Checking Your Priors

“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.” - John Kenneth Galbraith One of the problems of having strong opinions is they tend to stay that way. Even if you stay in learning mode on a topic, confirmation bias usually leads only to deeper confidence in positions held. No question overconfidence in our own beliefs and the resulting disdain of the other side is a dynamic that makes compromise and progress difficult. It’s hard work trying to be open-minded to different views. I thought I would look back and see what I changed my mind on in the last year or so to check my own openness. And indeed on a few things I have seen the error of my ways...at least for now. As Winston Churchill once said, “It’s better to be right than consistent.”