Confirmation Bias and The Scientific Method I: How to Avoid Confirmation Bias

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For many researchers, modern science has become about getting results rather than asking questions. Results mean publications, and publications mean more funding.

However, results are not the objective of the scientific method, which involves proposing an answer to a question, designing experiments to determine whether the proposed answer is true or false, and objectively interpreting the results.

Nonetheless, the results-focused attitude to doing science is widespread, and it comes with a huge drawback—it encourages confirmation bias—making us prone to searching for evidence and interpreting findings to support proposed answers we believe to be true.

This episode of Listen In explores what confirmation bias is and how to avoid it.

Learn why confirmation bias is so common, how it creeps into our thinking, and how it degrades the quality of our experimental designs and findings.

You will come away from this tutorial with the tools needed to defend against confirmation bias, challenge what you believe, and reorient yourself from a results-focused outlook to a method-focused one.

Watch the full presentation here: https://events.bitesizebio.com/confirmation-bias-and-the/

Browse all episodes of the Listen In Series here: https://listen-in.bitesizebio.com/