The Scrutinator

Wired Magazine: Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up.

The reason we’re so resistant to anomalous information — the real reason researchers automatically assume that every unexpected result is a stupid mistake — is rooted in the way the human brain works. Over the past few decades, psychologists have dismantled the myth of objectivity. The fact is, we carefully edit our reality, searching for evidence that confirms what we already believe. Although we pretend we’re empiricists — our views dictated by nothing but the facts — we’re actually blinkered, especially when it comes to information that contradicts our theories. The problem with science, then, isn’t that most experiments fail — it’s that most failures are ignored.

Via Instapundit, with a very appropriate comment: "Wired Magazine unknowingly explains ClimateGate". At least the origins of ClimateGate (observer bias), if not the blatant fraud.

By The Scrutinator @ 11:34 AM  ::  0 comments

To [my cosmopolitan, progressive friends], my situation is far more sinister: I am the bane of their youth, the boogeyman of their politics, the very thing they left their small towns to escape. I am a Christian.

It's an open bigotry that would bring shame were it directed towards any other demographic. (At least that's one thing I took away. Read the whole thing for yours.) Another: courage is sorely in need. (I don't hold myself out as the model of courage, either.)

By The Scrutinator @ 10:20 AM  ::  0 comments

The fifedoms' food lines are ordered by loyalty: Report: Democratic districts received nearly twice the amount of stimulus funds as GOP districts

By The Scrutinator @ 9:12 AM  ::  0 comments