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DSCI 490 Capstone Fall 2024

This Library Research Guide is designed to assist student in the DCSI 490 in using the library to access primary, secondary and tertiary information for their course assignments.

Bias

Bias is prejudice in favour of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair. No information source is ever entirely free of bias.

In health sciences, bias is often associated with systematic error or information bias. An error that is often related to epidemiologic research.

Eric Notebook: Sources of Systematic Error or Bias:Information Bias
Information bias is one type of systematic error that can occur in epidemiologic studies. Bias is any systematic error in an epidemiologic study that results in an incorrect estimate of the association between exposure and the health outcome.Bias occurs when an estimated
association (risk ratio, rate ratio, odds ratio, difference in means, etc.) deviates from the true measure of association.
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Metadata for creating an APA 7 citation:

Alexander, L.K. et al. (n.d.).. Eric notboo: Information bias. https://sph.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/112/2015/07/nciph_ERIC14.pdf

Misinformation

Misinformation is false or inaccurate information - getting the facts wrong. .

Disinformation

Disinformation is false information deliberately created and spread to deceive people. It is the result of an organized effort in which the purveyors employ tactics to advance political, social, military, or commercial goals.

Denialism

A person or organization that does not acknowledge the truth of a concept or proposition supported by most scientific or historical evidence.

One of the current Canadian situations that represents denialism is residential school denialism.

British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM)
BCCNM is introducing a series of self directed e-learning modules—From Awareness to Action: Indigenous Cultural Safety, Cultural Humility, and Anti-Racism learning series—to further support nurses and midwives to understand and apply the Indigenous Cultural Safety, Cultural Humility, and Anti-Racism practice standard in your practice.
Canadian Medical Association
On Sept. 18, 2024, we apologized for our role, and the role of the medical profession, in past and ongoing harms to First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples in the health system. The apology was delivered at a ceremony in Victoria, BC, on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋiʔnəŋ speaking people of Songhees and Xwsepsum Nations and shared publicly via livestream.

Recommended Reading

The Believing Brain by Michael Shermer
Call Number: BF 773 .S54 2011
ISBN: 9780805091250
Publication Date: 2011-05-24
The Believing Brain is bestselling author Michael Shermer's comprehensive and provocative theory on how beliefs are born, formed, reinforced, challenged, changed, and extinguished. In this work synthesizing thirty years of research, psychologist, historian of science, and the world's best-known skeptic Michael Shermer upends the traditional thinking about how humans form beliefs about the world. Simply put, beliefs come first and explanations for beliefs follow. The brain, Shermer argues, is a belief engine. From sensory data flowing in through the senses, the brain naturally begins to look for and find patterns, and then infuses those patterns with meaning. Our brainsconnect the dots of our world into meaningful patterns that explain why things happen, and these patterns become beliefs. Once beliefs are formed the brain begins to look for and find confirmatory evidence in support of those beliefs, which accelerates the process of reinforcing them, and round and round the process goes in a positive-feedback loop of belief confirmation. Shermer outlines the numerous cognitive tools our brains engage to reinforce our beliefs as truths. Interlaced with his theory of belief, Shermer provides countless real-world examples of how this process operates, from politics, economics, and religion to conspiracy theories, the supernatural, and the paranormal. Ultimately, he demonstrates why science is the best tool ever devised to determine whether or not a belief matches reality.

Read Chapter 12 - Confirmation of Belief. It provides a good overview of the various biases that impact people's decision-making process.

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