Belief is Step 1 of Assessment
Overcoming bias is important because you can’t accurately assess an issue if you have a predetermined conclusion in mind. Once you’re equally willing to believe anything about a topic, only then are you ready to assess it.
Imagine you have 5 options for what to believe about a given topic, and you’re biased toward option B:
Most experts would recommend tactics for overcoming your tendency to prefer one belief over another. “You see that bias? Make it go away”
But I don’t think treating bias like an enemy is effective. If it were, people who care a lot about overcoming bias would be better at it. Yet, nobody is less logical and rational than people who go around shouting about how logical and rational they are.
We can’t make our preferences go away by suppressing them.
However, we can reduce them by willing ourselves to favor alternatives, so that we no longer prefer one belief over another.
The exertion is not to doubt ourselves harder, but to believe others harder.
This takes effort — I’m not saying this approach comes automatically or easily.
Just that it’s actually effective.