Problematic Judgments

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Problematic Judgments Cognitive Biases?????????
Mans mind is so formed that it is far more
susceptible to falsehood than to truth.
- Desiderius Erasmus (????,1466-1536)

• Suggested Reading
• How to Think About Weird Things, pp. 60-87.
• Further Reference
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_
  biases

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Topics

• Tests on Cognitive Biases
• Problematic Judgment 1 Probabilities / Chances
• Heuristic Bias Availability
• Problematic Judgment 2 Subjective Validation
• Confirmation Bias
• Denying the Evidence Bias
• Three More Cognitive Biases
• Correspondence Bias / Fundamental Attribution
  Error
• Heuristic Bias Representativeness
• Heuristic Bias Anchoring Adjustment

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Tests on Cognitive Biases??????

• ???????????
• ?? 1 ?????
• ?? 2 ???
• ?? 3 About Mary
• ?? 4 ?????????

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Problematic Judgment 1 Probabilities / Chances
(?? / ???)

• A man who travels a lot was concerned about the
  possibility of a bomb on board his plane. He
  determined the probability of this, found it to
  be low but not low enough for him, so now he
  always travels with a bomb in his suitcase. He
  reasons that the probability of two bombs being
  on board would be infinitesimal.
• John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy Mathematical
  Illiteracy and Its Consequences, p. 25.

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• How would you judge?
• ???? 3-11-15-27-30-38 ?? 1-2-3-4-5-6?
• ????????,??????!?
• ???? (Gamblers fallacy)
• ???? (The Birthday Problem)
• ??????????????????????????????????? 0.5?
• http//mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.birthdayprob.
  html

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• Many seemingly unlikely events are actually (even
  highly) probable.
• Prophetic dreams
• Around 250 dream themes per night
• Retrieval cues ????
• Thinking of a person, then receiving her call or
  hearing news about her.
• Aristotle It is likely that unlikely things
  should happen.
• ??????
• http//phil.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/wmkwok/science/file/
  small world.pdf

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• Email received on 24/1/2006
• Year 1981 1. Prince Charles got married 2.
  Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe 3.
  Australia lost the Ashes tournament. 4. Pope
  Died Year 20051. Prince Charles got married 2.
  Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe 3.
  Australia lost the Ashes tournament 4. Pope Died
  Lesson Learned? - the next time Charles gets
  married, someone warn the Pope.
• What do you think?

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• ?????????????
• Apart from many other problems (e.g. vague
  language see subjective validation), one major
  problem of these predictions is that they are
  vast in number, and hence some are likely to be
  accurate.

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Heuristic Bias Availability

• ?????? (availability heuristic)
• ??????(???????)????????
• ?? ?????????
• ????? (availability bias)
• ???????????????
• ??
• ??????????????
• ???????????
• ??1 ?????

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Critical Thinking Exercise A Coincidence or Not?

• ???38.5??? ?????????
• 2008?9?5???????
• ????????!??????????,??????????????,??38.5?????????
  ??????,??????????????????????,???1000??????
  ??????,???????????????,??????????

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• 9?2???1??,?????????????????,????????,????100????,
  ??????????,??????????,????????????????????????????
  ?,???????,?????1000??????

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Critical Thinking Exercise B Psychics
Predictions for 2002

• Task Review the predictions below and try to
  answer the following questions
• How accurate were they?
• If all predictions in this sample are false, is
  that strong evidence that psychics predictions
  are generally false?
• Can you give predictions for 2009 that have a
  good chance of being true?

