During election season people will argue fiercely for a point that they believe to be true, ignoring someone who believes just as strongly that the exact opposite is true. They are both committing Confirmation Bias. People make this mistake frequently when they consider only the evidence that supports a position they already believe. By ignoring evidence that disproves their belief, they are allowing themselves to remain ignorant of reality. Two people with opposing views who are both guilty of the confirmation bias will never be able to change each other's minds. Despite being able to see, and possibly even point out the other person making this mistake, they will not be able to see that the evidence they have collected has been collected through a filter of their own belief system. Filtering the truth through one’s own feelings about a topic will keep the whole truth from ever being revealed, it isn’t a reliable way to reason because a person isn’t being reasonable if they aren’t considering both sides of an argument. To avoid making this mistake, a person should always seek evidence that could disprove what they want to believe. They have to consider how much counter evidence it would take to make them change their mind on a subject and decide whether they are biased or not. When doing research, opinions have to …show more content…
Small scale harm is the countless students who do poorly in classes because they considered only the assignments they got high scores on, choosing to ignore the bad grades they got on assignments. In a more disastrous situation a person might only consider the number of times a person runs a red light and no one is hurt, and not take into account the number of times that people are seriously injured or killed by the same poor choice. A situation such as this could cause great lasting harm, all because someone chose not to consider a possibility that opposed the results that they