What causes bias? I don’t think it’s self. What else can it be?
Asking the real question here.
Uneven pitches and gravity?
When it entered English in the middle of the 16th century, “bias” meant an oblique or slanting line (a bias line), like the diagonal of a quadrilateral or the hypotenuse of a triangle, or a wedge-shaped piece of cloth cut into a fabric. It then came to be applied to the run of a bowl and hence “the construction or form of the bowl imparting an oblique motion, the oblique line in which it runs, and the kind of impetus given to cause it to run obliquely” (Oxford English Dictionary).
Shakespeare used the word eleven times in eight plays. For example, in The Taming of the Shrew (iv:6:25) he used it in its original literal meaning: “Well, forward, forward. Thus the bowl should run, And not unluckily against the bias.” And again, in Troilus and Cressida (iv:6:8), “Blow, villain, till thy spherèd bias cheek Outswell the colic of puffed Aquilon”. However, in most cases he used it figuratively, as in Richard II (iii:4:4): “Twill make me think the world is full of rubs, And that my fortune runs against the bias.” And in King John (ii:1:575): “Commodity, the bias of the world.” In this usage, the word means “an inclination, tendency, or propensity, and hence a predisposition, predilection, or prejudice”, the sense in which the word is most commonly used nowadays in general parlance.
It wasn’t until about the start of the 20th century that the idea of bias was introduced into statistics, defined as “a systematic distortion of an expected statistical result due to a factor not allowed for in its derivation; also, a tendency to produce such distortion” (OED). The term “distortion” here is particularly apt, since it comes from the Latin verb torquere, meaning to twist or turn to one side, just like a bowl does on a bowling green.
A Word About Evidence: 4. Bias—etymology and usage - Catalog of Bias
So Shakespeare seems to have placed the word as we now use it into our vocabulary. That’s pretty cool. And it took about 250 years after that to be introduced into mathematics.
Bro. stick to my question please. I asked it for a reason. Not to share memes or whatever.
Bro, you’re getting gold but you can’t appreciate it.
Bias Through History
Bowls are specially designed to follow a curved path because of their bias. Previously, this curved path was achieved by inserting weights in one side of the bowl.
Legend has it that the first biased bowl was built by the Duke of Suffolk in 1522; one of his bowls split and he mended it by using an ornamental ball from a bannister. Because one side of the bowl was flatter it followed a curving path in the end of its run.
Nowadays the use of weights is strictly forbidden. However bias is still an integral part of the sport and is achieved by the shape of the bowl, which is shaved down on one side, and with recent technical advances, the distance the bowl travels, and how sharp the bowls turns in, can be achieved by the shape given to the crown (running surface)The bowl will move in a curved motion towards the biased side, which is the larger/heavier side.
Indoor Bowls Equipment UK | The Principles of Bias.
Anyways,
What’s your reason?
Here you go. That’s what causes bias. Displaced center of gravity. You are welcome. 
Compared with some sports, lawn bowls is usually played in a state of calm fairness, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any bias involved.
The sport originated in England and dates back to the 13th century. It derived from boules, a group name given to games that involved tossing or rolling weighted balls towards a target, such as the popular French game petanque.
Bowls is played on a rectangular grass or synthetic surface. In simple terms, the object of the game is to roll your ball, or bowl, as close as possible to a small white target called a jack.
It sounds easy enough, but the critical aspect of the game is that the bowls are asymmetrically weighted, meaning they curve to one side while in motion. This is called the bias, and there is a great deal of complicated science to it.
The weighting is achieved by shaping rather than adding mass to the bowl, so that one side is larger - and therefore heavier - than the other.
This uneven weight distribution means the centre of gravity of the bowl is offset by anywhere between 0.75mm and 0.9mm.
Bowls: Overcoming the natural bias in bowls - NZ Herald
That’s nice, friend.
Bias is caused by the ego thinking it is right.
Bias:
prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair.
“there was evidence of bias against foreign applicants”
It has to do with worldview, if you believe that a certain group is ‘bad’ in some way then you won’t want to associate with them, and would treat them differently because of that belief.
Richard and Craig don’t have an ego. Yet they have shown tendency to hold on to views that fall apart upon scrutiny.
What keeps those views around even in the face of overwhelming evidence against your position? Self is the most likely culprit but neither Richard or Craig have Self.
I’d be interested to hear more about those views. How confident are you that it’s not your own bias?
Beyond that, there is a certain degree of inertia to the social ‘self’ after becoming free, given that the only way to correct one’s views is by experience. If one has 45 years of experience as an ego/self, it will take some time to have new experiences that can ‘overwrite’ that previous worldview
For example, let’s say I’m biased to be attracted to a particular kind of girl, and then I become free tomorrow. I may be likely to still be interested in that same kind of girl for awhile, just out of habit / I don’t have any particular reason to change. And then later over time I might have some new experiences that prove that view incorrect.
Because of being free, I’m much more able to ‘rewrite’ those views via experience, whereas an ego/self has a tendency to be able to completely ignore new information that doesn’t fit the worldview
I’m distinguishing holding onto a truism and holding on to an opinion that falls apart with in the, say, the 2nd counter-point of a rational argument.
