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Overcoming Bias is a group blog on the systemic mistakes humans make, and how we can possibly correct them. The primary contributors are Robin Hanson of George Mason University and Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Singularity Institute. Common topics include "cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, microeconomics, applied statistics, social psychology, probability and decision theory, even a bit of Artificial Intelligence now and then."

Overcoming Bias Articles

Title

Author

Date

Summary

How To Join

Robin Hanson

2006-11-20

Description of OB and how to contribute.

Hide Sociobiology Like Sex?

Robin Hanson

2006-11-20

Should we teach children about self-interest explanations and sociobiology earlier?

Quiz: Fox or Hedgehog?

Hal Finney

2006-11-21

Discussion of Philip Tetlock's Fox/Hedgehog classification guide in Expert Political Judgement.

The Movie "Click"

Robin Hanson

2006-11-21

Is there a bias towards working hard and against spending enough time with family?

The Wisdom of Bromides

Nick Bostrom

2006-11-21

Biases may exist on an individual level, even if they cancel out on a group level, so even apparently contradictory bromides might highlight important types of failure.

Beware Heritable Beliefs

Robin Hanson

2006-11-22

Some opinions are highly heritable, so put extra scrutiny on those beliefs.

The Martial Art of Rationality

Eliezer Yudkowsky

2006-11-22

Rationality as martial art. Individuals should be able to train their mind like they train muscles.

A 1990 Corporate Prediction Market

Robin Hanson

2006-11-23

First known example of a market designed primarily to gain information from was created by Xanadu, Inc. in 1990.

Why Are Academics Liberal?

Robin Hanson

2006-11-24

Ratio of Democrats to Republicans in academia is 5:1 compared to roughly 1:1 in general populace. Is this due to intelligence and information, or social reasons?

Moral Overconfidence

Robin Hanson

2006-11-24

Students admit to cheating, lying, and theft, but 75% think they are more ethical than their peers.

What Exactly is Bias?

Nick Bostrom

2006-11-25

"A bias is a non-rational factor that systematically pushes one's beliefs in some domain in one direction."

Foxes vs Hedgehogs: Predictive Success

Hal Finney

2006-11-26

According to Philip Tetlock, foxes (a flexible, tentative cognitive style) are more successful than at forecasting. Hedgehogs do worse than a random guess.

To the barricades! Against ... what exactly?

Robin Hanson

2006-11-26

Even though bias might have a broader technical meaning, it is better to think of it as "cheaply avoidable error".

Asymmetric Paternalism

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2006/11/asymmetric_pate.html

2006-11-26

Paternalism to correct common biases and public choice considerations.

Why truth? And…

Eliezer Yudkowsky

2006-11-26

We seek the truth for intellectual curiosity, pragmatic reasons, and for its own sake, although there is danger in thinking a moral duty to be rational exists.