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• Sources
• AA www.aquarius-atlanta.com/
• JC www.johncappello.com/
• GP www.globalpsychics.com/
• LD http//www.lyndadoyle.com/
• Terrorism
• Terrorists will resort to germ and/or chemical
  acts against the USA soon.The total losses from
  domestic terrorist acts in the USA will exceed
  the losses incurred on September 11, 2001. (LD)

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• at least two other major terrorist attacksmay
  occur Times Square on New Year's Eve and
  Chicagothe President and his family,
  particularly his wife. (AA)
• I see another big attack coming towards the US
  and one possibly in Britain. (AA)
• Osama bin Laden will turn on the people he has
  been leading and eventually be killed by these
  men before November of 2002. (AA)
• I feel that Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar will
  be found this year. (JC)

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• International Politics
• The United States shall maintain a focus on
  Afghanistan as it becomes an important country
  for the U.S. in the Middle East. (AA)
• I have had a vision that the State of Israel is
  stockpiling materials and purchasing land in
  another area of the world to start a second
  Israeli state.This new State will be kept secret
  for awhile longer and will be revealed in later
  years. (JC)

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• World Leaders
• There could be an assassination attempt on Bush
  late in the year. (GP)
• A new Pope will be elected within 12-16 months.
  (LD)
• U.S. Vice President Cheney will experience
  another major health crisis and may not survive.
  There is a strong possibility of one, perhaps two
  White House funerals. (AA)

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• Science and Medicine
• There shall be the first possible viable contact
  with an alien sapient species through SETI as
  they establish the existence of sentient radio
  waves coming from another planetary system. (AA)
• A new drug will be discovered that will equal
  Penicillin in scope and importance and the
  discoverera man with short white hairwill be
  awarded the Nobel Prize. (AA)

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• New uses shall be found for crystals and sand in
  the development of new methods for generating
  energy. (AA)
• Weather
• There shall be flooding in unusual parts of
  the globe and an Earthquake shall rock the
  eastern seaboard of the United States. (AA)
• Could these have failed to be true?
• Money will be asked for health care in all parts
  of the world. (GP)
• Anger, frustration and jealousies will lead to
  outbursts. (AA)

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• More references
• Psychic Predictions 2005
• A critique on psychic predictions for 2005
• http//www.csicop.org/specialarticles/predictions-
  2005.html
• The High Weirdness Project
• http//www.modemac.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Psychic_Pre
  dictions_for_2007
• http//www.modemac.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Psychic_Pre
  dictions_for_2008

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Problematic Judgment 2 Subjective Validation
(????)

• Our beliefs are not automatically updated by the
  best evidence available. They often have an
  active life of their own and fight tenaciously
  for their own survival.
• D. Marks R. Kammann (Weird Things, p. 56)

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• Common mistreatments of evidences by people with
  the problem of subjective validation
• Tend to ignore negative evidences to their
  subjectively preferred beliefs.
• Tend to exaggerate positive evidences to them.
• Tend to interpret vague evidences in an
  unreasonable way so that they seem to support
  them.

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???? Confirmation Bias
It is the peculiar and perpetual error of the
human understanding to be more moved and excited
by affirmatives than by negatives. - Francis
Bacon (1561-1626)

• ????????????,????????????
• ?? 2 ???
• ?? http//www.devpsy.org/teaching/method/confirma
  tion_bias.html
• ??
• http//skepdic.com/confirmbias.html

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(No Transcript)
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25

• ????????

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??????Denying the Evidence Bias

• ??? (Max Planck) ???
• A new scientific truth does not triumph by
  convincing its opponents and making them see the
  light, but rather because its opponents
  eventually die, and a new generation grows up
  that is familiar with it.

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• ?????? (Millerites) ???
• William Miller?1818?????? (the Book of Daniel)
  ?????
• ?1843-1844????????
• ??? ?????? (the Adventist movement) ??????? (the
  Jehovahs Witnesses)
• Weird Things, p. 61
• ??
• ???????
• ????????

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• Subjective validation example 1 The Forer Effect
• If told that a vague general personality
  description is written specifically about them,
  people tend to agree that the description is
  accurate!
• Vague description - allow many possible
  interpretations
• General description - true for many or even most
  people
• People notice aspects of themselves that match
  the description and ignore aspects that dont
• What about the following description?

