But How Do You Fix Cognitive Errors?

NPR has a great article on cognitive bias (actual, a segment from Talk Of The Nation).  People, when confronted with facts that don't fit their worldview, tend to find ways to discount them and not change their mind.

That much is easy to understand, but from there - what do you do?

• How do you know if a piece of evidence is big enough to change your views or just a small data point?
• How do you know if you are rationalizing away evidence or performing a reasoned assessment of new information?

Sometimes the facts are well know and well argued (yes, global warming is real) but sometimes it's not so clear cut.  It still matters to get the answer right - for example when investing - but in those cases there may be far less evidence to sift through.

I don't have any answers, but here's a link to the NPR podcast:

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