On (Scientific) Bias I

“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.” (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, 1887)

 “The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.” (Robertson Davies, “Tempest-Tost”, 1951)

“Men judge things according to the disposition of their minds, and had rather imagine things than understand them.” (Baruch Spinoza, “Ethics”, Book I) “Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” (Richard Feynman) [attributed to]

“But our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method’, with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots, is self-serving mythology.” (Stephen Jay Gould, “This View of Life. In the Mind of the Beholder”, “Natural History”, Vol. 103, No. 2, 1994)

“Numbers have undoubted powers to beguile and benumb, but critics must probe behind numbers to the character of arguments and the biases that motivate them.” (Stephen Jay Gould, “An Urchin in the Storm: Essays About Books and Ideas”, 1987)

“The classification of facts, the recognition of their sequence and relative significance is the function of science, and the habit of forming a judgment upon these facts unbiased by personal feeling is characteristic of what may be termed the scientific frame of mind.” (Karl Pearson, “The Grammar of Science”, 1892)

“It may be impossible for human intelligence to comprehend absolute truth, but it is possible to observe Nature with an unbiased mind and to bear truthful testimony of things seen.” (Sir Richard A Gregory, “Discovery, Or, The Spirit and Service of Science”, 1916)

“A scientist has to be neutral in his search for the truth, but he cannot be neutral as to the use of that truth when found. If you know more than other people, you have more responsibility, rather than less.” (Charles P Snow) [attributed to]

“Knowing that one may be subject to bias is one thing; being able to correct it is another.” (Jon Elster, “Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences”, 2007)

“Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.” (Linus C Pauling)