Monday, May 10, 2010

Michael Shermer Presents a Perception and Reasoning Clinic


It's amazing how we let our error prone brains get the best of our perception. But there's more than just being cautious with our perception. We frequently receive information or perform acts that don't match with our current thinking. This creates a phenomenon called cognitive dissonance--an uncomfortable need to resolve the conflict.


One way to resolve cognitive dissonance is to change our position so that it matches with the new behavior or information. But who wants to be wrong or change our personal identity? Instead, we often elect to rationalize the difference. This frequently takes the form of cognitive errors/biases. What are these cognitive errors? One teacher wrote a song about them. And it goes a little something like this . . .




Here's Michael Shermer's classic, Why People Believe Weird Things. Note the added section of why smart people believe weird things:
Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time

1 comment:

  1. i am amazed with thouse person who have great perception and intuitions.

    ReplyDelete

Sharing Is Good

Wikio
Related Posts with Thumbnails