Today we have a deadly combination for decision making, falsification and confirmation bias.
Falsification was popularized by Sir Karl Popper, a philosopher. Falsification is the idea that the only way to test the validity of any theory was to prove it wrong. A confirmation bias is our tendency to look for evidence that confirms our instincts or models. Our hesitation to falsify and our love of confirming evidence is a powerful negative combination for our decision making.
Below, from Farnam Street:
What a man wishes, he also believes. Similarly, what we believe is what we choose to see. This is commonly referred to as the confirmation bias. It is a deeply ingrained mental habit, both energy-conserving and comfortable, to look for confirmations of long-held wisdom rather than violations. Yet the scientific process – including hypothesis generation, blind testing when needed, and objective statistical rigor – is designed to root out precisely the opposite, which is why it works so well when followed.
The modern scientific enterprise operates under the principle of falsification: A method is termed scientific if it can be stated in such a way that a certain defined result would cause it to be proved false. Pseudo-knowledge and pseudo-science operate and propagate by being unfalsifiable – as with astrology, we are unable to prove them either correct or incorrect because the conditions under which they would be shown false are never stated.