Series | Critical Thinking in the Age of Digital Incredulity, Pt. 3
The Search Engine Fallacy
How a Good Netizen Avoids Confirmation Bias
Have you ever tried diagnosing your symptoms online only to be left TOTALLY FREAKING OUT that you might have cancer?
Yeah, me too.
Although the reason this happens has something to do with search engine algorithms, it also reveals a basic error in human reasoning.
We tend to think of search engines as just means to an end… a way to find the truth.
But, they’re designed to do exactly the opposite.
What they ACTUALLY do is help you find what it was you were already looking for. They confirm your assumptions. In this way, search engines paradoxically underscore the very human tendency to look for patterns in the noise… to seek confirmation of our assumptions.
Pattern Seeking Animals
Of course, our success as a species is due in large part to our ability to recognize patterns. By formulating and testing hypotheses, we learn to predict and control our environment.
But, once we’ve hit upon a hypothesis that seems to explain what’s going on, it can be extremely difficult to give it…
