Chapter 1:
Experimenting through research is supposedly the deciding factor in disproving or supporting a theory. So this would mean that research is completely scientific and unbiased, right? In reality though, this is not the case. A big problem that researchers face is confirmation bias, which is the tendency to pay more attention to evidence that supports a certain theory and to twist evidence that may contradict the theory.
Confirmation bias is a difficult obstacle to overcome because it is present in our everyday lives. We experience this type of bias when we are considering politicians for a position in office. Our preconceptions about the candidates make us view their mistakes as either horrible or forgivable depending on our previous opinions. Confirmation bias is also present when we are watching a game between two rival teams. Fans of the different teams could watch the same game and have completely different opinions about the performance of each team.
This idea is intriguing because confirmation bias is present in a variety of areas in our lives. This raises the question, how can anyone claim that a "fact" is truly indisputable? Because of confirmation bias it may be wise to reconsider some of the facts that we know today. It is possible that the reason they have not been disproven is that we have prejudices about these facts. We believe that facts must be true and therefore we disregard any abstract way of viewing evidence that could potentially disprove a fact.
