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The Most Common Cognitive Bias

Veritasium · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Psychology & human behaviorScientific method & science communication

What it is

A Veritasium video that runs the 2-4-8 rule-guessing puzzle on people to show how they test only examples that confirm their hypothesis. It uses this to illustrate confirmation bias and falsification.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Recommended as a clear demonstration of confirmation bias and the value of trying to break your own hypothesis.

  • 3 people recommended it
  • 3 different months
  • 0 strong recommendations
  • first 2015, last 2023

What HN commenters said

  1. “I found the discussion afterwards to be more thought-provoking than this article.”

    Veritasium video on this experiment, with thought-provoking discussion.

    drhdylan88, 2015-07 · Recommendation · in “A Quick Puzzle to Test Your Problem Solving”

  2. “I would suggest this video by Veritasium, which also touches on this, at a very fundamental level”

    Fundamental look at falsification and confirmation bias.

    nightcracker, 2021-09 · Recommendation · in “Dogs distinguish human intentional and unintentional action”

  3. “Veritasium has a great video[1]”

    Why people test examples that confirm their mental model.

    avianlyric, 2023-12 · Recommendation · in “Let me repeat that back to you”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: veritasium, falsification, scientific method, 2-4-8 puzzle, cognitive bias

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