no. 428

Punditry is an industry built on confirmation bias. Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter - These people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing worldviews. If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn't, you hate them. You watch them not for information, but for confirmation.

David McRaney, discussing confirmation bias in his book, You Are Not So Smart (p28)

no. 406

"But all forms of prejudice are based on the same principle: you pre-judge somebody based on one most likely irrelevant fact, and you refuse to change your opinion based on actual, observable fact. It's the opposite of rational, liberal-minded thinking—and we don't mean liberal in any political sense. We mean liberal in the way Austen (and other writers of her time) used it: open-minded, willing to change your ideas, and interested in facts rather than opinions. You know—exactly the opposite of prejudiced."

from a Shmoop discussion of Pride And Prejudice