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On Science and Pseudoscience
ON SCIENCE AND PSEUDOSCIENCE JASON ROSENHOUSE Reviews of Science or Pseudoscience: Magnetic Healing, Psychic Phe- nomena and Other Heterodoxies, by Henry Bauer, University of Illinois Press, 2000, 275 pages, ISBN 0-252-02601-2 and The Borderlands of Science: Where Sense Meets Nonsense, by Michael Shermer, Oxford University Press, 2001, 360 pages, ISBN 0-19-514326-4 Is the line between science and pseudoscience set arbitrarily by an of- ten arrogant scientific elite? Henry Bauer, emeritus professor of chem- istry at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, believes that it is. While he does not claim that ESP, UFO’s, Bigfoots, cold fusion, or any other variety of fringe science is necessarily legitimate, he does claim that many of them might be. He further claims that science does itself a disservice when it allows a stifling orthodoxy to squelch offbeat ideas. Since many of the best ideas in human history began as heresies, we do well to be careful before passing judgment on anything. Bauer writes, “Comparisons between anomalistics and science as it is actually practiced will show that no sharp division can be established,” (7) “anomalistics” being a politically correct term for the study of bizarre claims. He is not impressed by the various checklists served up by philosophers for distinguishing science from pseudoscience. He points out, quite correctly, that not one perfectly distinguishes between the two. But Bauer is creating a false dichotomy. Science and pseudoscience are opposite ends of a continuum, not rigidly defined categories. Sub- jects like ESP are dismissed neither for their inherent absurdity nor for their inability to conform to an arbitrary set of philosophical criteria. -
Does It Hold Water?
Does it Hold Water? Summary Investigate logical fallacies to see the flaws in arguments and learn to read between the lines and discern obscure and misleading statements from the truth. Workplace Readiness Skills Primary: Information Literacy Secondary: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Secondary: Reading and Writing Secondary: Integrity Workplace Readiness Definition: Information Literacy • defining information literacy • locating and evaluating credible and relevant sources of information • using information effectively to accomplish work-related tasks. Vocabulary • Critical Thinking • Trustworthy • Aristotle, Plato, • Inductive Reasoning • Logic Socrates • Deductive Reasoning • Logical fallacy • Systems thinking • Cause-Effect • Process • Argument • Analysis • Propaganda • Rhetorical • Credible/non- • Infer vs. Imply credible Context Questions • How can information literacy set you apart from your peers or coworkers? • How can you demonstrate your ability with information literacy skills in a job interview? • How does information literacy and critical thinking interrelate? How do they differ? • How is good citizenship tied in with being a critical thinker? • How have you used information literacy skills in the past? • What are some common ways that information literacy skills are used in the workplace? • What news and information sources do you trust? What makes them trustworthy? • What is the difference between news shows and hard news? • Why is it important to be able to discern fact from opinion? • Why is it important to determine a credible from a non-credible source? • What are the characteristics of a credible/non-credible source? • What is a primary, secondary, and tertiary source? • What is a website domain, and what can it tell you about a site's potential credibility? Objective: To teach you how to determine whether media messages are factual and provable or whether those messages are misleading or somehow flawed. -
Logical Fallacies Moorpark College Writing Center
Logical Fallacies Moorpark College Writing Center Ad hominem (Argument to the person): Attacking the person making the argument rather than the argument itself. We would take her position on child abuse more seriously if she weren’t so rude to the press. Ad populum appeal (appeal to the public): Draws on whatever people value such as nationality, religion, family. A vote for Joe Smith is a vote for the flag. Alleged certainty: Presents something as certain that is open to debate. Everyone knows that… Obviously, It is obvious that… Clearly, It is common knowledge that… Certainly, Ambiguity and equivocation: Statements that can be interpreted in more than one way. Q: Is she doing a good job? A: She is performing as expected. Appeal to fear: Uses scare tactics instead of legitimate evidence. Anyone who stages a protest against the government must be a terrorist; therefore, we must outlaw protests. Appeal to ignorance: Tries to make an incorrect argument based on the claim never having been proven false. Because no one has proven that food X does not cause cancer, we can assume that it is safe. Appeal to pity: Attempts to arouse sympathy rather than persuade with substantial evidence. He embezzled a million dollars, but his wife had just died and his child needed surgery. Begging the question/Circular Logic: Proof simply offers another version of the question itself. Wrestling is dangerous because it is unsafe. Card stacking: Ignores evidence from the one side while mounting evidence in favor of the other side. Users of hearty glue say that it works great! (What is missing: How many users? Great compared to what?) I should be allowed to go to the party because I did my math homework, I have a ride there and back, and it’s at my friend Jim’s house. -
