When any of us prepare an argument, there’s a danger of falling into confirmation bias. That’s the term coined by the cognitive psychologist Peter Wason in 1960 to describe our human tendency to look only for information that “confirms” what we already believe, while just ignoring any evidence that backs up other or especially opposing viewpoints. In a debate, this often leads us to research our preferred line of argument until we can’t imagine losing—even as we fail to anticipate our opponent’s actual counterattack.
