Definition
What is the definition of bias as it applies to the human species?
I don't know whether or not you care for football but there was a moment recently in Super Bowl 42 when I witnessed behavior that is distinctly human. Eli Manning evaded a heavy pass rush and connected with David Tyree's helmet to keep the game winning drive alive in the waning seconds.
Let me explain how this happened.
Eli Manning calculated the saline content in the sweat of New England's defensive line and he measured the hormonal balance in their blood stream. He took into consideration the direction and speed of the wind and ambient temperature as well as the humidity. He measured the height of the grass and factored in the amount of displacement due to wear that occurred during the game. He figured the speed and agility of all the linemen on both sides of the ball taking into consideration their fatigue and hydration status. With this information he calculated the exact course that would evade the pass rush. The trajectory of his pass was determined within one billionth of a centimeter. The timing was set after he calculated the speed and agility of Rodney Harrison compared to David Tyree. He went over the middle to Tyree because similar calculations on the other defensive backs predicted that this was the correct choice. Tyree knew to turn around backwards and catch the ball on his helmet because he calculated every angle along with all the conditions at that moment and determined this was the only course of action that would work. He knew that his heart rate was slower than Harrison's and predicted that he could calmly make the acrobatic catch. In summation, every conceivable piece of information necessary to carry out this achievement was carefully analyzed and calculated to the tiniest fraction.
NOT!!
OK … what really happened was that the pass rush overwhelmed the offensive line and the play broke down. Manning ran for his life and chunked the ball as fast as he could to the first guy he saw. Tyree leaped and grabbed for the ball on the top of his head.
How did Manning and Tyree do this?
Could you design a creature that could do that?
Well … evolution did.
Millions of years of evolution have produced a human brain that combines emotion and cognition with information from five sensory inputs to confidently make quick decisions. These choices we make may not be perfect but they have a high probability of success which increases the likelihood of survival.
Part of the secret to doing this is bias. Our brains must consider a limited number of options and quickly pick one. Therefore, we must categorize everything in the world for easy selection. We need to lump together all similar items to simplify their selection. We must put all the round things over here and all the square things over there and all the triangles on top.
It isn't logical to think that if one black man steals from you then all black men will steal from you, yet that is how we think. Since we really don't know all the information that we need to know to be able to assess who is dangerous and who is a friend, we need a way that allows us to make fast decisions that have a high likelihood of being correct. Logic can only be logical if the Intel is good.
If you see someone die after eating raw meat and you illogically conclude that all raw meat kills, then this might have survival value. You will never enjoy eating sushi but you will successfully pass your genetic information to future generations.
If all the information in the universe was readily available to us at all times, and if our tiny brains could quickly process it all, then being logical would work.
Our brains actually do a better job than you think of assessing large amounts of information. In fact, there is a lot of information that comes in though our various senses without alerting our conscious brain. We call it making a "gut" decision but it is the process of evaluating sensory input and not being fully aware of it.
We get a sub-conscious sensory input and use bias to select a course of action. The funny thing is that we feel confident about our decision because it feels perfectly logical to us at the time.
You may think, for example, that President Obama is very intelligent and very rational. You may think that because he listens to his advisors and surrounds himself with folks who disagree with him that he will make good decisions. You may feel comfortable that the country will go in the right direction.
Why is that not necessarily the case?
Even though he is logical and intelligent he lacks one thing that is critical. He does not have accurate Intel on every issue. No matter how logical his decisions are they could backfire because of information that he does not have in front of him. At some level and in certain cases he is going to have to go with his gut. He will have to guess. Actually, he will have to do this a lot.
Some of Bush's decisions may have seemed bias and irrational but they worked. Well, some of his decisions did not work but a number of them did. Like all of us, he had poor Intel and had to go with his gut.
It is the human condition. It is what we have evolved to be able to do. We are very good at going with our gut. It is how Eli Manning made a connection with David Tyree at a crucial moment and without most of the information he needed to accomplish the task.
Today, logic seems like a thing that we should all be doing. It seems that if everyone did it then the world would be a better place. The problem is that the application of logic requires good Intel which we simply don't have. We are much better at using bias to make a rapid choice.
This past week a police officer encountered an irate citizen and arrested him. He believed, based on his bias, that all irate citizens are dangerous. He was wrong but he acted correctly. Police often lack sufficient Intel and lots of citizens who are irate cause damage.
