Oliver Cromwell, after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, wrote to the Scots, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.” Few remember what Cromwell asked his British brethren to change their minds about, but eminent British Bayesian Dennis Lindley (1973) elevated his plea to a statistical rule. Eschew priors of 1 and 0, lest you forfeit the benefits of evidence. Eschew certainty and keep your mind, at least a crack, open.
In The Bias That Divides Us, Keith Stanovich takes us to task for not doing this. If the lack of mental openness were a mere private affair, things would be bad enough, but things are worse because the closed mind is groupish, or, to use a fashionable term, tribal. Not only do many of us hold fast to false, immoral, or untestable beliefs, or beliefs that have all...
