How Did Confirmation Bias Evolve?

[Mr. Scott]

You don't get the way evolution most likely works.

How do you know what I get and don't get? I'm asking provocative questions at the edge between the ordinary and the mysterious and on occasion playing devils advocate. You don't get the way Mr. Scott most likely works.

I've always found it mysterious that many people would rather appear right than actually be right. I've encountered too often people who use smoke and mirrors to make them seem to be successes to delay being outed as failures.

However, in our society, competency in many areas often reduces our fitness to reproduce, like careers that so dominate one's life that one avoids reproduction altogether. Then there are genes for delusional proximate mechanisms like "gotta make babies no matter what the costs" that may indeed spread faster than genes for more rational thinking.

Having the right answers about how to eat, find mates, increase your status, and raise your offspring has to have a reproductive advantage. Holding on to the wrong answers has to have a disadvantage in conflict with the advantage of saving face, so I see at as an example of competing genes within the species and/or individual.

I do indeed get how genes for stupid delusional (and fraudulent) woo may spread better than genes for rationality.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Are other animals afflicted with confirmation bias?

New question:

Do other animals have confirmation bias? Other higher primates? How could a hypothesis that non-human animals have confirmation bias be confirmed or falsified? What test could we invent for, say, a canine or feline subject?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I do indeed get how genes for stupid delusional (and fraudulent) woo may spread better than genes for rationality.

How do you account for woo-to-rational (or vise versa) conversions if these things are genetic traits?

At best you're talking about a predisposition to a particular way of thinking--it's not hard-wired like hair or eye color.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Sociobioligy of Confirmation Bias

How do you account for woo-to-rational (or vise versa) conversions if these things are genetic traits?

At best you're talking about a predisposition to a particular way of thinking--it's not hard-wired like hair or eye color.

No. Generally speaking, in higher mammals, genes that affect behavior do so with proximate mechanisms that ordinarily push them towards reproductive advantage but can be overruled by contingencies, conflicting tendencies, rational reassessments, etc.

Here's an excerpt from wiki's article on sociobiology which explains a bit of what I'm trying to get across:

the proximate mechanism (e.g., brain anatomy and hormones).
Sociobiologists are interested in how behaviour can be explained logically as a result of selective pressures in the history of a species. Thus, they are often interested in instinctive, or intuitive behavior, and in explaining the similarities, rather than the differences, between cultures. For example, mothers within many species of mammals – including humans – are very protective of their offspring. Sociobiologists reason that this protective behavior likely evolved over time because it helped those individuals which had the characteristic to survive and reproduce. Over time, individuals of species that did not exhibit such protective behaviors likely lost their offspring and ultimately died out. In this way, the social behavior is believed to have evolved in a fashion similar to other types of nonbehavioral adaptations, such as (for example) fur or the sense of smell. Sociobiologists may therefore argue that the evolutionary mechanism behind the behavior is genetic.

For example, a mother who accurately evaluates threats to her offspring will surely pass on her genes better than one that goes with her first impression about a threat and repels evidence that she's wrong. Ergo Confirmation Bias should be selected against. My question form the OP was: Why isn't it?

I don't have a problem with the possibility that there was a genetic mutation that sent a nerve cell from the cluster that registered "I'm ignoring what isn't consistent with what I know" to the cluster that generates pleasure. Such a connection won't mean that woo is as inevitable as eye color, and suggesting it doesn't imply I think evolution is deterministic. I bet that genetic mutations are sending nerve cells in all kinds of weird directions. The connections that result in reproductive advantage stay, the ones that don't many stay around if they're harmless or go away if they are harmful. It could mean that we'd tend to be wooish (because it "feels right") unless our higher brain is able to process how the woo is silly and won't get the results we want.

 

[robinson]

Worst topic ever.

 

[Mr. Scott]

Worst topic ever.

Why?

 

[Dancing David]

How do you know what I get and don't get? I'm asking provocative questions at the edge between the ordinary and the mysterious and on occasion playing devils advocate. You don't get the way Mr. Scott most likely works.

I've always found it mysterious that many people would rather appear right than actually be right. I've encountered too often people who use smoke and mirrors to make them seem to be successes to delay being outed as failures.

And where does it intersect with reproductive success? That would be the rub for evolution. The issues you are talking about might not be genetically determined in the sense that they would be a part of natural selection. There are so many ways that the brain generates the perceptions that confirmation bias could just be a byproduct of the structure of the brain.

However, in our society, competency in many areas often reduces our fitness to reproduce, like careers that so dominate one's life that one avoids reproduction altogether.

If you can make a baby then you can pass on your genetic material. That doesn't have much to do with success at work. Your children can live in squalor as long as they end up reproducing.

Then there are genes for delusional proximate mechanisms like "gotta make babies no matter what the costs" that may indeed spread faster than genes for more rational thinking.

That is a very specific behavior that would be unlikely to be coded into the genome. And I am not sure that is an appropriate use of delusional. Are you sure there could not be a beneficial trait that it is associated with?