Instead let me ask if you agree that actually free people can disagree on binary questions that do have mathematically consistent answers. If so what causes that disagreement? Why can one of the AF people refuse to break it down so the deductive answer is clear while still claiming to be deductive. And why can they dismiss the work the other has put into it?
Unfortunately rationality does not trump factuality/experience, as it depends on imagination.
Again I don’t know what the case of this discussion was, so I can’t speak too much about it. But if a biased individual attempts being rational, the bias could well stay intact.
I’m not sure what this means. Like a logic puzzle or something?
If it falls into reason/logic that is still a flawed system compared to actual experience. I can see how two free individuals might come to different conclusions via deduction/reason. A good example of this is Craig apparently still believing in God.
I can see this whenever the conclusions are based on unprovable original premises. For example, what’s better the American economic model or the EU economic model: If you value innovation then you will probably conclude the American economic model is best. If you value social stability then the EU model is probably what you’ll conclude. And there’s no way to prove innovation is more/less/as important than social stability.
I fully allow for two rational people to disagree on such a question. But some AF people think the retreating glaciers and bio-diversity loss are most likely to be a natural phenomenon (independent of man) or not really happening. All of because of claims like the world is too big for man to change, George Soros is a socialist, the melting ice caps won’t cause sea level change because the extra water will evaporate, it might be sunspots, the earths climate is always changing, CO2 is a necessary gas for life, the level of green foliage has actually increased worldwide, the old mercury thermometers were wildly inaccurate, there were claims in the 50’s that an ice age was imminent. Each one of these can be refuted or shown to be irrelevant quite easily. Yet they hold on to the opinion. So what causes an actually free person to ignore good faith arguments that refute their claims?
I agree that this is an area where two intelligent people can disagree as long as the believer concedes the points of the unbeliever. The believer doesn’t really have any points to offer other than you can’t prove a negative and something has to be infinite and eternal. But if Craig believed in the Jesus story then that would be an example of an AF person having bias.
Perhaps the education that Richard (for example) received in the 50s and 60s in Australia was different than the one that others received at different times and different places. He has read different things from different sources than you or I.
With a different substrate, then when new information is introduced it may not ‘fit in’ to the existing knowledge in a way that means the conclusions are different.
Global warming is an especially relevant example because it is a wildly complex issue. For example I might cite a study which illustrates that the temperature of the earth has been getting warmer based on ice cores in Greenland, but the results of such a study depends on the scientists involved getting any number of procedural steps correct, not to mention that the methods the study is based on itself being correct - all things that are beyond my education or knowledge. At that point, as a general viewing public we’re often left in the position of ‘you should just trust the science / trust scientists’ which is not something I’m inclined to do, and I certainly know Richard isn’t.
Part of why I have this view is having seen that frequently scientists are the first to be critical of any scientific paper that comes out, whereas you or I might not know any better than to just swallow it.
While you could bring out an exceedingly detailed case where each argument builds on the last to make a cohesive case for global warming, it doesn’t save us from the subtle details in each study that we might not understand well enough to even question. And there are actually quite a few scientists that are critical of global warming.
Personally, I just don’t know, with a tendency to think that it is happening. But I can see how someone might fall on the other side of that margin.
This isn’t to take anything away from Science as a general discipline of course, as obviously it has resulted in very remarkable discoveries and developments. But the proof is in the pudding of results, and part of what makes global warming an especially fascinating example is that it’s not yet to the point where it’s overwhelmingly obvious to any onlooker that there has been a substantial change.
You can see how similar issues might arise with any other issue of similar complexity and subtlety. In the end we can only be completely confident with things that we have considerable experience and expertise in - and even then there’s room for surprises to happen.
Global warming is an especially relevant example because it is a wildly complex issue…
The points you make about global warming and scientific consensus and research methods are fair and lead to ambiguity in the conclusions. Anywhere from the retreating ice caps and coral reef bleaching won’t be overwhelmingly disruptive to a technologically advanced society as us: To we will soon have Syrian level refugee crisis over every square inch of the globe and genocide will be the obvious answer. Two intelligent people operating in good faith can be on opposite sides. But the points climate change deniers including Richard and Vineeto when I met them, aren’t fair. Bringing up George Soros and the size of the world are good examples. They’re easily refutable and no one even partially objective should hold them after encountering a logical person who refutes them.
As a former conspiracy theory fan, I get it
There are quite a few things in this world that could be explained by conspiracy, and the slippery thing about conspiracies is that some of them actually are conspiracies. For example, did you know that the CIA in the 60s funded the Iowa Writer’s Workshop to encourage the future of poetry in universities to have a less political bent? Fun fact! The descriptive ‘nature writing’ style common in American poetry is partly thanks to backdoor CIA meddling.
Because there are many things we don’t have direct experience with, one option is a conspiracy and there’s no way to know for sure if it’s a conspiracy or not unless you did some exhaustive digging - and even then you might not know.
The only way to be sure Area 51 isn’t hiding alien technology would be to break into Area 51.
It’s a weird & wonderful world we live in!
For another fun example of conspiracy, check out the Stasi’s social control methods
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