Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Observer Bias

I'm not sure if this has a label for it, but its an informal logical fallacy. The one I want to describe is when one looks at a continuous process and concludes that the present form is the end result. The most obvious would be evolution and people concluding that humans are the end result of evolution. I would classify this as an observer fallacy. A fallacy that results when the time of the observation effects the outcome and people don't recognize that it does. One comparison would be looking at the continuous innovation of products and concluding that the current model or other standard is the most optimal product possible. When put into this context, the conclusion is laughable, but somehow, it becomes ungraspable to some people when it comes to evolution.

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