Quote of the Century:

"Because the brain cannot see itself fooling itself, the only reliable method for avoiding bias is to avoid the situations that produce it."

(Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, author of the forthcoming Stumbling on Happiness.)

More excerpts from Dr. Gilbert:

Doctors scoff at the notion that gifts from a pharmaceutical company could motivate them to prescribe that company's drugs, and Supreme Court justices are confident that their legal opinions are not influenced by their financial stake in a defendant's business, or by their child's employment at a petitioner's firm. Vice President Dick Cheney is famously contemptuous of those who suggest that his former company received special consideration for government contracts.

[T]axpayers can barely keep a straight face. They know that consultants and judges are human beings who are pulled by loyalties and pushed by animosities, and that drug reps and lobbyists are human beings who wouldn't be generous if generosity didn't pay dividends. Most people have been around people long enough to have a pretty good idea of what drives their decisions, and when decision-makers deny what seems obvious to the rest of us, the rest of us get miffed. Sell our democracy to the highest bidder, but don't insult our intelligence.

Research suggests that decision-makers don't realize just how easily and often their objectivity is compromised. The human brain knows many tricks that allow it to consider evidence, weigh facts and still reach precisely the conclusion it favors.

As The Pundit said, "All, like sheep, …"