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The Forum > General Discussion > Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias

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Hasbeen's trolling served to remind me of a very stark and tragic example of confirmation bias, the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes in July 1988 claiming all 290 passengers and crew.

To have seen an ascending Airbus A330 as an attacking F14 Tomcat fighter even though it was flying its scheduled run, was squarking a civilian code, and was correctly identified by two other US ships close by, screams failure yet the Captain and Targeting Officer were both commended.

The Iranians saw the act as deliberate and the Ayatollah Khomeini was reported as saying that he needed to settle with Saddam because the Americans were capable of doing anything to support him.

So what went wrong? Well the Vincennes was a billion dollar state of the art warship capable of tracking over a hundred planes simultaneously. Yet it also had a very aggressive Captain who had taken his ship illegally into Iranian waters chasing some speed boats that had shot at one of its helicopters.

Therefore the crew were on heightened alert. As the F14 base was next to the civilian airfield at Bandar Abbas the plane would have been flagged as a possible scrambled jet setting up the bias. The US crew tried to contact it on military channels which Flight 655 had no way of receiving. Non answer would have confirmed that bias and a mistaken reading of the “advanced Aegis radar that correctly tracked the flight and its Mode III beacon” would have escalated it. The Airbus' ascent was read as an attacking descent and ultimately the decision was made to fire two rockets which brought down the plane.

“the U.S. government stated in a written answer that they believed the incident may have been caused by a simultaneous psychological condition amongst the 18 bridge crew of the Vincennes called 'scenario fulfillment', which is said to occur when persons are under pressure.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Sounded terribly like confirmation bias to me.
Posted by csteele, Wednesday, 9 November 2011 9:41:45 PM
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Dear Hasbeen,

You live with one what?

Sorry, I don't understand what you're referring to.
Are you having an elderly moment? No offense.
Please explain.
Posted by Lexi, Wednesday, 9 November 2011 11:34:08 PM
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You are having a gray moment Lexi. We did discuss many moons ago that both you, & my lady are research librarians.

I thought you would remember that.

Csteele as an ex navy fly boy, & watch keeper, I am actually believe I have a better idea of how things happen at sea, but I'll leave you to believe what ever spin that takes your fancy.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 10 November 2011 12:49:32 AM
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its a shame to just let such a topical topic die
so..

to-pick..a clear bias..
[and for lack of placing it..on another to-pick]

here goes my google search
http://www.google.com/search?q=getting+the+hell+out+of+here

and lo there it is
in pdf
http://new-birth.net/booklet/GettingOut.PDF

so let reveal the bias

""Credible does
not to me necessarily mean entirely accurate.

Spirits just like humans
have opinions, and do not all agree amongst themselves.

But a spirit
looking down from a substantial spiritual height
is likely to be more accurate than one new to spirit life.

I would like to add a caveat.

If you were to pick 100 locations across
this earth, and then take the description of one single example as a
perfect example of life on earth, clearly there are going to be many who would have significantly different experiences to that one sample of earth life.

So too are life after death stories. Expect differences in the
experience that every person will have,

but if you look for similarities,
these you will find.

the more you learn,
the more you realize that life after death is
even more complex than life here.

So I apologize in advance to any
reader who is aware that some things have been simplified.""

thusly do i confirm my bias
Posted by one under god, Saturday, 19 November 2011 2:51:05 PM
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