Essential Idea
The Texas Sharpshooter
How do you know whether the pattern you've found is real — or a coincidence with a story attached?
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Topic Hub
Cognitive Biases That Trip Up Smart People
The cognitive biases that trip up smart people — Texas Sharpshooter, survivorship bias, confirmation bias and more, with real examples.
Cognitive biases are the mind's systematic errors — the patterns that lead clever people, large companies and sophisticated systems to confidently reach the wrong conclusion.
The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy fires first and draws the target afterwards. Survivorship bias reminds us that the visible are the lucky, not necessarily the wise. The false consensus effect convinces us that everyone quietly agrees. The Monty Hall Problem shows that probability offends intuition. Simpson's Paradox proves that the same data can tell opposite stories depending on how you slice it.
These are not academic curiosities. They are the reason products fail, investments sour and meetings reach confident conclusions that collapse by Thursday. The defence is not intelligence — clever people fall for biases just as readily. The defence is scepticism: a willingness to ask whether the pattern is real or merely convenient.
This hub brings together our briefings on the traps that catch the unwary, with stories, business examples and practical questions to carry into your next decision.
Questions this hub explores
- cognitive biases that affect decisions
- what is the texas sharpshooter fallacy
- survivorship bias explained with examples
- common thinking traps at work
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