CF Dictionary · Knowledge & Epistemology
Bias
A systematic distortion in how you evaluate ideas. CF treats bias as universal but partially correctable.
Bias is a systematic distortion in how you evaluate ideas. CF treats bias as universal — everyone is biased about something — but partially correctable through Paths Forward.
Why CF cares about bias
If you're fallible and biased, you can't trust your judgment of which criticism is good. If your policy is "I'll listen to criticism that seems high quality to me," you'll systematically miss the criticisms you're biased against.
What bias looks like
- Dismissing criticism from people you don't respect.
- Trusting ideas from people you do respect.
- Anchoring on your first intuition.
- Filtering for confirming evidence.
CF's bias-handling methods
- Paths Forward — open protocols, not vibes.
- Objective reasoning — write it down; let strangers evaluate.
- Debate trees — public, organised.
- Automatized habits — practise to override bias for reasons (some habits resist bias).
- Peer review is itself biased — CF critiques traditional peer review as private, elite, biased gatekeeping.
The hard truth
CF acknowledges that not all bias is correctable. But the bias you can identify is the bias you can sometimes route around.
"Being biased without realizing you're biased is common." — criticalfallibilism.com