In the end, if we don’t prove ourselves wrong, others will do it for us. If we pretend to have all the answers, our cover will eventually be blown. If we don’t recognize the flaws in our own thinking, those flaws will come to haunt us. As cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber point out, a mouse “bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around” will end up as food for those cats.51 Our goal should be to find what’s right—not to be right.
