Admitting You Are Wrong Is Healthy

"Rethinking your opinions—and changing your views when your facts are proved wrong or someone makes a better argument—can make your life better. It can make you more successful, less anxious, and happier."

Click on the link below for an article that gives reasons and methods to overcome normal human resistance to admitting you are wrong.

How to Get Better at Admitting You Are Wrong

Reality Is Deterministic And Random, No Matter Your Perceptions And Biases

"We've all heard of an amazing coincidence, or maybe one's even happened to you. Makes you wonder if there might be something out there pulling the strings. "But is it proof of something bigger? Or is it just normal probability?"

The mind can easily deceive us because of our confirmation biases. Click on the link below:

10 Amazing Coincidences (And Why They're Not Amazing Really)

Bias And The Antidote

Any science-based thinker understands that our brains are not reliable for understanding objective reality, which leads us to many cognitive biases. For example, the term confirmation bias is defined as the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information that confirms or supports one's prior personal beliefs or values. 

A more recently-recognized cognitive bias is unconscious bias against those of another race. This latter bias is being strongly challenged by some. These links (here), (here), (here) present the issue and are used by me to attempt to clarify opinions over it. In my opinion, in spite of some justified issues with testing, the bias is real and causes harm. This Facebook post of mine contains some heated interaction between me and others that is illustrative of the issue.

Unfortunately, in spite of the present protests against racism affecting Blacks, I am afraid that the core message is being lost: humans have deep-seated biases, many of which are not at the conscious level. I choose to group all of these biases under the umbrella of "The Other", whether it is religion, race, sex/gender, or political philosophy. The antidote to all of this is humility, an open mind, and science-based thinking. Magical Thinking (Credulity) has to be marginalized significantly to have significant improvement, full-stop.