Cognitive Science is the interdisciplinary study of thinking, which it broadly defines as intelligent seeming behavior in humans, robots, insects, or any other thinking thing. Over the years, cognitive scientists have made some important discoveries about the human mind, its abilities and shortcomings. By becoming aware of our mental biases, we can think more clearly and critically. For example, we have something called “Belief Preservation” (sometimes called “Confirmation Bias” or “Myside bias”) which means that once we believe something, we look for evidence to support our belief, and we tend to downplay or disregard evidence that contradicts our beliefs. For example, in the US, many people believe—with no scientific evidence—that vaccines can cause autism in children. This mistaken belief has persisted, to the point where many parents use it as an argument to neglect vaccinating their children against preventable diseases such as measles. The belief is reinforced by anecdotal, impossible to verify stories that circulate, and evidence of rigorous scientific studies about vaccine safety tends to be ignored. Once we become aware of this cognitive bias, we can more critically examine our own beliefs, and more accurately assess evidence for or against. As the Nobel prize-winning Physicist Richard Feynman said: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.”