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• Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty
  unrealistic. At times you are extroverted,
  affable, sociable, while at other times you are
  introverted, wary and reserved. You have found it
  unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to
  others. You pride yourself on being an
  independent thinker and do not accept others
  opinions without satisfactory proof. You prefer a
  certain amount of change and variety, and become
  dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and
  limitations. At times you have serious doubts as
  to whether you have made the right decision or
  done the right thing. Disciplined and controlled
  on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and
  insecure on the inside (Weird Things, p. 63)

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Critical Thinking Exercise Accurate Description?

• ??????????? 12??2007?????
• http//phil.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/wmkwok/science/file/
  2007_fortune.pdf

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• Subjective validation example 2 Prophecies (??)
• Similar problems, e.g.
• Exaggerate ve evidences while ignore ve ones.
• Biases in interpreting vague prophecies
• Case Study Nostradamus (???????, 150366)
• Wrote lots of very vague prophetic poems, to
  which Nostradamus experts have different
  interpretations.

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• Example the only one that contains an
  unambiguous date reference
• In the year 1999 and seven monthsFrom the sky
  will come the great King of TerrorHe will bring
  back to life the great king of the Mongols
  Before and after war reigns happily. (X 72)
• Some interpretations before July 1999
• End of the world
• World revolution
• An interpretation after July 1999
• Crash of John F. Kennedy Jr.s airplane!
• Other interpretations?

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• Another example
• From the human flock nine will be sent
  awaySeparated from judgment and counselTheir
  fate will be sealed on departureKappa, Theta,
  Lambda the banished dead err.
• Believers interpretation (after 28 Jan. 1986)
• Explosion of space shuttle Challenger
• 7, not 9 died!

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• Did Nostradamus predict the Sept. 11, 2001
  terrorist attack on New York?
• Some referred to these lines
• In the year 1999 and seven months From the sky
  will come the great King of Terror (X.72)
• At forty-five degrees the sky will burn. Fire to
  approach the great new cityIn an instant a
  great scattered flame will leap up,When one will
  want to demand proof of the Normans. (VI.97)

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• Convinced?
• 45? (New York is at 4047' N)
• Other criticisms?
• A better one?
• In the city of God there will be a great thunder,
  Two brothers torn apart by Chaos, while the
  fortress endures, the great leader will succumb,
  The third big war will begin when the big city is
  burning Nostradamus 1654

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• Suggested references Articles on Nostradamus
  from Skeptical Inquirer, e.g.
• The Antinoüs Prophecies A Nostradamoid Project
  
• May/June 2001, by Clifford A. Pickover
• The prophecies of Nostradamus are said to
  foretell events centuries in his future. Are the
  prophecies merely verbal ink blots to which
  humans "fit" events? Here's a test using random
  simulations.

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• Letters to the Editor
• Sept/Oct 2001, by Jean-Claude Pecker
• The poems of Nostradamus may describe past, not
  future events. They were written in coded
  French to avoid political consequences.
• Nostradamus's Clever Clairvoyance The Power
  of Ambiguous Specificity
• Sept/Oct 2003, by Maziar Yafeh Chip Heath
• How did a French astrologer, dead for over 400
  years, become a premier commentator on world
  events in 2001? The authors' research shows that
  Nostradamus's dark prophecies are ambiguous
  enough to "work" for events selected at random
  and even when they are scrambled.

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Three More Cognitive Biases

• Correspondence Bias (????) / Fundamental
  Attribution Error (??????)
• Heuristic Bias Representativeness (??????
  ???)
• Heuristic Bias Anchoring Adjustment (??????
  ?????)

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• ?????? (representativeness heuristic)
• ???????????????
• ??
• ????
• ????
• ????? (representativeness bias)
• ?? 3 About Mary

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• ???????? (anchoring adjustment)
• ??????????? (anchoring),?????????? (adjustment)
  ???????
• ? ????????????
• ?? ??????????
• ?? 4 ?????????
• ?????
• ???????
• ????????????

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Critical Thinking Exercise

• Do you have problems in judgments or cognitive
  biases?
• If no, are you sure?
• If yes, what specific problems? Do you think that
  your life would be significantly improved if they
  could be fixed?