Category: Critical Thinking

Placebo-Fu

“An error is the more dangerous the more truth it contains.” – Henri-Frédéric Amiel Ah placebo! Along with natural history and regression to the mean, it is one of the positive non-specific effects of...

Treating Ghosts

A common argument that I hear is, “Since pain is a subjective interpretation, who cares how it improves?” The reasoning goes that the pain is real to the patient, so if a treatment makes improvement...

What Is Your Razor?

“Often myths arise because a single claim or research finding has particular intuitive appeal. The claim makes sense, it supports a popular argument, and soon it is cemented as taken-for-granted fact even though its evidence base...

How to Fool a Smart Person

Wisdom is the love of truth. Intelligence and spiritedness can exist without it. Without wisdom, if some proposition floods their sense of beauty, they will believe it with all their heart and soul, and...