Faith and confirmation bias

The fallacy called confirmation bias occurs when we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs (or what we want to believe), and ignore, discredit, or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence - evidence that goes against what we wish to believe. Confirmation bias is one prominent example of the phenomenon called 'wishful thinking', and when taken to an extreme results in 'subjective validation' - becoming so irrationally certain of one's beliefs (through confirmation bias) that one cannot even entertain any doubt that one could be wrong - even though you are!

It turns out that a reseracher at my alma mater, Emory University, named Drew Westen led a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study that shows where in the brain the confirmation bias arises and how it is unconscious and driven by emotions. In Scientific American, Michael Shermer explains and expands upon the study, which revealed how the brain suppresses the rational, reasoning portion of the brain in favour of emotions that reinforce confirmation bias. As Shermer puts it:

"During the run-up to the 2004 presidential election, while undergoing an fMRI bran scan, 30 men--half self-described as "strong" Republicans and half as "strong" Democrats--were tasked with assessing statements by both George W. Bush and John Kerry in which the candidates clearly contradicted themselves. Not surprisingly, in their assessments Republican subjects were as critical of Kerry as Democratic subjects were of Bush, yet both let their own candidate off the hook.

The neuroimaging results, however, revealed that the part of the brain most associated with reasoning--the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex--was quiescent. Most active were the orbital frontal cortex, which is involved in the processing of emotions; the anterior cingulate, which is associated with conflict resolution; the posterior cingulate, which is concerned with making judgments about moral accountability; and--once subjects had arrived at a conclusion that made them emotionally comfortable--the ventral striatum, which is related to reward and pleasure."

Westen's own summary went as follows:

"Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."

In other words, faith - in the form of confirmation bias - is emotionally rewarding and hence comfortable for us humans; seeking the truth, with its uncomfortable possibility (indeed, probability, for the usual human) that we could be wrong about what's important to us, that our foundational beliefs could be all wrong, that what our parents and society and pastors and friends have all proclaimed for years and years could all be wrong - no, it is most certainly not a recipe for short-term emotional well-being.

But in the long run, it's the truth, and nothing but the truth, that shall set us free - and so we must resist the soft seductions of faith. Advertisers, politicians and other charlatans take advantage of our limited rationality, with its confirmation bias and other cognitive imperfections - all these ways in which we are closer to the rest of the animal kingdom, rather than appealing to what is highest and best in us. If we last long enough, one day this too shall end - the truth shall set us all free.

IF we last long enough....