Having the right answers about how to eat, find mates, increase your status, and raise your offspring has to have a reproductive advantage. Holding on to the wrong answers has to have a disadvantage in conflict with the advantage of saving face, so I see at as an example of competing genes within the species and/or individual.

Only when it directly impacts the act of reproduction. So putting babies in the oven would be a bad trait. Believing that George Bush is the Emperor of Mars would not.

And most specific behaviors are not coded in the genome. There are overall patterns of the way the brain works and grows.

There is benefit to seeing the trees and dogs and lions. There is benefit to seeing the patterns of where these things and food occur. Our brains acts like matching machines, searching for and generating patterns. It is likely that this beneficial pattern of the way the brain works can also create perceptual patterns where they don't exist (confabulation of the material in the blind spot) so it is likely that this pattern producing machine will generate patters that have less external validity than others.

So to say that there would be a specific benefit to holding a false belief in the face of evidence would come down to:
Does holding this false belief impact reproduction?
A belief in god is not usually going to effect reproduction. A belief in spirits is generally not going to effect reproduction. A belief that turning three times to the left every morning wards off illness is not going to effect reproduction.

But the benefit of being able to see colors, patterns of where food grows, predators hang out and when other humans are pissed off might have reproductive benefit even if it leads to frequent false positives.

I do indeed get how genes for stupid delusional (and fraudulent) woo may spread better than genes for rationality.

Again that would be hard to show, how does being stupid lead to the act of reproduction? The desire to have sex, the rewards of sexual behavior lead to success in reproduction.

How would being stupid lead to reproduction?

 

[Dancing David]

New question:

Do other animals have confirmation bias? Other higher primates? How could a hypothesis that non-human animals have confirmation bias be confirmed or falsified? What test could we invent for, say, a canine or feline subject?

Would other animals running from the shadow of a kite because they think it is a hawk count?

I think that is the kind of mechanism at work, a stimulus that looks like another stimulus is responsded to.

or when a fish eats a fishing lure?

 

[Jeff Corey]

Would other animals running from the shadow of a kite because they think it is a hawk count?

I think that is the kind of mechanism at work, a stimulus that looks like another stimulus is responsded to.

or when a fish eats a fishing lure?

Those are examples of stimulus generalization. I think a better example might be Skinner's "Superstition" in the Pigeon, and that's a stretch.

The striking aspects of Wason's demonstration of confirmation bias are that it is so strong, hard to unlearn and occurs in cases where there is no emotional commitment to the statement being tested.
About 90% of people tested on the 4 card problem get it wrong. Many students still get it wrong after it has been explained repeatedly and some skeptics argue about the correct answer. And who could have any emotional baggage attached to "All cards with a vowel on one side have an even number on the other"?

 

[Michael C]

To go back to the OP:

The particular aspect of Confirmation Bias which I think is remarkable is this: It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs (explaining why woos take on skeptics here with addictive persistence).

I don't find this surprising. It just shows that people like being right. It's obviously an evolutionary advantage to have a good feeling if you really are right - you'd not be much use if you felt sad and let down in this situation. Confirmation bias is no more than an exaggeration of this useful behaviour.

Another parable with the cave people:

Two mothers, Ai-no and Da-ut, see a sabre-toothed tiger for the first time. They watch the strange animal as it approaches the group of playing children, then snatches a child and eats it. Their reactions are different:

- Ai-no immediately deduces that all animals like this one are dangerous child-eaters.

- Da-ut simply draws the conclusion that this particular tiger may sometimes eat a child.

A few days later they see a very similar tiger (maybe it's the same one, maybe not) not far from the group of children. Ai-no immediately snatches up her own child and runs into the cave. Da-ut says

- "We need more data on this question. Maybe this animal could be useful to us?"

and moves towards the group of children. The tiger pounces on her and eats her.

OK, it's a silly story. We could go on making up stories where confirmation bias is either helpful or unhelpful in the battle for survival. In fact, I doubt if it plays a big role at all.

 

[robinson]

"It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"

I keep wondering why such an outrageous claim as this hasn't been challenged. It is such a earth shattering scientific discovery, on so many levels. But is there a shred of truth in it?

I mean, isn't it obvious that such an amazing phenomenom has immense value? I simply ignore some evidence that challenges a strong belief, and I am high as a kite! Pleasure center stimulation baby! Whoo Hoo! Fantastic.

In fact, because I don't believe that claim for a second, I must be experiencing intense pleasure right now! How cool is that?

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I'd mostly underscore what Dancing David said. You've yet to show that Confirmation Bias is an inherited trait (i.e. that it affects reproductive success either way), so looking for theoretical models to explain why it helps or hurts is putting the cart before the horse.

For comparison: I think it's a fair assumption that pareidolia is related to humans' face-recognition (and more generally pattern recognition) skills. Those abilities were probably selected for, and NOT the ability to see Jesus in a tortilla or unicorns in the clouds. So if you were to ask how pareidolia could have evolved, I'd say it didn't.

