Good Entropy

From Megan McCardle

In a discussion of the causes of the Financial Crisis:

Confirmation bias: The tendency to look for data that confirms your theory, rather than data that falsifies it. Yes, we all know how this works in politics, but it’s a much broader problem. People will repeatedly devise tests that give positive proofs of their theories, but much less often devise tests to falsify them.

And this harmonious chord from Hamming referencing Darwin:

Darwin writes in his autobiography that he found it necessary to write down every piece of evidence which appeared to contradict his beliefs because otherwise they would disappear from his mind.