Conservatism and Pragmatism in Law, Politics and Ethics
TOWARDS PRAGMATIC CONSERVATISM: A REVIEW OF SETH VANNATTA’S CONSERVATISM AND PRAGMATISM IN LAW, POLITICS, AND ETHICS Allen Mendenhall* At some point all writers come across a book they wish they had written. Several such books line my bookcases; the latest of which is Seth Vannatta’s Conservativism and Pragmatism in Law, Politics, and Ethics.1 The two words conservatism and pragmatism circulate widely and with apparent ease, as if their import were immediately clear and uncontroversial. But if you press strangers for concise definitions, you will likely find that the signification of these words differs from person to person.2 Maybe it’s not just that people are unwilling to update their understanding of conservatism and pragmatism—maybe it’s that they cling passionately to their understanding (or misunderstanding), fearing that their operative paradigms and working notions of 20th century history and philosophy will collapse if conservatism and pragmatism differ from some developed expectation or ingrained supposition. I began to immerse myself in pragmatism in graduate school when I discovered that its central tenets aligned rather cleanly with those of Edmund Burke, David Hume, F. A. Hayek, Michael Oakeshott, and Russell Kirk, men widely considered to be on the right end of the political spectrum even if their ideas diverge in key areas.3 In fact, I came to believe that pragmatism reconciled these thinkers, that whatever their marked intellectual differences, these men believed certain things that could be synthesized and organized in terms of pragmatism.4 I reached this conclusion from the same premise adopted by Vannatta: “Conservatism and pragmatism[] . -
Bias and Critical Thinking
BIAS AND CRITICAL THINKING Point: there is an alternative to • being “biased” (one-sided, closed-minded, etc.) • simply having an “opinion” (by which I mean a viewpoint that has subjective value only: “everyone has their own opinions”) • being neutral and not taking a position In thinking about bias, it is important to distinguish between four things: 1. a particular position taken on an issue 2. the source of that position (its support and basis) 3. the resistance or openness to other positions 4. the impact that position has on other positions and viewpoints taken by the person Too often, people confuse these four. One result is that people sometimes assume that taking any position on an issue (#1) is an indication of bias. If this were true, then the only way to avoid bias would be to not take a position but rather simply present what are considered to be facts. In this way one is supposedly “objective” and “neutral.” However, it is highly debatable whether one can really be objective and neutral or whether one can present objective facts in a completely neutral way. More importantly, there are two troublesome implications of such a viewpoint on bias: • the ideal would seem to be not taking a position (but to really deal with issues we have to take a position) • all positions are biased and therefore it is difficult if not impossible to judge one position superior to another. It is far better to reject the idea that taking any position always implies bias. Rather, bias is a function either of the source of that position, or the resistance one has to other positions, or the impact that position has on other positions and viewpoints taken. -
Argument, Structure, and Credibility in Public Health Writing Donald Halstead Instructor and Director of Writing Programs Harvard TH Chan School of Public Heath
Argument, Structure, and Credibility in Public Health Writing Donald Halstead Instructor and Director of Writing Programs Harvard TH Chan School of Public Heath Some of the most important questions we face in public health include what policies we should follow, which programs and research should we fund, how and where we should intervene, and what our priorities should be in the face of overwhelming needs and scarce resources. These questions, like many others, are best decided on the basis of arguments, a word that has its roots in the Latin arguere, to make clear. Yet arguments themselves vary greatly in terms of their strength, accuracy, and validity. Furthermore, public health experts often disagree on matters of research, policy and practice, citing conflicting evidence and arriving at conflicting conclusions. As a result, critical readers, such as researchers, policymakers, journal editors and reviewers, approach arguments with considerable skepticism. After all, they are not going to change their programs, priorities, practices, research agendas or budgets without very solid evidence that it is necessary, feasible, and beneficial. This raises an important challenge for public health writers: How can you best make your case, in the face of so much conflicting evidence? To illustrate, let’s assume that you’ve been researching mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV in a sub-Saharan African country and have concluded that (claim) the country’s maternal programs for HIV counseling and infant nutrition should be integrated because (reasons) this would be more efficient in decreasing MTCT, improving child nutrition, and using scant resources efficiently. The evidence to back up your claim might consist of original research you have conducted that included program assessments and interviews with health workers in the field, your assessment of the other relevant research, the experiences of programs in other countries, and new WHO guidelines. -
