Sunday, December 19, 2010

Seeing what you want to see

There is a good Opinion piece in the November Scientific American, Fudge Factor: a look at Harvard science fraud case by Scott O. Lillienfeld. He discusses the problem of distinguishing intentional scientific fraud from confirmation bias, the tendency we have as scientists to selectively interpret data in order to confirm our own theories.

This is a good reminder that the easiest person to fool is yourself.

No comments:

Post a Comment

What is absolute temperature?

The concept and reality of absolute temperature is amazing. It tells us something fundamental about the universe, including physical limits ...