Best Theistic Arguments

[sdelsolray]

Yes, cognitive and emotional biases are prevalent in humans.  I believe it is important to learn how to identify their presence and to take appropriate action to mitigate, diminish or outright eliminate them once detected.

Generally speaking, the evidence seems to be that the majority of our biases cannot be so easily mitigated.

I agree that the process of (i) learning what a particular bias is and what it is not, (ii) identifying my use of that bias (this one is hard because the generation of it is generally subconscious), (iii) observing the emergence of the bias in consciousness in real time and (iv) taking control on that biased decision and attempting to mitigate the bias is hard work.

Let me give you a mundane example.  I have a home recording studio that I began building in about 1998, and I had some prior limited experience with recording music.  The information I gathered concerning analog to digital and digital to analog converters ("converters") was generally along the lines of, 'The expensive converters blow the cheap converters out of the water' or 'If you can't hear a marked difference you have tin ears'.  When I compared inexpensive converters with expensive converters I was convinced this was true.  I believed I heard a significant difference between them.  No surprisingly, I purchased expensive converters.

Fast forward several years and I learned about AB and ABX testing.  Basically, this is a scientific way to test that conclusion.  Put to these tests, I could not consistently tell the difference between the two, at least not enough to conclude one was better or different than the other.  I also learned, through this and other aural research, that there are differences among and between converters but the differences are subtle and generally exist in the analog stages of the converter circuits.

So, I changed my view on them and realized my thinking was infected with expectation and confirmation biases.  I mitigated those biases (as regards converters) and, as a side benefit, became a better listener (to music, not necessarily to anything else).