Why so many of the best things we have produced, from science to the arts, have come from collaboration

"Research shows people are incredibly good at picking apart other people’s reasons. We are just terrible at picking apart our own in the same way."

"With no one to tell you that there are other points of view to consider, no one to poke holes in your theories, reveal the weakness in your reasoning, produce counterarguments, reveal potential harm, or threaten sanction for violating a norm, you will spin in an epistemic hamster wheel. In short, when you argue with yourself, you win."

"...(Cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber) call all of this 'the interactionist model,' which posits that the function of reasoning is to argue your case in a group setting. In this model, reasoning is an innate behavior that grows more complex as we mature, like crawling before walking upright. We are social animals first and individual reasoners second, a system built on top of another system, biologically via evolution, and individual reasoning is a psychological mechanism that evolved under selective pressures to facilitate communication between peers in an environment where misinformation is unavoidable. In an environment like that, confirmation bias turns out to be very useful. In fact, bias itself becomes very useful."

Book Excerpt: Why Changing Your Mind is a Feature of Evolution, Not a Bug