Tag: biases
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Are Status Emotions Defensible as Character Judgments?
One major defense of status emotions like deference and disdain is that they count as judgments of a person’s character. We defer to experts because they have a history of being right; we disdain scoundrels because they have a history of cheating or misleading us. In this sense, status emotions are akin to other reactive…
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Hanson on doubt and justifying beliefs using markets
Robin Hanson channels and extends Thomas Reid: What can you do about serious skepticism, i.e., the possibility that you might be quite mistaken on a great many of your beliefs? For this, you might want to consider which of your beliefs are the most reliable, in order to try to lean more on those beliefs…
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Heuristics and Biases Bleg
I’m revamping my Critical Thinking syllabus, and I’m looking to ramp up the heuristics and biases section, perhaps to four or five weeks. Most of the material I’ve reviewed is either too technical or too simplistic, akin to the “memorize a list of fallacies” model. I’d like something a bit more in-depth, but I’m balking…
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The Science Fiction Industry Needs Reviewers, Not Awards
I was just reading this interesting takedown of the shortlists for the 2009 Hugo awards. Apparently, most of the books on the list aren’t very good. I only know two of the nominees for best novel, and one of them, Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, was actually read to my wife and I by the…