Overcoming Bias

Overcoming Bias is a group blog on the systemic mistakes humans make, and how we can possibly correct them. The primary contributors are Robin Hanson of George Mason University and Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Common topics include "cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, microeconomics, applied statistics, social psychology, probability and decision theory, even a bit of Artificial Intelligence now and then."

The complete list of Yudkowsky's posts on Overcoming Bias was compiled by Andrew Hay here.

A categorized list of Yudkowsky's posts moved from Overcoming Bias to Less Wrong is available at Less Wrong/All Articles.

Overcoming Bias Articles

Title	Author	Date	Summary
How To Join	Robin Hanson	2006-11-20	Description of OB and how to contribute.
Hide Sociobiology Like Sex?	Robin Hanson	2006-11-20	Should we teach children about self-interest explanations and sociobiology earlier?
Quiz: Fox or Hedgehog?	Hal Finney	2006-11-21	Discussion of Philip Tetlock's Fox/Hedgehog classification guide in Expert Political Judgement.
The Movie "Click"	Robin Hanson	2006-11-21	Is there a bias towards working hard and against spending enough time with family?
The Wisdom of Bromides	Nick Bostrom	2006-11-21	Biases may exist on an individual level, even if they cancel out on a group level, so even apparently contradictory bromides might highlight important types of failure.
Beware Heritable Beliefs	Robin Hanson	2006-11-22	Some opinions are highly heritable, so put extra scrutiny on those beliefs.
The Martial Art of Rationality	Eliezer Yudkowsky	2006-11-22	Rationality as martial art. Individuals should be able to train their mind like they train muscles.
A 1990 Corporate Prediction Market	Robin Hanson	2006-11-23	First known example of a market designed primarily to gain information from was created by Xanadu, Inc. in 1990.
Why Are Academics Liberal?	Robin Hanson	2006-11-24	Ratio of Democrats to Republicans in academia is 5:1 compared to roughly 1:1 in general populace. Is this due to intelligence and information, or social reasons?
Moral Overconfidence	Robin Hanson	2006-11-24	Students admit to cheating, lying, and theft, but 75% think they are more ethical than their peers.
What Exactly is Bias?	Nick Bostrom	2006-11-25	"A bias is a non-rational factor that systematically pushes one's beliefs in some domain in one direction."
Foxes vs Hedgehogs: Predictive Success	Hal Finney	2006-11-26	According to Philip Tetlock, foxes (a flexible, tentative cognitive style) are more successful than at forecasting. Hedgehogs do worse than a random guess.
To the barricades! Against ... what exactly?	Robin Hanson	2006-11-26	Even though bias might have a broader technical meaning, it is better to think of it as "cheaply avoidable error".
Asymmetric Paternalism	Peter McCluskey	2006-11-26	Paternalism to correct common biases and public choice considerations.
Why truth? And…	Eliezer Yudkowsky	2006-11-26	We seek the truth for intellectual curiosity, pragmatic reasons, and for its own sake, although there is danger in thinking a moral duty to be rational exists.
…What's a bias, again?	Eliezer Yudkowsky	2006-11-26	A bias is an obstacle to us knowing the truth. Biases are best defined by observed patterns of errors, not by an actual definition, because there are so many ways to be wrong.
Beware Amateur Science History	Robin Hanson	2006-11-27	Publicizers are often better known for a discovery than the actual innovator.
Surprisingly Friendly Suburbs	Hal Finney	2006-11-27	Areas with lower population density tend to be friendlier, contrary to popular belief.
Are The Big Four Econ Errors Biases?	Robin Hanson	2006-11-28	Bryan Caplan's work on voter irrationality identifies correlated errors, not biases. Public more skeptical of economics than physics experts.
Pascalian Meditations	Guy Kahane	2006-11-28	Attempts to reduce bias feasible, even though our cognition is limited. The desire to deduce bias is not itself a bias.
(In)cautious defense of bias	Paul Gowder	2006-11-28	Random error helps "evolutionary" development of truth. Bias needed to fight bias. Bias might generate beneficial self-fulfilling prophecies. Errors needed to exercise reason and debating skill.
Beware of Disagreeing with Lewis	Robin Hanson	2006-11-28	Disagreement in the philosophy of disagreement.
Thank you ma'am, may I have another?	Robin Hanson	2006-11-30	What do complaints by women signal?
Macro Shares: Prediction Markets via Stock Exchanges?	Peter McCluskey	2006-11-30	New security might function as a pure prediction market alternative.
The Onion on Bias: "Duh"	Robin Hanson	2006-12-01	Everyone knows local sport reporting is biased, but no one cares. What about other biases if they become widely known?
The Proper Use of Humility	Eliezer Yudkowsky	2006-12-01	Use humility to justify further action, not as an excuse for laziness, irrationality, or ignorance. Humility can be too easy to admit to.
Biases of Science Fiction	Robin Hanson	2006-12-02	Conflicts between good story telling and good forecasting.
Bias, Well-Being, and the Placebo Effect	Guy Kahane	2006-12-02	Self-deceptive illusions appear to make us happier.
Does Profit Rate Insight Best?	Robin Hanson	2006-12-03	Traders who make the most money in a prediction market might not be the best forecaster.
Future Selves	Hal Finney	2006-12-03	Time-inconsistent preferences and akrasia
Seen vs. Unseen Biases	Robin Hanson	2006-12-04	Seen biases might cancel out unseen ones, so partial debiasing might make us less accurate, although avoid using this as an excuse.
Bosses Prefer Overconfident Managers	Robin Hanson	2006-12-05	Bosses appear to interpret accurate estimates as a signal of incompetence.
Math Zero vs. Political Zero	Robin Hanson	2006-12-05	What does it mean if a study finds the effect of a small increase in the minimum wage to be near zero?
Reasonable Disagreement	Nicholas Shackel	2006-12-06	Some disagreements might be reasonable because of incommunicable evidence and insights.
The Wisdom of Crowds	Hal Finney	2006-12-06
Alas Amateur Futurism	Robin Hanson	2006-12-07
Leamer's 1986 Idea Futures Proposal	Robin Hanson	2006-12-08
Time on Risk	Hal Finney	2006-12-09
Agreeing to Agree	Hal Finney	2006-12-10
The Modesty Argument	Eliezer Yudkowsky	2006-12-10
Law as No-Bias Theatre	Robin Hanson	2006-12-11
We Are Smarter Than Me	Hal Finney	2006-12-11
Should Prediction Markets be Charities?	Peter McCluskey	2006-12-11
Do Helping Professions Help More?	Robin Hanson	2006-12-12
Ignorance of Frankenfoods	Hal Finney	2006-12-12
The 80% Forecasting Solution	Robin Hanson	2006-12-13
Fillers Neglect Framers	Robin Hanson	2006-12-14
Malatesta Estimator	Adrian Tschoegl	2006-12-14