Confirmation Bias Resistance Invoked in BER 85-5 Research Report
P · Principle
Individual
http://proethica.org/ontology/case/176#Confirmation_Bias_Resistance_Invoked_in_BER_85-5_Research_Report
Properties
Instance of
ConfirmationBiasResistanceandVarianceDataDisclosureObligation
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#ConfirmationBiasResistanceandVarianceDataDisclosureObligation
Applied to
Graduate research report data selection and omission decision
Balancing with
Clarity of conclusions
Report persuasiveness
Concrete expression
The BER 85-5 engineer omitted minority data inconsistent with research conclusions because of subjective conviction in the report's soundness; the Board held this unethical, articulating that the real challenge of technical inquiry is to wrestle with data at variance with conclusions rather than to identify results in accord with one's basic premise
Confidence
0.9
Importance
high
Interpretation
The principle operates here as a prohibition on selective data presentation driven by the engineer's pre-existing belief in the correctness of conclusions; the engineer's good-faith conviction does not cure the ethical violation of omitting contradictory data
Invoked by
BER Case 85-5 Graduate Research Engineer
Tension resolution
The Board held unequivocally that the obligation to include and engage with variance data overrides the engineer's judgment that such data would distort the report's thrust
Source Evidence
Source text
The real challenge...is to wrestle head-on with the difficult and sometimes insoluble issues that surface and try to gain some understanding of why they are at variance with other results.
Text references
Convinced of the soundness of his report and concerned that inclusion of the ambiguous data would detract from and distort the essential thrust of the report, the engineer decided to omit reference to the ambiguous report
The real challenge...is to wrestle head-on with the difficult and sometimes insoluble issues that surface and try to gain some understanding of why they are at variance with other results
the challenge...is not to develop consistent or precise findings that one can identify and categorize neatly, nor is it to identify results that are in accord with one's basic premise
TTL
@prefix case176: <http://proethica.org/ontology/case/176#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proeth: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#> .
@prefix prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
case176:Confirmation_Bias_Resistance_Invoked_in_BER_85-5_Research_Report a proeth:ConfirmationBiasResistanceandVarianceDataDisclosureObligation,
owl:NamedIndividual ;
rdfs:label "Confirmation Bias Resistance Invoked in BER 85-5 Research Report" ;
proeth:appliedto "Graduate research report data selection and omission decision" ;
proeth:balancingwith "Clarity of conclusions",
"Report persuasiveness" ;
proeth:conceptCategory "Principle" ;
proeth:concreteexpression "The BER 85-5 engineer omitted minority data inconsistent with research conclusions because of subjective conviction in the report's soundness; the Board held this unethical, articulating that the real challenge of technical inquiry is to wrestle with data at variance with conclusions rather than to identify results in accord with one's basic premise" ;
proeth:confidence "0.9" ;
proeth:discoveredincase "176" ;
proeth:discoveredinpass "2" ;
proeth:discoveredinsection "discussion" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredat "2026-03-01T11:03:54.133055+00:00" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredincase "176" ;
proeth:generatedattime "2026-03-01T11:03:54.133055+00:00" ;
proeth:importance "high" ;
proeth:interpretation "The principle operates here as a prohibition on selective data presentation driven by the engineer's pre-existing belief in the correctness of conclusions; the engineer's good-faith conviction does not cure the ethical violation of omitting contradictory data" ;
proeth:invokedby "BER Case 85-5 Graduate Research Engineer" ;
proeth:principleclass "Confirmation Bias Resistance and Variance Data Disclosure Obligation" ;
proeth:sourcetext "The real challenge...is to wrestle head-on with the difficult and sometimes insoluble issues that surface and try to gain some understanding of why they are at variance with other results." ;
proeth:tensionresolution "The Board held unequivocally that the obligation to include and engage with variance data overrides the engineer's judgment that such data would distort the report's thrust" ;
proeth:textreferences "Convinced of the soundness of his report and concerned that inclusion of the ambiguous data would detract from and distort the essential thrust of the report, the engineer decided to omit reference to the ambiguous report",
"The real challenge...is to wrestle head-on with the difficult and sometimes insoluble issues that surface and try to gain some understanding of why they are at variance with other results",
"the challenge...is not to develop consistent or precise findings that one can identify and categorize neatly, nor is it to identify results that are in accord with one's basic premise" ;
proeth:wasattributedto "Case 176 Extraction" ;
prov:generatedAtTime "2026-03-01T11:13:16.199085"^^xsd:dateTime ;
prov:wasGeneratedBy "ProEthica Case 176 Extraction" .
Metadata
Extraction details
Discovered in case
176
Discovered in pass
2
Discovered in section
discussion
First discovered
2026-03-01T11:03:54.133055+00:00
First case
176
Generated
2026-03-01T11:03:54.133055+00:00
Attributed to
Case 176 Extraction
Generated
2026-03-01T11:13:16.199085
Generated by
ProEthica Case 176 Extraction