Selection Bias—100 Mental Models #042 👽
Are you a victim of these biases?
Selection Bias: The selection of individuals, groups or data for analysis that is not random. That means that sample chosen is not truly representative of the real-world.
Example:
There are many types of selection bias, including:
Sampling Bias: Some members of a population are more likely to be included than others. For example, many studies conducted at Universities rely on University students who are not representative of the population as a whole.
Clinical Susceptibility Bias: Having one disease can predispose you to have a second disease. If you are treated for the first disease, and then contract the second disease, it could erroneously appear as if the treatment of the first disease caused the second disease.
For example, postmenopausal syndrome (the disease) gives a higher likelihood for women to develop endometrial cancer. So when postmenopausal syndrome sufferers are treated with estrogen (the treatment) and subsequently develop endometrial cancer, the estrogen treatment can mistakenly be blamed for causing the cancer (when it was the predisposition not that treatment that cause it).
Wisdom:
“Living is easy with [your] eyes closed.” ― John Lennon
