One common trap of human intuition is failing to take into account the plausibility of an event before considering the context-specific evidence of the case at hand. Without knowing how plausible a hypothesis is in general, it is easy to fall into the trap (test yourself!) of overestimating the initial probability for inherently unlikely theories. This is known as the Prosecutor’s fallacy, one of the main flaws of human reasoning.
As discussed in a previous post, logic fails in the real world. Real-world problems do not lend themselves to logical reasoning since any non-trivial issue involves some uncertainty (Was the report accurate? Is the test result a false-positive?). When the problem is also complex, involving large amounts of information with intricate dependencies, then uncertainty can render the logical argument meaningless.
Given these hurdles, how has humanity managed to make any progress at all? How do we deal with uncertain information in cases of high complexity? Continue reading
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