The recipe for being right: Squeeze out the belief from a cup of evidence

25. Jun, 2010 0 Comments

I was talking to someone today and the conversation touched on the topic of poker. I played a lot of poker during my uni years and while I wasn’t earning massive amounts off it, I made over 30k in about 2 years.

Without knowing my background, the person I was talking to said something to the effect of “isn’t poker gambling? you always lose at gambling”. I said “no, in poker you can win because you don’t play against the house, you play against other players.”

She looked at me as if to think I was crazy. She couldn’t get past the concept that gambling isn’t always losing.

The point is this: Thinking something doesn’t make it true. Believing something strongly doesn’t make it true.

Truth lies behind evidence. Truth lies in the facts.

Everyone has things they believe which are wrong. Right people are just better at updating their knowledge when they’re proven wrong. Just look at scientists. A scientist will throw out a lifetimes worth of work with glee if it helped someone else to prove them wrong and further human understanding.

So next time someone tells you something that sounds utterly absurd, just quickly think, “why and how”. Also think about “why and how” you believe the opposite. You never know, you might learn something that’s true.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!