Biases at Play

I would like comment in some detail of the gross biases that have crept into this article by Sashikumar (http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/vkshashikumar/191/2647/report-no-evil.html). Let me list them one by one
1. Illusory correlation Bias
Look at Unsexy story No. 1 to see this . " Gujarat's success in agriculture is largely because of a splendid genetically modified Bt cotton output" . The story rests on the quoted premise about success of Gujarat's agriculture. Here I accuse of the same error that Sashi accuse on others... inability to look into details. How on earth can he conclude so simplistically. How on earth and heaven can he abstract agriculture in Gujarat to just cotton. Where is the statistics to support that. I accuse Sashi of not just being biased but of being consciously biased and motivated for the multitude of biases in play, the others i list down here.

2. Confirmation bias or Cognitive Dissonance

This bias is the most glaring of all . Let me quote two sentences from the blog to substantiate it
" if somebody cares to look at the statistics it will be clear that Gujarat's agriculture success is because of a lop-sided growth in cotton cultivation"
" Right to Information documents (these are official documents of the Gujarat government) clearly admit that 498 farmers committed suicide in Gujarat. And another 6,695 apparently died in "accidents".

These sentences uses ' statistics , to create two climaxes for the same story, the story of farmers in Gujarat. One says farmers were successful ( the comedy climax, but with wrong means of course) and the second says they were unsuccessful ( the trajedy one). Then Sashi plays the dubious act. He attributes success to wrong meand by Modi and then accuses Modi of Lying. Heads I win, Tails you lose.

3. fundamental attribution Bias

Look at the way Sashi attributes the floods to Sujalam Sufalam scheme and then implicitly to Modi. How naive and foolish one can be to cook up such a cause and effect story based only on what ' a farmer said in a film'. It does not stop there. He goes on to implicitly accuse faulty planning on Modi. This accusation would be no better that what villionous Mom-in-laws do when they accuse new brides for lower stock market returns for her brocker husband. Ignorance at best and not knowling about it at worst.

I have posted this response in Ibnlive.com site..and waiting for thier response