Beschreibung:
This book is intended as an introduction to a wide variety of biases affecting human cognition, with a specific focus on how they affect scientists and the communication of science. The role of this book is to lay out how these common biases affect the specific types of judgements, decisions and communications made by scientists.
Bias is a natural outcome of our thinking patterns. The nature of our cognitive processes leads to inherent limitations, resulting in predictable biases in both our own judgements and the interpretation of our communications by the public, by policymakers and even other scientists. This book will introduce the concept of biases arising from cognitive limitations and tendencies with a focus of the implications of this for scientists in particular. It begins with an initial quiz designed to demonstrate key biases – allowing readers to look back at the responses that they provided prior to reading about specific biases and thus see, without the impact of hindsight bias, whether they were susceptible to the effects.
Preface
Part I: Introduction
1. Pop Quiz
2. Anchors Aweigh
3. On Message
Part II: Biases in Judgement and Decision Making
4. Improbable Interpretation
5. Truth Seeking? Biases in search strategies
6. Same but Different
7. I’m Confident, You’re Biased
8. Subtotal Recall
9. Angels and Demons
10. Us and Them
Part III: Implications and solutions
11. Warp and Weft
12. Felicitous Elicitation
13. A River in Egypt
Part IV: Conclusions
14. The Field Guide