BiasBias is impossible to completely avoid - it permeates every aspect of life.
Take for example recently, we asked a simple product question about a popular lens for telescopes and got a hundred varying replies, all different.
Sure, we might think the opinions and experiences of different people lead to different results. However, even so called stated supposedly factual specifications of the same product wildly varied like day and night, from one sales company to another. What's up with that? Have we discovered something worse than fake news? False advertising?
Going on the Forum found nearly a thousand posts, all with different opinions. Some people were asking the same question - is there or is there not "optical correction" within the lens combination? There was no definitive answer. Best guess is the lens combo product is offered "as is" without any specs and probably comes from China where there was no translation if information was offered, and undoubtedly no specs offered as no company even offered a vague translation.
How could this happen in a technical field of astronomy and astrophysics? Are people willing to buy a product by guess only? Is the cost low enough to take a wild gamble and warrant throwing your money into the wind?
Times have undoubtedly changed over the years. Now we have social media with millions of different opinions. Take for example another product, like an air filter. 500 people gave one product top rating, while another 500 gave it the worst rating. How is that possible? Bias.
