One of the most important things we can do to be less wrong is to remain intellectually humble. But what does this mean exactly? In essence, intellectual humility means accepting that we may be wrong about what we think we know. From there, we can list or describe things that would make us say “Oh, yeah, I was wrong about that.”
These things we list or describe do not need to be realistic or simple though. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence after all. So if someone asks us what it would take for us to believe something extraordinary is true, we will likely require extraordinary evidence.
For example, suppose someone wants me to believe that there is a secret group of lizard people running world affairs from the shadows. The very existence of the lizard people is extraordinary as nothing like it has ever existed, as far as I know. While it’s tempting to say “I’ve never heard of it, so it doesn’t exist,” that is an argument from ignorance. Just because I have never heard of something does not mean it does not exist.
However, I also am not going to accept the existence of intelligent lizard people without evidence. This is where intellectual humility comes into play. I can describe what would be needed for me to accept the existence of them. In this case, multiple, public reveals of the lizard people would be a start. Doctors and researchers describing the lizard people would also be needed. The lizard people openly living life as lizard people would be the main item though. Right now, the people who actually believe in lizard people are limited to low-quality videos with artifacts and glitches. This is not the level of evidence needed for the claim.
Is it likely that lizard people will ever come out in the public eye? I think not. But that is still the level of evidence needed for me to accept they exist. This is not the same as asking for impossible evidence, or moving the goalposts when evidence does appear though.
This idea of moving the goalposts is especially important for us as we practice intellectual humility. If we receive evidence that contradicts our preconceived ideas, we should be careful not to say “well, not like that” after the fact. That does not mean we cannot ever say that our prior idea of good evidence was actually not as good as we thought. It does mean that we should be cautious though and not change our expectations of evidence without good reason. And when we do change what we are looking for or consider worthwhile evidence, we should acknowledge that straightaway. There is a tendency to protect our egos and not acknowledge we were wrong, but if we are wrong and set too low of a bar for evidence, we should accept our error and move forward. People who are worth our time and effort will appreciate our humility.
Ultimately, being less wrong is about knowing our limits. These limits include the edges of our knowledge, imagination, and forethought. By accepting our limits and working to expand them, we can remain intellectually humble and recognize that learning is a process, not a destination. Likewise is being less wrong. If we ever consider ourselves to be wholly correct, we are robbing ourselves of the ability to learn more and more nuanced things about reality.