Thinking, Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman

We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.

It suggests that when people believe a conclusion is true, they are also very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, even when these arguments are unsound.

A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.

Contrary to the rules of philosophers of science, who advise testing hypotheses by trying to refute them, people (and scientists, quite often) seek data that are likely to be compatible with the beliefs they currently hold.

“The emotional tail wags the rational dog.”

In the presence of randomness, regular patterns can only be mirages.

Remember this rule: intuition cannot be trusted in the absence of stable regularities in the environment.

Experts who acknowledge the full extent of their ignorance may expect to be replaced by more confident competitors, who are better able to gain the trust of clients.