Falsity Finding Guide
GAINING A NEW PERSPECTIVE
Picking and choosing facts to support the hypothesis?
For example: Convincing yourself Santa is still real after you found the costume in your parent’s closet by saying he must have forgotten his clothes there.
JOKE: The scientist yells “JUMP!” at the frog and the frog jumps one meter. Then he cuts off one of the frog’s legs, yells “JUMP!” and the frog jumps half a meter. Then he cuts off another of the frog’s legs, yells “JUMP!” and the frog jumps a fifth of a meter. Then he cuts off a third leg, yells “JUMP!” and the frog does not jump. He yells “JUMP!” again, and the frog does not jump. “Aha!” he says. “I have my result!” So he carefully writes in his lab book: “When three legs are removed, a frog becomes deaf.”
Twisting the results to make them seem to be what you want them to be?
Steps to identifying scientific bias:
Ask, is the scientist....
Scientific bias is hard to visualize, but it can often follow the diagram displayed on the right. It begins with finding what you want your solution to be. Then, finding facts that support your conclusion and being rewarded in some way, usually in the form of money. However the reward can be in the form of other things as well from bragging rights, to scientific prestige and beyond.
