Jon Ronson Quotes

A man sees what he wants to see, And disregards the rest.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it. The moment we want to disbelieve anything we have previously believed we suddenly discover not only that there is a mass of evidence against it but that this evidence was starting us in the face all the time.

In intelligence you can justify almost anything you want to if you go about it with enough zeal and effort which is what happened.

Values are faithfully applied to the facts before us, while ideology overrides whatever facts call theory into question.

We hew and saw and plane facts to make them dovetail with our prejudices, so that they become mere ornaments with which to parade our objectivity.

I only use statistics to reinforce what I already think, or if it's something unusual.

[Those] who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations.

But what if...what if you sincerely believed something was true, but you were dead wrong? What if you were so stubbornly sure that you were right, that you wouldn’t even consider the truth? Would the truth be silenced, or would it try to break through?

In short, numbers are accepted as evidence when they agree with preconceptions, but not when they don’t.

Given a choice between their worldview and the facts, it's always interesting how many people toss the facts.

All of us show bias when it comes to what information we take in. We typically focus on anything that agrees with the outcome we want.

The main problem was that the senior administration officials have what I call faith-based intelligence. They knew what they wanted the intelligence to show. They were really blind and deaf to any kind of countervailing information the intelligence community would produce.

The habit of an opinion often leads to the complete conviction of its truth, it hides the weaker parts of it, and makes us incapable of accepting the proofs against it.

Men quickly find a theory that adapts itself to their desires.

It's human nature to make the complex manageable and determine things that fit your conclusions. That's bias.

It's so funny because no matter what you say, fans only read and hear what they want.

To hold an idea and convince ourselves we arrived at it rationally, we go in search of evidence to support our view.

The same evidence that is convincing to one person may not convince another.

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads.

Analysis is more likely to adjust evidence than to adjust itself.

The greatest obstacle to discovering the truth is being convinced that you already know it.

Ever since I learnt about confirmation bias I've started seeing it everywhere.

The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield.

Belief is a virus, and once it gets into you, its first order of business is to preserve itself, and the way it preserves itself is to keep you from having any doubts, and the way it keeps you from doubting is to blind you to the way things really are. Evidence contrary to the belief can be staring you straight in the face, and you won't see it... True believers just don't see things the way they are, because if they did, they wouldn't be true believers anymore.