Confirmation Bias

Michael Shermer uses this anniversary of the Jonestown massacre to write about confirmation bias:

[Confirmation bias] is when we look for and find evidence to support what we already believe, and ignore or rationalize away evidence that does not. And because we are so tribal by nature, we employ confirmation bias with extra vigor when it comes to defending the groups we belong to.

Research on confirmation bias has found that when subjects are presented with evidence that contradicts their deeply held beliefs, they dismiss it as invalid, while other subjects treat the same information as valuable when it confirms what they believe.

I have written several posts that highlight confirmation bias, though with different names. See here and here. It is something we all suffer from and that we probably cannot overcome, but acknowledging it may lessen the problem.