Big Data Analytics

478 • Big Data Analytics

or new knowledge because it contradicts established paradigms. Ignaz

Semmelweis was a physician who discovered that childbed fever mortality

rates diminished by a magnitude when doctors washed their hands with

an antiseptic chlorine solution between patient visits. Semmelweis’s con-

temporaries unscientically rejected his hand-washing suggestions. In a

sense, the Semmelweis reex is a tendency to reject that which disconrms

previously held beliefs. e word “belief” itself has diculties—belief will

always appear in the presence of ignorance, since the alternative to belief

is knowledge, which involves gnosis, not ignorance.

Congruence Bias

With congruence bias, we go ahead and test our hypothesis directly,

thereby avo ...