amygdalae feature prominently in this threat response.5 What this tells us is that the brain doesn’t merely prefer certainty over ambiguity-it craves it. Our need to be right is actually a need to “feel” right. Neurologist Robert Burton coined the term certainty bias to describe this feeling and how it skews our thinking.6

One of the most perilous gene-meme double whammies that humans possess is the notion of certainty. Our natures and our learned biases lead us to believe that we are right whether or not we really are. This

Some of the features she’ll experience include greatly reduced selective attention—no more missing the details! Broader framing—no more mental myopia! And information that challenges her beliefs can drive on in for an objective evaluation—no more confirmation bias! Plus, the Super Novum comes in a variety of colors and patterns to match its user’s

when we feel right about a decision or a belief-whether big or small-our brains are happy. Since our brains like being happy, we like feeling right. In

Most of us can grasp the substance of a problem and even be provided with a means for overcoming it, yet we often still fail. It is this gap between awareness and action that set me on a path to write this book. I wanted to know why humans so often do things not in our best interest.

likely to tackle a great white shark, just as an orca from a whale-hunting culture would have no reason to start hunting stingrays.

nonwarrior labor. The Spartans were not concerned with the principle of"freedom”—they were concerned with their own freedom.

In every orca culture, a hunting technique is learned through demonstration and imitation. That’s a big part of what makes orcas such efficient predators—they learn the best, tried-and-true hunting techniques from each other. When one orca tries a killing method that works well, others take notice and copy it.

When we want to revisit the memory, we pull the book from the shelf and turn to the right page. We now know that memory doesn’t work that way, and, in fact, your memory of the hairpin curve and corkscrew loop doesn’t really reside in any single place in your brain, nor is it in any way complete.