The citizen was irate because he was acting on his bias. He believed that an officer coming to his home and asking to see identification when he had done nothing wrong meant that he was being racially profiled. This is frequently true but he lacked sufficient Intel in this situation to know that he was wrong.
The president said that the policeman acted "stupidly" because of his bias. In fact, the policeman acted appropriately but the president lacked sufficient Intel to know this. He made a gut assessment.
Everyone was wrong and everyone used their gut. I think the moral is that the white guy, the black guy, and the mulatto are all the same animal. Kind of like three differently colored roses. Wow, am I a poetic bastard or what?
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It may seem that racism has always existed but, in fact, race is a concept that has been around for less than 500 years. It's an idea that was usurped from the science of botany for the purpose of rationalizing mistreatment.
The real issue is bias.
Bias is innately human. It is an intelligently illogical way of thinking that allows a cognitively primitive species to survive without actually having the knowledge that is necessary to negotiate a complex environment. In fact, science can be defined as an endeavor whose purpose is to undo millions of years of evolution so that we can consider new observations in a logical way instead of in a bias way.
Humans have always jumped to conclusions and held fanciful beliefs. It has been essential to our survival.
Interestingly, the actual content of these beliefs can change dramatically from place to place and from time to time. For example, you might be biased towards me because I am Jewish. (Actually, I'm a blue-eyed Ashkenazi-Scandinavian mix who is screwing a Kazak so, go figure.)
Some guy from another place or time might dislike me because I speak a different language. Another person from another place or time might hate me because I believe in one God. 500 years ago in Europe you would have been biased towards me because I lent money and collected interest. Perhaps you think that I won't fight or maybe you're scared of me because I fight to well. Some people in some places hate me because they think that I killed their deity.
Alternatively, I might be biased towards you because you are a commoner or your tools are not as sophisticated as mine. I might hate that you worship multiple gods or that you run around naked. Perhaps, I dislike you because you think the volcano needs to be appeased or that God made us from dirt.
Actually, my belief that the process of evolution is how humans developed should have been on the list of reasons as to why you might be biased towards me. According to Gallup, half the country believes that natural selection is a fairy tale. I think they also believe that people like me are blasphemous or anti-God or something. It has nothing to do with the quality of evidence they have seen or not seen but only to do with them having a bias about what they choose to believe.
Also, there are only about 10% of us who believe that God had nothing to do with evolution. Only 10% of us … think about it. Sort of whittles down the market for this book, doesn't it. It’s a good thing that I don't have to make my living selling books.
I think I wrote this book due to my own bias. My personal bias is that I happen to think most people are idiots. (They are really just intelligently illogical humans but they seem like idiots to me. Actually, I think I am intelligently illogical for thinking they are idiots, so there!) I figured that writing about idiots would be fertile ground for humor. In my daily life I frequently make fun of people for thinking illogically. I laugh at how people's bias causes them to think and believe things that are really weird. For example, it is unbelievable to me that 90% of us really believe that millions of scientists are collaborating to propagate a hoax called evolution. I thought that maybe I could write an essay about this kind of stuff. Low and behold, I'm on my fourth book and I'm not slowing down.
Gosh, I must have an ax to grind. Sorry … OK … back to the thing about evolution creating a pale skinned human that is intelligently illogical. You see, evolution does not always produce the most aesthetically pleasing creatures and it does not always produce the most logical ones either. Evolution does not care about anything but survival.
The idea that bias should be based on skin color has emerged in recent years as the primary bias. In fact, bias is the real culprit not racism. Racist views are only one of a number of things that we use as a rationalization or convenient justification for our natural tendency to have illogical bias.
Because our natural tendency is to have bias and because our brains aren't very knowledgeable, most of us have a hard time understanding the idea of racial subdivisions within a species. In order to grasp the concept of race you need to have a working knowledge of statistical analysis, evolutionary biology, biological anthropology, molecular genetics, and botany. In order to understand how humans misuse the concept you will also need a basic understanding of sociology and human history.
Since most people don't know enough about these subjects to understand race, I decided to write a book about it. I hope that I can describe these ideas in a plain and easy to understand way.
Other than having a desire to have sex with Whitney, I'm pretty sure that I have no other ulterior motive or hidden agenda.
My only interest is reality and scientific truth.
