What is confirmation bias?

We should expect and receive more integrity from our national organizations. The Department of Justice, USA Today or the Associated Press and the local news reporting agencies that feed off of these national sources should be careful with using statistics and making inferences that are simply not correct. For example, the Justice department has finished their Ferguson investigation. DOJ concluded that officer Wilson, the person at issue in the Ferguson matter, could not be charged, in the shooting death of Brown, but that racial profiling was widespread in the Ferguson police force. 

As I recall, Eric Holder accused the Ferguson police force of racial profiling before the DOJ examination began.  The profiling was sweeping. It was pervasive. According to the DOJ report as reported by USA Today, "African Americans account for 67% of the population in Ferguson, but they accounted for 85% of the drivers stopped by police, 90% of the people issued tickets and 93% of the people arrested." 

I watched a video of Eric Holder who noted that African Americans accounted for 85% of all traffic stops in Ferguson. True as this fact may be it proves nothing, but allows unfettered inferences. I expect more from the DOJ. They should be reporting facts and not speculative inferences, but people actively respond to emotions and are passive about considering the facts.

Of course none of these stats  provide any evidence of racial profiling. The stats could easily describe a situation where 67% of the population cause 90% of the problems. Or it could mean that 33% of the Ferguson population stay out of trouble. However, most readers of the USA Today or DOJ report will believe what they will regardless of the lack of evidence of racial profiling.  The reason you ask? It is confirmation bias.

People search for evidence to support a preexisting viewpoint and then interpret that information in a way that reinforces their beliefs. There is a tendency to give greater weight to information that confirms what we believe rather than what contradicts it. It is confirmation bias. Believe what you will and there is some data somewhere to support your beliefs, no matter how unreasonable, you just have to look long enough.

I just bought a Toyota and now I see there other smart people driving Toyotas everywhere I look.