I personally find it funny how the concept of confirmation bias has become a psychological trope. It may or may not be true that people prefer to listen to things that confirm their pre-existing beliefs, but as I see it, this has much more to do with poor critical thinking skills than with cognitive psychology. The discussion of - and criticism of - conformation bias begins with the philosophy of science, and in particular of the theory of confirmation of hypothesis, an idea proposed by suck people as Carl Hempel and forming a core thesis of logical positivism. Critics, such as Karl Popper, argued that hypotheses ought to be tested by falsification, while contemporary philosophy of science offers a much more complex story based on models, semantics, evidence and theory. It should be hard to change our beliefs, but it should be possible. Meanwhile, I see this idea of 'confirmation bias' mostly as a dodge, a way to avoid talking about critical reasoning, and to reduce differences of opinion to differing states of mind where, you know, both sides have good ideas.
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