Biased Reasoning Quotes

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

… people reject the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views.

No evidence is powerful enough to force acceptance of a conclusion that is emotionally distasteful.

There is no such thing as a convincing argument, although every man thinks he has one.

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.

Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do.

Richard Crossman ... has a gift, which is useful to teaching but fatal to politics, uncontrolled imagination. There is no side of an argument that he cannot see, and he can well argue that black is white. Once his mind starts working it runs away with him, and he is able to persuade himself of the truth of what he wants to hear. At the same time, with the arrogance of the intellectual, he suggests that anyone who disagrees with him is little more than an idiot.

When you know the answer you want, it is often all too easy to figure out a way of getting it.

But what a weak barrier is truth when it stands in the way of an hypothesis!

Progressives and conservatives alike lean, unconsciously, towards particular conclusions, and then scrabble around to rationalise those conclusions to themselves.

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.

You do not convince me. You rationalize your actions and because the result is favorable you become right.

I've always been more comfortable sinking while clutching a good theory than swimming with an ugly fact.

The reason facts don’t change most people’s opinions is because most people don’t use facts to form their opinions. They use their opinions to form their “facts.”

I don't question things that go against what I believe very much. But boy, the stuff that I really want to believe, I really question a lot.

If you have high IQ, you're really good at finding post-hoc arguments to support your feelings of truthiness.

I only use statistics to reinforce what I already think, or if it's something unusual.

Inclination snatches arguments To make indulgence seem judicious choice.

As soon as you hear a proposition, the creative brain in humans assumes for the moment that it's true, and starts trying to find evidence. It's what computer scientists in the old days used to call 'Fifo:' first in, first out. The first piece of information that gets in has a privileged position, even if it's misinformation.

There's nothing you can't prove if your outlook is only sufficiently limited.

You're either on team Republican or team Democrat, and it's the idea that one of these sides has a perfect record of being correct and is worth supporting on 100% of the causes. I find that kind of thinking extremely dangerous and very intellectually dishonest.

Every discussion which is made from an egoistic standpoint is corrupted from the start and cannot yield an absolutely sure conclusion. The ego puts its own interest first and twists every argument, word, even fact to suit that interest.

It is said that ridicule is the test of truth: it is never applied, but when we wish to deceive ourselves.

It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify our instincts.

We can learn from history, but we can also deceive ourselves when we selectively take evidence from the past to justify what we have already made up our minds to do.