Bias Quotes

What I find predictable is crazy people's ability to predict that unpredictable people can be predicted by their consistent unpredictable behavior, thus making all crazy people predictable when the world says they are unpredictable. Therefore, I must be “right” because I can predict crazy because I have been trained in the unpredictable nature of consistent craziness because I am crazy.

~ Shannon L. Alder

We all see only that which we are trained to see.

~ Robert Anton Wilson

The author found participants in a study able to come up with more reasons to support their position but not anymore likely to change their minds based on contradictory evidence. In effect, they enlist their IQ on behalf of their instincts.

~ Jonathan Haidt

When we have a narrative in mind, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it.

~ Nicholas Kristof

For many, what they see on television becomes more true than what they see with their eyes in the external world. But this is not so, for one must never forget that every television and has been edited. The viewer does not see the event. He sees in edited form of the event. It is not the event which is seen, but an edited symbol or an edited image of the event. An aura and illusion of objectivity and truth is built up, which could not be totally the case, even if the people shooting the film were completely neutral.

~ Francis A. Schaeffer

This hinted at something that no one had ever suspected -- that the brain tracks moving things more easily that still things. We have a built-in bias toward detecting action. Why? Because it's probably more critical for animals to spot moving things (predators, prey, falling trees) than static things, which can wait. In fact, our vision is so biased toward movement that we don't technically see stationary objects at all. To see something stationary, our brains have to scribble our eyes subtly over its surface. Experiments have even proven that if you artificially stabilize an image on the retina with a combination of special contact lenses and microelectronics, the image will vanish.

~ Sam Kean

One paper boasted that its subscription and advertising numbers proved that America did not need the social change it rival paper advocated.

~ Harold Holzer

It speaks volumes when people who are discriminated against go on to discriminate against others.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Standing against discrimination for some while supporting discrimination against others hurts us all.

~ Dashanne Stokes

The minute we look away, the minute we stop fighting back, that's the minute bigotry wins.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Bigotry is based on deception, of oneself and of others.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Reducing a group to a slur or stereotype reduces us all.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Urging an organization to be inclusive is not an attack. It's progress.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Privilege is when you can afford to sit back and watch as others' rights are trampled upon.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Never be content to sit back and watch as others' rights are trampled upon. Your rights could be next.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Whites saying 'make America white again' is like millionaires saying 'make the wealthy rich again.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Racism is, among other things, the unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.

~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Holding one's self responsible is a critical feature in stigma and in the generation of shame since violation of standards, rules, and goals are insufficient in its elicitation unless responsibility can be placed on the self. Stigma may differ from other elicitors of shame and guilt, in part because it is a social appearance factor. The degree to which the stigma is socially apparent is the degree to which one must negotiate the issue of blame, not only for one's self but between one's self and the other who is witness to the stigma. Stigmatization is a much more powerful elicitor of shame and guilt in that it requires a negotiation not only between one's self and one's attributions, but between one's self and the attributions of others.

~ Michael Lewis

A scientist has to be neutral in his search for the truth, but he cannot be neutral as to the use of that truth when found. If you know more than other people, you have more responsibility, rather than less.

~ C.p. Snow

an unintentionally hilarious 84 percent of users answer this match question…Would you consider dating someone who has a vocalized a strong negative bias toward a certain race of people? In the absolute negative (choosing “No” over “Yes” and “It Depends”. In light of the previous data, that means 84 percent of people on OKCupid would not consider dating someone on OKCupid.

~ Christian Rudder

With the rationalization of culture, and the corresponding disenchantment of religious ideas and beliefs, the modern world is ordered increasingly upon instrumentally rational grounds, and hence organizes itself less and less according to value-rational principles. This leads in turn to a world in which social action is separated increasingly from the sphere of (ethical) meaning, as particular (often technical) means are employed to realize specific ends regardless of the ethical significance or meaning of such action.

~ Nicholas Gane

Images of the Holy easily become holy images -- sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example, it leads all previous idea of the Messiah in ruins.

~ C.s. Lewis

A writer at the time said, Lincoln means to sink the man in the public officer.

~ Harold Holzer

Do you suffer fromcallous-narrow-minded biases?I’m humanely secondhand embarrassed for you.

~ Jt Sanz

An encounter with God demands a response. An encounter with Satan demands your God's response.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Mental illness is not something you misunderstand in this era. Get educated because bias is no different than racism.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Results of two independent factor analyses of the survey responses of more than 2000 English and American citizens parallel these findings (19,33):- fear and exclusion: persons with severe mental illness should be feared and, therefore, be kept out of most communities;- authoritarianism: persons with severe mental illness are irresponsible, so life decisions should be made by others;- benevolence: persons with severe mental illness are childlike and need to be cared for.World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16–20.PMCID: PMC1489832Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illnessPATRICK W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON

~ Patrick W. Corrigan

Several themes describe misconceptions about mental illness and corresponding stigmatizing attitudes. Media analyses of film and print have identified three: people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character (29-32).World Psychiatry. 2002 Feb; 1(1): 16–20.PMCID: PMC1489832Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illnessPATRICK W CORRIGAN and AMY C WATSON

~ Patrick W. Corrigan

No one would ever say that someone with a broken arm or a broken leg is less than a whole person, but people say that or imply that all the time about people with mental illness.

~ Elyn R. Saks

I had people saying 'it's all in your head'. Do you honestly think I want to feel this way?

~ Sonia Estrada

1 in 5 people have dandruff. 1 in 4 people have mental health problems. I've had both.

~ Ruby Wax

There will always be people afraid of the monsters in the night. They are usually the ones that look for them because they have proven they exist in themselves.

~ Shannon L. Alder

Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.

~ Bill Clinton

The mentally ill frighten and embarrass us. And so we marginalize the people who most need our acceptance. What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation.

~ Glenn Close

This disease comes with a package: shame. When any other part of your body gets sick, you get sympathy.

~ Ruby Wax

Stigmas speak to the idea of difference and how difference shames us and those we know.

~ Michael Lewis

I am a tourist of the emotions, visiting only the most well-worn spots. It is romantic, that is, a distortion, to imagine whole lives from the barest observation.

~ Jean Thompson

Their attempts to make sense of the world had carried heat but little light.

~ Tim Weiner

Satan will make your own principles and inclinations to betray you.

~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon