The “Everyone has a bias” Bias
Roughly speaking, a bias is an unreasonable inclination to favor or disfavor a person, group of persons, idea, worldview, etc., in ways that are unfair and/or irrational.
For example, the confirmation bias occurs when one’s inclination to believe proposition p influences one’s thinking such that one seeks information or evidence that supports p and unfairly ignores all information and evidence that challenges p. For instance, a religious person might interpret his experiences in ways that support his religious views and seek evidence that provides such support, yet turn a blind eye to all genuine evidence and experiences that challenge his religious views.
Now, if you’ve taken a compliance training course for your job sometime in the last five years or so, you’ve probably heard the claim: ‘Everyone has biases.’ And although the claim is made with an insouciant tone of certainty, you probably haven’t been given any evidence to support the claim. It’s uttered as if it were a religious dogma that needs no evidence and must be accepted on blind faith. It seems to me that ‘Everyone has biases’ might be an example of bias.
Everyone is biased? Perhaps that assertion is true but perhaps false. It seems dubious. How could one prove such a claim? According to ABC News, there are over 8 billion people on the planet. Every person is biased?
And what about the billions no longer alive? Were they biased, too? Each and every one of them? Where’s the proof? Where’s the conclusive evidence? How could one possibly gather such evidence?