Recently, I've been making my way through a compilation book of scientists who were challenged to answer the question of "what 1 scientific idea should people know that would make them better off?"
The book is called: This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking (Edge Question Series)
. The essays are about 2-3 pages long and, for the most part, really good.
Two that stood out for me are: The Pessimistic Meta-Induction from the History of Science which essentially says that in each era, people think they are at the end of modernity, having figured it all out, and that everyone beforehand were ignorant. Yet, 85% of what we think of as "truth/fact" will be proven to be false at some point. Stay humble
And Self-Serving Bias which essentially says that we aren't nearly as open-minded as we though (which we knew), but reminds us that we are always looking for things to confirm what we think is the right thing.
Just wanted to pass these along.
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