Miscellaneous

Failure and the Problem with Science

The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we already believe. Although we pretend we’re empiricists — our views dictated by nothing but the facts — we’re actually blinkered, especially when it comes to information that contradicts our theories. The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail — it’s that most failures are ignored.”

1 Comment

  1. This is a great article. I’m fascinated by the topic of how our biases operate – and Lehrer presents some research I hadn’t seen. That is, I knew about the “oh shit” process, but not the “delete key”.

    And I appreciated that Lehrer outlines some steps you can take to contain bias. Despite how prevalent the problem is, and how much awareness has grown about it – I don’t know of anyone who has ever taken any steps to reduce it.
    Who knows, maybe they are, and just not mentioning it.

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