[SEQ RERUN] The Fallacy of Gray

It may be impossible to completely eliminate bias, but it is still worth reducing bias.

Being aware of this (and of the fallacy of gray in general) is one of the things that really sets LessWrong apart as a community. A huge number of arguments and discussions are stopped in their tracks by arguments of the form, "Well, your side does X too!" or "We both have biases" or "Both policies have positives and negatives." It's difficult to route around these stopsigns because of the extra inferential step it takes to explain the fallacy of gray; it's refreshing to talk to people who realize that grayness shouldn't be a conversation-halter.

I took the quote differently, more as an anti nihilist comment.

Yes, everything is gray, but there are shades of gray, and different shades really are different. There is still better and worse, even when all you have are shades of gray. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Thinking about the title of the post: why is gray a fallacy?

Putting it another way: bias cannot be eliminated since it provides the mental structure used by the brain to organize data. Bias can be described as the operating system built by the brain as it functions. From what I have read, certain responses are hardwired, so to speak, into our brains by selective adaptation. We each have to have a point of view, a place where the individual receives initial limited sets of data, and a system to turn the data into thoughts, measurements, reactions or opinions. As we learn to recognize our biases and how they can lead us to serious errors in our interpretation of data, we hope to be able to make better decisions. I think most people registered on this website would agree that the goal of better decisions is both worthy and possible.

Looking at this statement from a different point of view, all measurements are seemingly on a continuum that regresses to some theoretical limit depending upon how finely grained is your measuring rod. My understanding of modern realism is that the absolute or limit – be it infinity or the concept of a point particle or perfectly black – does exist in some independent real world. Does the lead statement refer to our perceptions of black and white or does it refute the possibility of perfectly black or white in an independent real world? On another level, does the possibility of perfectly black or white in an independent real world even matter? Most people agree that at some point on the spectrum, gray can usefully be called black. Shouldn’t the focus of our moral judgment be aimed at the shifting line dividing more black from more white?

"When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

I don't disagree with the point in the post, but I do have a problem with this quote.

They were not just as wrong in an absolute sense, but they were just as wrong in the sense of how much it mattered at the time. Asimov said this as a reply to a reply to him saying that science has most everything figured out. For all that it matters to us, the Earth may as well be spherical, but it certainly isn't flat. For all it mattered to them the Earth was flat. Someday, things like the Earth not being spherical will matter as much as the fact that it isn't flat currently matters to us.

When technology advances to the point that physics matters, physics can advance. When that happens, it will advance. As such, our knowledge and the importance of its accuracy always match.