TBC: Actually, facts do care about your feelings

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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8 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    Or, “Selection Bias is a Thing”Report

  2. Road Scholar says:

    Also, the worst thing about the Dunning-Krueger effect is that — by definition! — you can’t know when you’re doing it.Report

  3. j r says:

    There are two ways in which to think about what a fact is. One is as something that is true rather than false. The other way is as something that can be proven either true or false. If you spend more time in the realm of the latter, the former will tend to take care of itself.

    One thing I see a lot, especially on internet discussions is that people really want to appear to be right, so they spend lots of time and energy constructing unassailable positions built mostly on tautological foundations. Those arguments do very well, so long as no one thinks to question the foundations. Once that happens, they tend to fall apart.

    If you to be right then you ought to spend an awful lot of time trying to prove yourself wrong.Report

  4. Damon says:

    Liked the sub header: “Pursuing objectivity requires being cognizant of your biases, not pretending they don’t exist.”

    Know a lot of reporters / writers that need to take this to heart.

    Besides, “the internet is wrong”Report