Sublime

Another worthwhile source is the title essay in The Prevalence of Humbug by Max Black.

And if certain of my behaviors are truly the result of chance, they should be surprising even to me.

real and bogus arguments

our ability to think well will be determined to some considerable degree by who those others are: what we might call the moral form of our community. A willingness to be “broken on the floor,” for example, is in itself a testimony to belief that the people you’re debating are decent people who don’t want to harm or manipulate you—whereas if you don

Su primer trabajo publicado —que ellos consideraban casi una broma al mundo académico— había demostrado que una persona que se enfrenta a un problema que tiene una respuesta estadísticamente correcta no piensa como los estadísticos. Ni siquiera ellos pensaban como tales. «Belief in Law of Small Numbers» había planteado una cuestión que resultaba ob

This is where our amazing cognitive flexibility comes into play. Thanks to this human skill, as long as we cheat by only a little bit, we can benefit from cheating and still view ourselves as marvelous human beings. This balancing act is the process of rationalization, and it is the basis of what we’ll call the “fudge factor theory.”

The tests reflected my ability to reason logically. Either you reason things out or you don’t. Those who do, have high IQs. Those who don’t reach for the mayonnaise when they can’t find the insect repellent. When I became upset over my test score, Hugh explained that everybody thinks differently—I just happen to do it a lot less than the average ad