Overcoming Confirmation Bias on Guns: New at Reason

Confirmation bias is one of the great obstacles to making the practical case for liberty, laments Sheldon Richman. People see in events what they want to see.

When people look at statistics, confirmation bias always looms. It’s just too easy to explain any statistical results in terms of what social scientists call one’s “priors.” But now and again we encounter an example of someone who refuses to let confirmation bias stand in the way of learning the truth. The latest example comes from Leah Libresco, a statistician who used to write at the political data-analysis site FiveThirtyEight.

Libresco’s example is particularly noteworthy, writes Richman, because the issue she was considering was gun violence. If any issue is prone to confirmation bias, this is the one.

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