Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking, Fast and Slow, which is about the psychological research concerning cognitive bias. Kahneman could very well be the leading expert concerning cognitive bias at this point in time. His research concerns how people reason and why people often reason poorly, and it has some important implications for critical thinking. I will describe three cognitive biases that he discussed in his book, and explain how they relate to logical fallacies. (more…)
May 2, 2013
May 31, 2012
Nonrational Forms of Persuasion & Manipulation
The world is full of manipulation, lies, and unreasonable thought. We all know we can’t believe everything we read, but people still get manipulated and charlatans occasionally make a fortune anyway. The Internet is one of the greatest sources of information, but we still need to know what information is reliable. It can be difficult to know what to believe, it can be difficult to identify manipulation, and it can be difficult to identify errors in reasoning. Additionally, there is research that strongly suggests that even the most reasonable people suffer from a great deal of cognitive bias. (more…)