New question:

Do other animals have confirmation bias? Other higher primates? How could a hypothesis that non-human animals have confirmation bias be confirmed or falsified? What test could we invent for, say, a canine or feline subject?

I don't know that anyone's looked at it--even in humans really. Is there a questionnaire or "tool" for measuring the presence of confirmation bias in humans?

In non-human animals, I think the closest you can come is something that stands in for it. I don't think anyone's done any work on that or anything very similar, but I'm pretty out-of-touch. I am familiar with some older work that talks about proto-language, pattern recognition, deception, self-awareness, and other aspects of non-human (mostly primate) animal cognition.

Check out Cheney & Seyfath's work with vervet monkeys. I also read a decent book called Animal Minds, by Donald R. Griffin (based on research from the '80s and '90s I'm afraid).

 

[Mr. Scott]

"It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"

I keep wondering why such an outrageous claim as this hasn't been challenged. It is such a earth shattering scientific discovery, on so many levels. But is there a shred of truth in it?

Westen, Drew; Kilts, C., Blagov, P., Harenski, K., and Hamann, S. (2006). "The neural basis of motivated reasoning: An fMRI study of emotional constraints on political judgment during the U.S. Presidential election of 2004.". Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Shermer, Michael (July 2006). The Political Brain. Scientific American.

Emory University Health Sciences Center (2006-01-31). Emory Study Lights Up The Political Brain. Science Daily.

 

[robinson]

Where is there any evidence that "ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"?

 

[kellyb]

The mechanism behind confirmation bias is probably useful, and a little excess probably doesn't hurt enough to be selected against.

 

[blutoski]

I'd mostly underscore what Dancing David said. You've yet to show that Confirmation Bias is an inherited trait (i.e. that it affects reproductive success either way), so looking for theoretical models to explain why it helps or hurts is putting the cart before the horse.

It's like dealing with healthfraud: how does homeopathy work? (not does homeopathy work), how does spinal adjustment cure whooping cough? (not does spinal adjustment cure whooping cough).

A child was able to show that the question "How does a Therapeutic Touch practitioner manipulate the human energy field," must wait until "Does a Therapeutic Touch practitioner manipulate the human energy field?" is answered.


Skeptics know this problem by a formal name: "Loaded question." eg:

• When did you stop beating your wife?
• How does homeopathy work?
• How does telepathy work?
• How does water witching work?
• Why are black people genetically inferior?
• How did confirmation bias evolve?

 

[kellyb]

It's like dealing with healthfraud: how does homeopathy work? (not does homeopathy work), how does spinal adjustment cure whooping cough? (not does spinal adjustment cure whooping cough).

A child was able to show that the question "How does a Therapeutic Touch practitioner manipulate the human energy field," must wait until "Does a Therapeutic Touch practitioner manipulate the human energy field?" is answered.

But it's more or less a universal trait among humans, isn't it?
It's just part of how we humans think?
I mean, I doubt dogs and cats do it. They can't.
So it sort of has to be hereditary, right?

 

[blutoski]

But it's more or less a universal trait among humans, isn't it?
It's just part of how we humans think?
I mean, I doubt dogs and cats do it. They can't.
So it sort of has to be hereditary, right?

Who knows? What if animals do explore their environments with a confirmation bias? That won't tell us whether it's an evolved trait - they could learn it during their lifetimes via trial-and-error.

I'm not comfortable filling in the knowledge gap by fiat. I have no reservation about rephrasing the question to: "if we were to discover that confirmation bias is inherited, what would be a possible explanatory mechanism to drive this feature?"

But that would bring us to the obvious fact that we don't have enough information to answer the question. One thing we know about heritable features is that the more beneficial they are, the more times they show up independently. For example, sickle-cell anemia and Tay-Sach's have dozens of independent origins. The population specificity, timing, and abundance of these mutations leads us to understand the forces that preserved and amplified them in the population.

I would be very happy to be presented references that show that the trait is inherited. In the meantime, the topic should be "How could we identify whether this trait is inherited, rather than learned?"

This is a question that scientists have wrestled with for a long time, and I'm not sure that it's resolved to the level of satisfaction to move on to the explanatory stage.

 

[Elind]

The particular aspect of Confirmation Bias which I think is remarkable is this: It's been found that ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs (explaining why woos take on skeptics here with addictive persistence).

However, isn't there an advantage to being the one with the right belief -- to correcting a belief you find evidence is wrong?

My guess would be that it has leadership benefit. People don't follow those who change their minds based on evidence. Evidence that the followers likely don't know about or can understand. They don't want truth, they want guidance (see religion). That can be applied to the leader of the clan, or to daddy who uses it on the wife and kids.

 

[kellyb]

Who knows? What if animals do explore their environments with a confirmation bias? That won't tell us whether it's an evolved trait - they could learn it during their lifetimes via trial-and-error.

But if an animal learned it via trial and error, it would still technically be inherited. The nature to test a theory by looking for a patterns would be an inherited trait. And actually, come to think of it, a lot of animals probably do do it on some very basic level. It seems like it would just be a by-product of intelligence and curiosity, which are very much genetic.