Biases in Research: Risk Factors for Non-Replicability in Psychotherapy and Pharmacotherapy Research
Psychological Medicine, Page 1 of 12. © Cambridge University Press 2016 REVIEW ARTICLE doi:10.1017/S003329171600324X Biases in research: risk factors for non-replicability in psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy research F. Leichsenring1*†, A. Abbass2, M. J. Hilsenroth3, F. Leweke1, P. Luyten4,5, J. R. Keefe6, N. Midgley7,8, S. Rabung9,10, S. Salzer11,12 and C. Steinert1 1 Department of Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Giessen, Germany; 2 Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Centre for Emotions and Health, Halifax, NS, Canada; 3 The Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, NY, USA; 4 Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven, Klinische Psychologie (OE), Leuven, Belgium; 5 Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, UK; 6 Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA; 7 The Anna Freud Centre, London, UK; 8 Research Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, UCL, London, UK; 9 Department of Psychology, Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt, Universitätsstr, Klagenfurt, Austria; 10 Department of Medical Psychology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany; 11 Clinic of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Georg-August-Universität Goettingen, Göttingen, Germany; 12 International Psychoanalytic University (IPU), Berlin, Germany Replicability of findings is an essential prerequisite of research. For both basic and clinical research, however, low rep- licability of findings has recently been reported. Replicability may be affected by research biases not sufficiently con- trolled for by the existing research standards. Several biases such as researcher allegiance or selective reporting are well-known for affecting results. For psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy research, specific additional biases may affect outcome (e.g. -
Biennial Report 2012–2013
Biennial Report 2012–2013 Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene e.V. (IGPP) Freiburg im Breisgau Biennial Report 2012−2013 Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene e.V. Freiburg i. Br. Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene e.V. (IGPP) Wilhelmstr. 3a D-79098 Freiburg i. Br. Telefon: +49 (0)761 20721 10 Telefax: +49 (0)761 20721 99 Internet: www.igpp.de Prof. em. Dr. Dieter Vaitl (ed.) Printed by: Druckwerkstatt im Grün Druckerei und Verlagsgesellschaft mbH All rights reserved: Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene e.V. Freiburg i. Br., March 2014 Inhalt Preface ............................................................................................................ 1 1. History ........................................................................................................ 3 2. Research .................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Theory and Data Analysis ................................................................. 6 2.2 Empirical and Analytical Psychophysics ......................................... 12 2.3 Research Group Clinical and Physiological Psychology ................ 17 2.4 Cultural Studies and Social Research ............................................ 21 2.5 Cultural and Historical Studies, Archives and Library ..................... 25 2.6 Counseling and Information ............................................................ 33 2.7 Bender Institute of Neuroimaging -
An Introduction to Philosophy
An Introduction to Philosophy W. Russ Payne Bellevue College Copyright (cc by nc 4.0) 2015 W. Russ Payne Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document with attribution under the terms of Creative Commons: Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 International or any later version of this license. A copy of the license is found at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 1 Contents Introduction ………………………………………………. 3 Chapter 1: What Philosophy Is ………………………….. 5 Chapter 2: How to do Philosophy ………………….……. 11 Chapter 3: Ancient Philosophy ………………….………. 23 Chapter 4: Rationalism ………….………………….……. 38 Chapter 5: Empiricism …………………………………… 50 Chapter 6: Philosophy of Science ………………….…..… 58 Chapter 7: Philosophy of Mind …………………….……. 72 Chapter 8: Love and Happiness …………………….……. 79 Chapter 9: Meta Ethics …………………………………… 94 Chapter 10: Right Action ……………………...…………. 108 Chapter 11: Social Justice …………………………...…… 120 2 Introduction The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, my goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. I cover traditional theories of right action in the third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so. -
The Case of Sequential Testing James WB Elsey, Anna I. Filmer, Lott
