1. We’re Doing an Experiment
One psychic to be tested
One person to administer the experiment (me)
One recorder to write down the results
This is to ensure a proper double-blind procedure
One randomized deck of Zener Cards

2. Zener Cards
Here are your options:

3. The Results What’s the percentage of “hits?”
Somewhere around 20%, perhaps?
Seems like a lot, really, but it’s not
Most people don’t understand probability
Take my dad’s motorcycle…

4. Magnification/Catastrophization
People think a single event creates a general pattern
They explode that event and give it greater significance than it really has
You need more than one data point to form a reliable conclusion

5. Emotional Reasoning Often responsible for catastrophizing
“I’m afraid the motorcycle will crash, therefore it will”
The two are completely unrelated
Often people see what they want to see, or what they’re afraid of
The “evening news effect”

6. Cherry-Picking Evidence
If you count just the “misses,” you’re Disqualifying the Positive
The evidence has to speak for itself
You can count just the “hits,” too, and it’s just as wrong
It’s the Mental Filter thinking error
All or Nothing thinking

7. Black and White? Is guessing 20% of the cards a total failure?
A bad person from one bad action
“You’re either with us or against us”
This is called the “False Dilemma”
Use Lipozene or stay fat

8. Fixing Black and White Thought
Finding the grey area
20% success
A good person who’s done a few bad things
Find other options
Remaining neutral
Diet and exercise
Reject the dilemma
A politician says “Vote for me or the country will go down the tubes”

9. Ignoring the Evidence That’s what it’s all about
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Snake Oil Hucksters
The Loch Ness Monster

10. Thinking Errors and Evidence
Catastrophization
Ignores a lack of positive evidence
Emotional Reasoning
Uses emotions as substitute for evidence
Disqualifying the Positive
Ignores positive evidence
Black and White Thinking
Ignores alternative solutions or ideas

11. More Thinking Errors Mind Reading Labeling and Overgeneralization
Makes assertions with no evidence at all
Labeling and Overgeneralization
Uses a single piece of evidence to sum up an entire person or thing
These can be applied to yourself or your relationships or to reality itself
Ignoring evidence leads to misrepresenting reality

12. Evidence and Real Life Is one experiment enough?
Does a single failure render you a failure?
Should you ignore your successes?
If someone is a jerk to you once, does it make sense to label them a total jerk?
Should you ignore when they’re nice?
Should you write them off immediately?

13. Evidence and Real Life
You shouldn’t make a conclusion until you have a good amount of evidence
Jumping to conclusions is the easy way out
It is okay to say “I don’t know” or “I’m suspending my judgment”

14. Your Horoscopes Find a nice corner of the room by yourself
Your horoscopes were ordered from a licensed astrologer, therefore they’re as accurate as horoscopes get
Read over them
Think about how accurate they are

15. The Reveal You all got the same horoscope! It was based on my birthday
Look at them more critically
Pick out accuracies and inaccuracies
Chances are you ignored the inaccuracies because you were seeing what you expected to see

16. “Confirmation Bias”
Letting your perceptions be colored by prior assumptions and biases
What is a bias?
At work in Emotional Reasoning, Mind Reading, Catastrophization, Minimization, Labeling, Mental Filter, etc.

17. How and Why The “how” for thinking errors
Cherry picking
Ignoring evidence
The “why” for thinking errors
So you can continue to believe what you already believe
So you won’t have to change your mind
So you can believe what you want instead of what is

18. Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.
--Phillip K. Dick

19. The Fallout Poor thinking can affect you personally
Wanting to be miserable
Feeling like a victim
It can also affect you outside your head
If you don’t see reality for what it is instead of what you want it to be, you can believe all sorts of silly things
You might even get hurt, or hurt someone else

20. Dr. Don I need a volunteer to be a “patient”
I’m sorry, sir, but you have lung cancer
You don’t want surgery, chemo, or radiation because they’re scary
But never fear, because I have the miracle cure!

21. What Might Happen?
With your perceptions of reality colored by fear, desperation, and a bias against proven treatment, what might happen?
What might the fallout be of a poor decision made against the evidence, because you wanted something to be true, or because you refused to investigate alternatives?

22. Question yourself!
Thinking Errors effect more than just your own attitude
They can color your perception of reality in inaccurate and dangerous ways
The first step is to always question your own perceptions

23. Perception is Fallible
This is exploited by optical illusions
Humans are fallible
It is vital to question your perceptions and judgments of people, events, or things and look for the evidence
Don’t jump to conclusions

24. Examine Your Biases Examine your personal biases Why do you hold them?
Are they justified by the evidence?
Do you want them to be true?
Are you afraid they might be true?
Did you just make them up?