deepstash

Beta

5 Reasons It's So Hard To Think Like A Scientist

We’re swayed by anecdotes

Most of us are influenced more powerfully by personal testimony from a single person than by impersonal ratings or outcomes averaged across many people. This is the power of anecdote to dull our critical faculties.

Anecdotal stories can undermine our ability to make scientifically driven judgements in real-world contexts.

49 SAVES

This is a professional note extracted from an online article.

Read more efficiently

Save what inspires you

Remember anything

IDEA EXTRACTED FROM:

5 Reasons It's So Hard To Think Like A Scientist

digest.bps.org.uk

Key Ideas

We’re swayed by anecdotes

Anecdotal stories can undermine our ability to make scientifically driven judgements in real-world contexts.

We’re overconfident

We overestimate our comprehension of the science.

Part of the problem seems to be that we infer our understanding of scientific text based on how well we have comprehended the language used. This “fluency bias” can also apply to science lectures when it is delivered by an engaging speaker.

We’re seduced by graphs

It doesn’t take a lot to dazzle the average newspaper or magazine reader using the superficial props of science, be that formulas, graphics or jargon.

One study found that participants were far more likely to support new evidence when it had a graphic visualisation of the correlational evidence than if they had read the same evidence without a graphic.

Being smart isn’t enough

Even expert researchers suffer from the human foibles that undermine scientific thinking.

This is why the open science revolution occurring in psychology is so important: when researchers make their methods and hypotheses transparent, and they pre-register their studies, it makes it less likely that they will be diverted by confirmation bias (seeking out evidence to support their existing beliefs).

EXPLORE MORE AROUND THESE TOPICS:

The Backfire Effect: Why Facts Don't Always Change Minds

effectiviology.com

In a perfectly rational world, people who encounter evidence which challenges their beliefs would first evaluate this evidence, and then adjust their beliefs accordingly. However, in reality this is seldom the case. Instead, when people encounter evidence that should cause them to doubt their beliefs, they often reject this evidence, and strengthen their support for their original stance.

Key Ideas

The backfire effect

Is a cognitive bias and it means that showing people evidence which proves that they are wrong is often ineffective, and can actually end up backfiring, by causing them to support their o...

Why the backfire effect appears

People experience as a result of the process that they go through when they encounter information that contradicts their preexisting beliefs.

When people argue strongly enough against unwelcome information, they end up, in their mind, with more arguments that support their original stance.

Reducing other people’s backfire effect

If you’re trying to explain to someone the issues with their stance, you can mitigate the backfire effect by presenting new information in a way that encourages the other person to consider and internalize that information, instead of rejecting it outright.

one more idea

How to Think Like a Scientist

psychologytoday.com

Have you ever wondered how a scientist makes discoveries? Linda Gottfredson, a professor at the University of Delaware, shared the techniques she uses in her article Pursuing Patterns, Puzzles, and Paradoxes .

Key Ideas

Pursue what appears to be a paradox

It will force you to reexamine the full body of evidence with new eyes.

Seeking relevant knowledge in unfamiliar disciplines increases the odds of serendipitous insights and ...

Spot contradictions and novel patterns

Go on cross-disciplinary research expeditions.

By reading and translating the literature in fields outside your own, the full body of evidence surrounding a problem become apparent.

Focus on data and methods

Ignore the author’s conclusions.

When you are doing cross-disciplinary research what really matters is the structure of the full body of evidence rather than any authors’ particular interpretation of their data in one paper, which is often biased.

2 more ideas

Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong

vox.com

Julia Rohrer wants to create a radical new culture for social scientists. A personality psychologist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Rohrer is trying to get her peers to publicly, willingly admit it when they are wrong. To do this, she, along with some colleagues, started up something called the Loss of Confidence Project.

Key Ideas

Intellectual humility

It means being actively curious about your blind spots. It’s not about lacking confidence, or self-esteem. It’s about entertaining the possibility that you may be wrong and being open to learning f...

Why we need more intellectual humility

Our culture promotes and rewards overconfidence and arrogance;
At the same time, when we are wrong — out of ignorance or error — and realize it, our culture doesn’t make it easy to admit it. Humbling moments too easily can turn into moments of humiliation.

Our reality will always be an interpretation

Even if we might tell ourselves our experience of the world is the truth. Our interpretations of reality are often arbitrary, but we're still stubborn about them. Light enters our eyes, sound waves enter our ears, chemicals waft into our noses, and it’s up to our brains to make a guess about what it all is.

one more idea