On a side note, everything I'm reading so far in this book is making me think I'm very much a critical thinker(a good one even!), even without having any classes or training. It's all been an excellent addition to things I already know, but I haven't come across anything new yet. I know, this sounds arrogant, I'm sorry. I'm still a woefully inconsistent critical thinker...

Page 18 - "It is a fundamental flaw to assume that the mind is not influenced by the process of natural selection and that critical thinking skills exempt us from biases that are part of our evolutionary heritage."

Page 24 - "the purpose here is not to attack Asimov personally, but to illustrate the point that everyone, even an outstanding critical thinker and someone as brilliant as Asimov, is influenced by our evolutionary heritage."

It seems that he is implying that biases are a result of natural selection. If this were to be so, there would have to be some evolutionary advantage to these biases. I find this intriguing. Does anyone have any insight into this?

Yes, he gives insight into how these biases were advantageous to our survival. One example is that we err on the side of belief when we see a pattern. If you see a pattern of stripes in the grass, it would serve you well to believe that it's a tiger, even if it's not. If you're wrong, the consequences are minimal. If you're right, you avoided potential death by acting on this belief and retreating to safety. There are many such examples, but it's easy to see why erring on the side of belief is a bias that is advantageous to survival.

We all have our bias. Even psychotherapists will generally set up what is called “supervision” with a colleague. This means finding someone, preferably more experienced, with whom one can bounce off aspects of problematic cases where bias may be unsuspectedly creeping in.

I am sure I have my own set. I guess one of mine is apparent in my posting on medical insurance.