1 Don’t Forget the Psychology in Psychological Analyses: The Case of Sequential Testing James W.B. Elsey, Anna I. Filmer, Lotte E. Stemerding Author Note Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands This manuscript was supported by salaries and departmental funding from the University of Amsterdam, and by Prof. Dr Merel Kindt's ERC Advanced Grant 743263. 2 Abstract Sequential testing enables researchers to monitor and analyze data as it arrives, and decide whether or not to continue data collection depending on the results. Although there are approaches that can mitigate many statistical issues with sequential testing, we suggest that current discussions of the topic are limited by focusing almost entirely on the mathematical underpinnings of analytic approaches. An important but largely neglected assumption of sequential testing is that the data generating process under investigation remains constant across the experimental cycle. Without care, psychological factors may result in violations of this assumption when sequential testing is used: researchers’ behavior may be changed by the observation of incoming data, in turn influencing the process under investigation. We argue for the consideration of an ‘insulated’ sequential testing approach, in which research personnel remain blind to the results of interim analyses. We discuss different ways of achieving this, from automation to collaborative inter-lab approaches. As a practical supplement to the issues we raise, we introduce an evolving resource aimed at helping researchers navigate both the statistical and psychological pitfalls of sequential testing: the Sequential Testing Hub (www.sequentialtesting.com). The site includes a guide for involving an independent analyst in a sequential testing pipeline, an annotated bibliography of relevant articles covering statistical aspects of sequential testing, links to tools and tutorials centered around how to actually implement a sequential analysis in practice, and space for suggestions to help develop this resource further. -
Subjective Logic Draft, 18 February 2013
Subjective Logic Draft, 18 February 2013 Audun Jøsang University of Oslo Web: http://folk.uio.no/josang/ Email: [email protected] Preface Subjective logic is a type of probabilistic logic that allows probability values to be expressed with degrees of uncertainty. The idea of probabilistic logic is to combine the strengths of logic and probability calculus, meaning that it has binary logic’s capacity to express structured argument models, and it has the power of probabilities to express degrees of truth of those arguments. The idea of subjective logic is to extend probabilistic logic by also expressing uncertainty about the probability values themselves, meaning that it is possible to reason with argument models in presence of uncertain or incomplete evidence. In this manuscript we describe the central elements of subjective logic. More specifically, we first describe the representations and interpretations of subjective opinions which are the input arguments to subjective logic. We then describe the most important subjective logic operators. Finally, we describe how subjective logic can be applied to trust modelling and for analysing Bayesian networks. Subjective logic is directly compatible with binary logic, probability calculus and classical probabilistic logic. The advantage of using subjective logic is that real world situations can be more realistically modelled, and that conclusions more correctly reflect the ignorance and uncertainties that necessarily result from partially uncertain input arguments. Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Elements of Subjective Opinions 7 2.1 Motivation . ............................................. 7 2.2 Flexibility of Representation . .................................. 7 2.3 The Reduced Powerset of Frames .................................. 8 2.4 Belief Distribution over the Reduced Powerset . -
Philosophy in Contemporary Time: Relevance Vs. Public Perception
Mgbakoigba, Journal of African Studies. Vol.6 No.1. July 2016 PHILOSOPHY IN CONTEMPORARY TIME: RELEVANCE VS. PUBLIC PERCEPTION C.O. Abakare & V.C. Okeke Abstract What is the relevance of philosophy in this contemporary time? Philosophy is viewed by many people as an irrelevant discipline- one of no social and/or practical significance. It is sometimes seen also as an abstract and drab enterprise fit only for the intellectuals. Overtime also, philosophy has come to be perceived as having enjoyed its relevance in the past and no longer has any relevance in this era of “science and technology”. However, certain questions arise: Given this perception, is philosophy actually of any relevance to the contemporary society? In practical terms, what are the roles of philosophy to society? Using the traditional philosophical method of analysis and exposition, this paper finds that philosophy plays and continues to play a vital role in contemporary society. The paper submits that philosophy is essential for an all- encompassing human development. As philosophy trains the human mind to reason correctly and rationally, the paper recommends a little bit of philosophy for all in the different levels of the educational sector. This proper training of the human mind with the tool of philosophy translates to human cum societal enhancement. Keywords: Philosophy, Contemporary, Reason, Public Perception, Societal Development Introduction Philosophy, as an area of study is nowadays attracting a lot of lack of patronage for the singular reason that it does not put “food on the table nor does it build bridges”. This is a manner of describing the common place opinion that philosophy is an abstract “speculative reasoning or exercise about cosmos or reality and thus has no direct relevance or contribution to make in practical issues of human existence”1.