7 Biases That Everyone Has (And How They F*ck Up Your Life)

The human brain is really good at finding patterns and even better at finding patterns that aren't there. We also have a need to understand the world, or at least ascribe meaning to the events that happen in our lives - it helps us to feel in control. Even if that way of feeling in control is to think that governments the world over are conspiring with every drug companies ever to keep us sick and kill us all.

Why accept the fact there isn't yet a cure for most cancers, when it's easier to believe that pharmaceutical companies hide cures and that's why your love one died? Why accept that autism is genetic when it's easier to believe vaccines did it? Or vaccines cause diabetes? Or SIDS? Or whatever else conspiracy theorists want to believe vaccines for because they have no f*cking clue?

The illusory correlation effect happens when a person falsely correlates two or more events as being related. A child getting a vaccine and shortly after presenting more obvious signs of having autism is a sequence of events that are falsely correlated. The two events don't have a relationship, but some vaccines on the schedule are administered around the time autistic children often present more obvious signs of autism.

Additionally, once the false correlation is made, a false causation may also be made. One might feel that presenting with signs of autism so close to getting vaccine means that getting a vaccine causes autism. Our naturopath frenemy Heather may feel that because the end of her children's whooping cough coincided when a placebo she gave them, she may feel that the useless treatment actually cured the illness.