processes occurring in the first seconds of the formation of the universe. Observations of nucleosynthesis in various different types of stars, together with presence of certain radioactive elements in meteorites, helps us understand process that occurred during formation of our solar system (see Building blocks of early solar system came from nearby star). And our understanding of the origin of life on earth and elsewhere is being improved by laboratory experiments of possible or likely early organic chemicals and their evolution.

The world view trick

So, like any ideologically motivated and mechanical classification the separation of science into “historical” and “experimental” branches, and denial of authenticity to “historical science,” is dishonest. An attempt to justify an approach to reality (introduction of a “supernatural entity”) which is not supported by evidence. In fact to remove the need for evidence.

religious apologists love to talk about “world views.” It’s another trick from the apologist ghetto – attempting to discredit scientific findings by claiming ideological bias. However, the bias lies with the apologists. They try to replace the evidence-based scientific world view with the world view of theocratic mythology.

In fact this is an attempt to promote a worldview which replaces evidence based science with theocratic mythology. Which raises the question of “word view” – another argument permeating the apologist science ghetto.

(* Cartoon – Mathew Shultz, from Union of Concerned Scientists, Scientific Integrity, Cartoon Competition).

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I recently came across this quote by Tolstoy (1897) in Singh and Ernst’s book “Trick or Treatment”.  I’ll let you decide for yourself  if it has any relevance to karate.

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabrics of their life.

The Internet Mass Media have found yet another reason to attack Amazon.

Thousands of people who’ve never owned a Kindle are enflamed by how inappropriately Amazon has treated some people. Many of them are even claiming that this is the reason they’ll never buy a Kindle – conveniently switching from ’no color’ or ‘i read on my iPhone’ to ‘it’s so 1984′.

Some even managed to add the obvious non-fact that this was a legal copy the publisher wanted recalled. Thankfully they clarified it once they found out they were wrong.

 There’s no denying that Amazon is to blame.

However, everyone is being rather short-sighted here. Once the pirated books had been sold, Amazon was in a catch-22 situation -

1. It either recalls the books and refunds customers (and gets some of them upset). 
2. It tells publishers that pirated books are removed – however, ones already sold won’t be recalled (and gets some publishers upset). 

The Internet Mass Media were going to attack it in either case. Even if Amazon sent a hard-cover book and flowers to every owner of a pirated 1984, the media would still crucify Amazon.

The Real Reason People should be upset with Amazon – Insufficient Policing

What everyone is missing here is the cause – Why were pirated books being sold in the Kindle Store?

You can look at it in two ways -

1. It’s just a byproduct of a new store and a new way of selling books. In that case you’ll be likely to not mind too much.  
2. It’s inexcusable – there should be strict policing to ensure nothing illegal ever happens. In this case you’ll be rather angry with Amazon.

There’s going to be the inevitable law-suit from 1 or more customers. There might also be a lawsuit from the Publisher.

From my perspective it’s just getting in the way of the progress of ebooks. 

Confirmation Bias – Why all the negative PR doesn’t matter

First – What is Confirmation Bias?

In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions …

… and to irrationally avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs.

What this means is that people tend to do and believe what they really want to do and believe, and then rationalize it afterwards.

Just off the top of my head, here are a few of the numerous anti-Kindle ‘issues’ raised recently -

1. Kindle account closed because of too many returns (of electronic goods). 
2. The current 1984 george orwell fiasco. 
3. The number of downloads limited fiasco.  
4. The Kindle Books contract is too limiting.

People ‘warning’ users about Kindle are basically giving Amazon free publicity. People read the report and make up their own minds on whether Amazon acted fairly or unfairly.

An example of Confirmation Bias

One great example of this is where Cory Doctorow wrote on Boing-Boing about how messed up Amazon’s Kindle contract is. He quoted someone named Celia -

Celia sends us “an annotated copy of the Kindle contract. Based on my decidedly non-lawyerish interpretation of this contract and the annotations, I think it says that Amazon now owns everything it wants to own, and you’re out of luck if you don’t like that.”

A few lawyers added these comments -

#3 posted by thebestthing, July 9, 2009 1:24 PM

Haven’t looked at the full contract, but the excerpt quoted above is a standard assignment clause. I’m a lawyer and I insert that clause (or something similar in substance to it) in nearly every contract I draft. Seems fair to me.

#4 posted by william, July 9, 2009 2:01 PM

I’m always glad to bag on large corporations, but I don’t see the problem here …

You’re letting them distribute your book. They want to be able to sell their e-books business without having to track down eight zillion sellers and renegotiate. They’re saying that you can transfer your rights to somebody else as long as you notify them.

People who are attacking amazon on grounds that are personally important to them are just providing publicity, especially if their facts are wrong (the geardiary post, and the above example) or if their beliefs are not shared by the readers.

To the ordinary user - what matters much more than actual and perceived kindle flaws is value. 

People who get value from the Kindle will still buy it

If someone loves to read, and finds a Kindle valuable they’ll still buy it -

1. Every single article attacking the Kindle creates awareness of the Kindle.
2. At that point people use their own brains and beliefs to make a decision.

The Internet is not TV where you can put a supermodel next to your product and the world’s ugliest dog next to your competitor’s product and brainwash people.

1. If customers feel that the Kindle is a good fit for them, they then buy it.
2. They buy a Kindle even if the first time they got to hear of it, it was because Person X was decrying its use of DRM.

The only effective way of hurting the Kindle is indifference. Thankfully for Amazon, most anti-Kindle sites and people won’t figure that out for a few years.

Friggatriskaidekaphobia, or Fear of Friday the 13th, is a term coined by phobia specialist Donald Dossey. As a phobia, it connotes an irrational fear that can be extreme enough to affect one’s behavior, possibly afflicting from 17 to 21 million Americans, and in a milder form is one of the most prevalent and common superstitions in the U.S, held by about 10% of the population.

It is a combination of fear of Friday, and fear of the number 13 (triskaidekaphobia), and like most superstitions is supported primarily by confirmation bias, by which believers look for confirming evidence and dismiss disconfirming evidence as the exceptions that prove the rule. Friday is considered by many to be an unlucky day, as it was traditionally hangman’s day, and Friday is associated with the crucifiction of Jesus by the Romans. The number 13 is associated with the number of those attending the Last Supper, and in Norse mythology with the crashing of a banquet of 12 Norse gods by Loki, god of mischief, making him the 13th.

It is not inconceivable that belief in this superstition could result in anxiety, in turn leading to changes in behavior on Friday the 13th, resulting in the well-established phenomenon of the self-fulfilling prophecy, and therefore more accidents happening then, but most studies undertaken so far have shown no significant effect independent of belief.

Richard Wiseman, in his book, The Luck Factor, did a ten-year study of the effects of belief in luck on personal achievement, and found that people make their own luck: lucky people think of themselves that way, and conversely for unlucky people, who are more prone to believing in bad-luck superstitions. Again, the self-fulfilling prophecy is at work, this time though with a real effect.

In recent years, skeptics have held Friday the 13th parties, in which they and their friends intentionally violate as many superstitions as possible; breaking mirrors, walking under ladders, etc. Since none have come to harm during these events it seems reasonable to conclude that except for movies with characters like Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th is nothing to really worry about after all, unless, of course, you believe that it is…

(Last Updated 21:05, 11/19/2009)