Confirmation Bias « You Are Not So Smart
Everyone suffers from several types of built in cognition biases. Some of these attempt to match patterns where none exist and are somewhat hardwired into us by default from our social evolution. Among the hardest to recognize and overcome are your own instances of confirmation bias.
The examples above are a sort of passive version of the phenomenon. The real trouble begins when confirmation bias distorts your active pursuit of facts.
Punditry is a whole industry built on confirmation bias.
Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter – these people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing world-views.
If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn’t, you hate them.
Whether or not pundits are telling the truth, or vetting their opinions, or thoroughly researching their topics is all beside the point. You watch them not for information, but for confirmation.