none of these bias blind spots were attenuated by measures of cognitive sophistication such as cognitive ability or thinking dispositions related to bias. If anything, a larger bias blind spot was associated with higher cognitive ability

bias blind spot arises when people report that thinking biases are more prevalent in others than in themselves. Bias turns out to be relatively easy to recognize in the behaviors of others, but often difficult to detect in one's own judgments.

you can be intelligent without being rational. And you can be a rational thinker without being especially intelligent.

Earlier this year, Yale University Press published Stanovich’s book What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought.

Fortunately, rational thinking can be taught, and Stanovich thinks the school system should expend more effort on it. Teaching basic statistical and scientific thinking helps. And so does teaching more general thinking strategies. Studies show that a good way to improve critical thinking is to think of the opposite.

intelligence seems to make things worse. The scientists gave the students four measures of “cognitive sophistication.” As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, “indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots.”

smarter people (at least as measured by S.A.T. scores) and those more likely to engage in deliberation were slightly more vulnerable to common mental mistakes.

Education also isn’t a savior; as Kahneman and Shane Frederick first noted many years ago, more than fifty per cent of students at Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. gave the incorrect answer to the bat-and-ball question

Birth control pills are effective in preventing pregnancy 98 to 99 percent of the time, but at what cost? According to Planned Parenthood, their potential short-term side effects include bleeding between periods, nausea, vomiting and breast tenderness, and many women report weight gain and low sex drive. Serious side effects include strokes, hypertension, liver tumors and blood clots in the legs, lungs, heart and brain. It’s also common for long-term pill users to develop gallstones.

And even scarier than the “mild” side effects are the serious health risks that accompany birth control pills. These include: , Increased risk of cervical and breast cancers Increased risk of heart attack and stroke Migraines Higher blood pressure Gall bladder disease Infertility Benign liver tumors Decreased bone density Yeast overgrowth and infection Increased risk of blood clotting

Some physical and emotional changes take place that are permanent while you stay on the pill. Many of these changes occur as your body’s response to synthetic estrogen. These changes include: Larger breasts Weight gain or loss Reduced or increased acne Slight nausea Emotional sensitivity right before your period Mood swings throughout your cycle Irregular bleeding or spotting Breast tenderness Decreased libido