Book contents
- Explaining the Evidence
- Explaining the Evidence
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 The Cliff Death
- Chapter 2 Models in Mind
- Chapter 3 Causal Modelling
- Chapter 4 Thinking beyond Biases
- Chapter 5 Expert Reasoning in Crime Investigation
- Chapter 6 Questions of Evidence
- Chapter 7 Competing Causes
- Chapter 8 Confirmation Bias
- Chapter 9 Telling Stories
- Chapter 10 Idioms for Legal Reasoning
- Chapter 11 Causal Reasoning in a Time of Crisis
- References
- Index
Chapter 8 - Confirmation Bias
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 October 2021
- Explaining the Evidence
- Explaining the Evidence
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Chapter 1 The Cliff Death
- Chapter 2 Models in Mind
- Chapter 3 Causal Modelling
- Chapter 4 Thinking beyond Biases
- Chapter 5 Expert Reasoning in Crime Investigation
- Chapter 6 Questions of Evidence
- Chapter 7 Competing Causes
- Chapter 8 Confirmation Bias
- Chapter 9 Telling Stories
- Chapter 10 Idioms for Legal Reasoning
- Chapter 11 Causal Reasoning in a Time of Crisis
- References
- Index
Summary
In Chapter 8 I look at the strategies that people use to gather and interpret evidence, focusing on the classic confirmation bias. I argue that this ‘bias’ covers various different strategies, some of which are reasonable, whereas others are genuine biases. One danger is when investigators misinterpret evidence and these errors cascade undetected through the evaluation process, distorting the evidence presented to the ultimate decision-makers. I argue that, without meta-level insight into the way evidence is gathered and assessed, we risk distorting the impact of that evidence, sometimes with disastrous consequences.
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- Explaining the EvidenceHow the Mind Investigates the World, pp. 172 - 185Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021