What is Confirmation Bias?

 According to ScienceDaily,

"Confirmation bias (or confirmatory bias) is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors."

It is the tendency of humans to notice and look for information that confirms their assumptions and filter out potentially useful facts and opinions that don't coincide with their preconceived notions. People search for the data to confirm what they believe. They are not ready to accept otherwise. Because deep inside they have their beliefs which was formed in the early stages of their lives. And it requires an incident that has a big impact or a convincing teaching to make them think otherwise.

Lets look into the life of Jack. Jack is a guy who believes on Jesus. He was born and brought up in a Christian family. He trusts Jesus is true and he is the son of God. He believes Jesus will help him in his difficulties. And ofcourse he attends church regularly. One day he cannot attend the church as he thought he may go partying on the same day to enjoy with friends. But while going he met with an accident. And on another day, friends called him for a party. But he said he is not coming, he want to go to church. And while going to church, he narrowly escaped from an accident. What Jack will think now? Ya he certainly believes Jesus did that. But ofcourse, he had accidents before while he went to church and had escaped from accidents when he went somewhere for partying. But his mind will interpret the incidents as he wishes to confirms his beliefs and make his beliefs stronger.

When a black cat crosses your path, all that going to happen bad will be confirmed as because of the cat. But actually the cat got nothing to do with someones lives. And you know, it got no super powers to control someones life. 

This failure of human mind to think rationally without bias, is the reason why people believing in religions blindly. The priests know how to play with words and make their believers trust them and follow their paths. Every incident happens in their lives is taken as data to believe in what they wish to believe. Every thing converges to that same point, that same belief. And gradually you will reach to a state where nothing can defy the belief in you. And you strongly believe that you collected the data without bias.

And this tendency is mostly seen in religious believers. They are either not interested in knowing the truth or when they do, they reaches the same answer every time they seek. They lost their ability to seek knowledge as they believe they got every answers from the Holy Book. Every questions has a one word answer for them and that is 'God'. They been injected with religious beliefs while growing up. 

And there are others who are not satisfied with what the religions can provide. They tries to learn new things. The answers from religions defy logics and reasoning and they find it ridiculous. They are always in search of knowledge. Most of them doubts the existence of super being. Thus creating the group, Atheists. Maybe atheists too show confirmation bias, but i think its much more in religious people. Because atheists are ready to learn everything. They are ready to know about religions as well as Science. That is the reason why they become atheist.

They know religion and they know Science. And out of the two, they chose Science.

Long live Dawkins