Naïve Empiricism
Naïve empiricism is the natural tendency to seek and treat confirming instances as evidence while ignoring disconfirming evidence, leading to overconfidence in our theories and stories.
THE IDEA
Evidence
By a mental mechanism I call naïve empiricism, we have a natural tendency to look for instances that confirm our story and our vision of the world—these instances are always easy to find. Alas, with tools, and fools, anything can be easy to find. You take past instances that corroborate your theories and you treat them as evidence. For instance, a diplomat will show you his “accomplishments,” not what he failed to do. Mathematicians will try to convince you that their science is useful to society by pointing out instances where it proved helpful, not those where it was a waste of time, or, worse, those numerous mathematical applications that inflicted a severe cost on society owing to the highly unempirical nature of elegant mathematical theories.
Even in testing a hypothesis, we tend to look for instances where the hypothesis proved true. Of course we can easily find confirmation; all we have to do is look, or have a researcher do it for us. I can find confirmation for just about anything, the way a skilled London cabbie can find traffic to increase the fare, even on a holiday.
Some people go further and give me examples of events that we have been able to foresee with some success—indeed there are a few, like landing a man on the moon and the economic growth of the twenty-first century. One can find plenty of “counterevidence” to the points in this book, the best being that newspapers are excellent at predicting movie and theater schedules. Look, I predicted yesterday that the sun would rise today, and it did!
When to use it
A manager evaluating a business strategy only reviews successful case studies, ignoring failures that contradict the approach.
A doctor recalls a few patients who recovered with a certain treatment but overlooks the many who did not, leading to overconfidence.
In personal finance, an investor remembers past stock picks that performed well and ignores the losing trades to justify a risky strategy.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Diplomat's Accomplishments
A diplomat highlights only his successes, omitting failures, to appear effective.
Mathematicians' Usefulness
Mathematicians cite cases where math helped society while ignoring instances where it was wasteful or harmful.
Predicting the Sunrise
Using the fact that one predicted the sun would rise as evidence of foresight, ignoring the triviality of the pattern.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think of a time when you deliberately sought only evidence that confirmed your belief. What important information might you have missed?
How could you redesign a test or decision process to actively seek disconfirming evidence?
How does Taleb’s idea of naïve empiricism relate to confirmation bias? Which examples show selective evidence rather than a genuinely demanding test?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Black Swan The Impact of the Highly Improbable With a new section On Robustness and Fragility (Nassim Nicholas Taleb)