Why is bias bad?

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“Bias” refers to some favor or preference towards a particular thing and usually comes at the expense of other things.  It may be applied to people, situations, and various other circumstances.  Being biased may also mean being one-sided as a person may prefer a certain thing over the other regardless of seemingly good points.

With just the thought of having a preference towards one thing over another is already bad in itself.  “Bias” literally means taking the side of one concern without much consideration of the other options, for example.  In the case of children in a typical family setup, a mother is said to be biased if she is favoring one child over the other.  Even if two children misbehaved, for instance, the favored child may only be given a warning while the other child may be given some sort of stiffer penalty.  In this particular example, the bias of the mother towards one child certainly feels unfair to the other, which is obviously a bad thing.

“Bias” is also bad because it does not recognize the good points of the other person, thing, or concern.  The focus is on the preferred or favored side while the qualities of the other side are disregarded.  When applied to real-life situations, biases can cloud one’s good judgment and can often lead to unwise decisions.  When there is bias, decisions may be based on what one thinks of the situation, for example, rather than on factual evidence.

In the field of science, biases may result in unreliable experiments and results.  In other fields, like the media and politics, biases towards certain rules and policies may have adverse effects on other people.  When there is a bias, there will always be another person, thing, or situation that will feel unfair and discriminated against.  In most cases, biases will only result in bad or negative results.

Author: erwin

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