Human beings are not always good at accepting the truth.

We fool ourselves into thinking that things are right or true for all sorts of reasons. Maybe because it is fashionable to think something, or because someone we trust has told us, or because it’s something we believed for a long time. We want to believe it, even if it’s not true.

There’s a name for this sort of impediment to clear thinking – Cognitive Bias.

Cognitive biases work as shortcuts in our thinking that allow us to come to conclusions more quickly. They can be useful rules of thumb, saving time in making decisions by simplifying our perception of situations. But cognitive biases can also lead us to jump to the wrong conclusion and make bad choices.

Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.

Linus Pauling