Strong Feelings Make Weak Evidence Feel Strong

When emotions run high, the threshold for what counts as "evidence" drops to nearly zero. A single outrage-inducing story can override mountains of statistics. A frightening anecdote can make you ignore base rates entirely. This isn't weakness — it's how brains work. But knowing it gives you a tool: when you feel a surge of certainty driven by emotion, that's precisely when you should slow down and ask what the actual evidence is.