Confirmation Bias and Me... And the Rest of the World

Unless you have been living under a rock or have better "IgnoreThis-Fu" than I, you know that recently the Supreme Court recently handed down a decision that would allow Hobby Lobby to not provide four different kinds of birth control without running afoul of ObamaCare.

And then all hell broke loose.

Depending on your favorite news source, this was either a great day or a day that will live in infamy.

Sigh.

What no one seems to have caught on to is that we have no REAL information on any of this.  We don't know what the fundamentals of the case are, we don't know what was offered by Hobby Lobby in the past, we don't know what they intend to offer in the future, and we have no way to know what the impact of this will be on their employees.

How could this be possible???

The "news" is not the truth.  Simple, really.

The definition of Confirmation Bias:

Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs. For example, if you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month. A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship between the full moon and accidents and other lunar effects.

http://www.skepdic.com/confirmbias.html - The Skeptic's Dictionary.

So why do I think this is important to ADHDers?  A whole lot of reasons.

ADHDers are often challenged by social situations and social commentary.   It isn't unusual for ADHDers to find themselves agreeing to things they don't really agree with.  The socially challenged ADHDer finds themselves "going along to get along".  Not good.

There are people now that I will not engage with at all.  Their bias has not allowed them to see that I am open to discussion- but within a few parameters.  My parameters are quite simple.  I would like to discuss the issues but not my religion.  I would like to have discussions that are based on fact, not assumption.

As an ADHDer, I fight a lot with just agreeing.  It would be so much easier..  But I would never remember who I agreed with or about what.

What I have learned lately is that I need to just shut up.  I need to keep to myself, not have an opinion.  Don't ask for confirmation, don't ask for proof, and don't ask for anything that will enable me to have an opinion based on anything but the vituperation and celebration around me.

And they think ADHDers are strange?