Coaching practices for How to Resolve a Conflict Between the Beliefs of Establishment Scientists Researchers and My Evidence

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Resolve a Conflict Between the Beliefs of Establishment Scientists Researchers and My Evidence, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• A flimsy study that confirms what I want I’ll wave straight through, but a solid one that contradicts me I’ll pick apart for hours
• Nobody around me will actually push back
• I’m holding a belief tightly and I want to test it honestly, but I know that the second I go looking I’ll find whatever confirms it
• Everything I read and everyone I ask keeps confirming what I already believe, and it’s starting to feel too clean
• Whenever a case pops up that contradicts what I believe, my reflex is to wave it away

Practices that may help

1. Apply the same evidence standard regardless of whether you like the conclusion
   Grade the evidence before you know which conclusion it supports.
   Motivated Reasoning
2. Invite an adversarial collaborator
   Find someone whose genuine prior is the opposite of yours, and work together on the same evidence.
   Confirmation Bias: Seeing What You Expect to See
3. Specify what would falsify your belief before you look at evidence
   Write down what evidence would prove you wrong before you go looking.
   Falsification Thinking
4. Actively seek information that disconfirms your view
   Deliberately look for the best evidence against your current position before committing to it.
   Naive Realism: Why Everyone Thinks They See Things as They Are
5. Weigh disconfirming evidence more heavily than confirming evidence
   One strong counterexample outweighs many confirming examples for a universal claim.
   Falsification Thinking
6. Actively seek disconfirming evidence
   Deliberately look for evidence that your current belief is wrong.
   Superforecasting
7. Testing a core belief with historical evidence
   Once you have a core belief, survey all your history for evidence that contradicts it.
   The Downward Arrow: Uncovering the Core Beliefs Behind Distress
8. Probe for evidence behind claims
   Ask "what evidence supports that?" before accepting any factual or evaluative claim.
   Socratic Questioning
9. Actively seek evidence that would disconfirm your belief
   Ask: "What would change my mind?" and then look for exactly that.
   Bayesian Thinking: How to Update Beliefs Rationally
10. Walk down the ladder together in disagreements
    In conflict, stop arguing about conclusions and descend together to the data level.
    The Ladder of Inference

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