Sure. We all have biases. Almost everything I think about in engineering is passed through two filters: bayes, and nonlinear optimization[1]. It's enormously useful, and leads me to a lot of insights that others don't come up with. But it is a bias, and we always have to guard against it leading us down the wrong path.
[1] By this I mean I always ask myself - am I incorporating all information, and in a probabilistic (Bayesian) way. If not, have I analytically proven that I can discard the information (dimensionality reduction). If I haven't proven it, my 'go to' assumption is that information, no matter how noisy, should be incorporated until I can prove analytically or empirically that it isn't needed. In more concrete terms people endlessly hand wave "that isn't important" when I ask a question, but then I go prove it is important. It's a cheap trick in some sense, but it sure does work. Don't throw away information. Likewise, I view everything as a nonlinear estimation/optimization problem. I think in terms of manifolds and surfaces - what are my variables, what can I vary, can I vary them smoothly (is the surface locally smooth and continuous). In concrete terms, maybe you are trying to figure out what features to add to a product. Lots of choices, lots of unknowns. Can I iteratively come to an answer in an agile way, do I have to make some discontinuous jumps, what step size should I use, etc. It's all just 'mathy'. Meaning I don't have analytic equations for these decisions, but thinking about it as if it is is usually very informative.
[1] By this I mean I always ask myself - am I incorporating all information, and in a probabilistic (Bayesian) way. If not, have I analytically proven that I can discard the information (dimensionality reduction). If I haven't proven it, my 'go to' assumption is that information, no matter how noisy, should be incorporated until I can prove analytically or empirically that it isn't needed. In more concrete terms people endlessly hand wave "that isn't important" when I ask a question, but then I go prove it is important. It's a cheap trick in some sense, but it sure does work. Don't throw away information. Likewise, I view everything as a nonlinear estimation/optimization problem. I think in terms of manifolds and surfaces - what are my variables, what can I vary, can I vary them smoothly (is the surface locally smooth and continuous). In concrete terms, maybe you are trying to figure out what features to add to a product. Lots of choices, lots of unknowns. Can I iteratively come to an answer in an agile way, do I have to make some discontinuous jumps, what step size should I use, etc. It's all just 'mathy'. Meaning I don't have analytic equations for these decisions, but thinking about it as if it is is usually very informative.
So I 100% agree with the quote.