Subconscious biases are ubiquitous and powerful. We all have them, so what are going to do about it? "Confirmation bias—probably the most pervasive and damaging bias of them all—leads us to look for evidence that confirms what we already think." theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…
Physicians are vulnerable to bias just like other humans and it can lead to diagnostic errors. "The culture of medicine has never been one that encourages discussion of physician vulnerability."
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This article details how researchers are blind to their own bias but can easily point it out in others, including when it comes to how receiving gifts from pharmaceutical companies affects decision making. cmu.edu/news/stories/a…
The results: Poorly designed trials published in prestigious journals. "Peer review is slow, expensive, profligate of academic time, highly subjective, prone to bias, easily abused, poor at detecting gross defects, and almost useless for detecting fraud." ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
And then the media too frequently runs with results without discerning good studies from bad, further imparting their biases to the narrative. I think gone are the days of objective reporting. allsides.com/media-bias/how…
I think that great harm comes at the cost of failure to recognize these biases, many of which are hardwired within us since childhood. It's way past time for a re-thinking of how we pursue the scientific advancement of our species.
