The Physiology of Faith by N. Fakhr - HTML preview

Peter Cathcart Wason and his colleagues, who studied confirmation bias, concluded that one reason for confirmation bias is that falsifying a hypothesis is cognitively demanding and effortful. Sometimes our brains avoid trying to disprove the first hypothesis that comes to mind and instead search selectively for evidence that supports it. A physician, for example, may perform a superficial examination, settle on the first diagnosis that comes to mind, and then look only for symptoms that confirm it. If the physician does not pursue further tests that might disprove the initial diagnosis, the actual disease may go unnoticed.