284: Avoid bad thinking and speaking by understanding cognitive biases and logical fallacies

Watch out, world! My superpowers are starting to emerge!

Last week I was on a camping trip with some friends, listening to the Ravens game on the radio. I had this premonition that the next play would be an interception. I called it, and I was right.

The same thing happened yesterday with the Redskins game (I won’t call them the Commanders). Also, my wife asked what kind of cake I wanted for my birthday. I said cheesecake, and a couple hours later her boss and his wife showed up at our front door with a cheesecake — as a Thanksgiving gift.

Amazing, right? I’m not only a prophet, but I can manifest cheesecakes at will.

You don’t believe that any more than I do, I hope. The world is full of weird coincidences that have more to do with where we focus our attention than anything magical.

The truth is that we’re plagued with magical, irrational thoughts, which are more politely called “cognitive biases.” Apparently they serve as useful shortcuts that work most of the time, but they can also mislead. It’s important to know them so you can recognize when they creep up — in your own mind, in conversations, in advertising, in sales pitches, etc.

I take my close brush with mastery of the occult over the last week as a sign that I should mention them again. (Kidding, of course.)

I have a deck of cards that explains 24 logical fallacies and 24 cognitive biases. They’re a great way to refresh your recollection of how to think properly, which is an important skill, especially as we seem to have normalized the idea that it’s okay for politicians and advertisers to lie to us.

Some of the biases explained in these cards include …

• Anchoring
• The dunning-Kruger effect
• Optimism and pessimism bias, and
• The availability heuristic

Among the logical fallacies are …

• Begging the question
• The genetic fallacy
• No true Scotsman, and
• The bandwagon effect

It’s important to understand both logical fallacies and cognitive biases, so you don’t get fooled by them, on the one hand, but also so that you don’t mislead people by using them.

The same company also has a deck of 52 brainstorming tools. These can be quite fun. They help you think along different paths and allow creative ideas to bubble up.