All of the following papers are interesting and important to both decision science and global security. Sometimes studying heuristics and biases can be quite overwhelming, because it uncovers the sad truth: human reasoning is fundamentally broken, and debiasing attempts tend to be futile. Sorry to be so pessimistic! But that’s just the impression I get from the experimental results in the field.

Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises by Raymond Nickerson

“If one were to attempt to identify a single problematic aspect of human reasoning that deserves attention above all others, the confirmation bias would have to among the candidates for consideration. Many have written about this bias, and it appears to be sufficiently strong and pervasive that one is led to wonder whether the bias, by itself, might accounts for a significant fraction of the disputes, altercations, and misunderstandings that occur among indicviduals, groups, and nations.”

Preventing Nuclear Terrorism by Matthew Bunn

“In the past year, there has been notable progress in ensuring that stockpiles of the essential ingredients of nuclear weapons around the world are secured from theft and transfer to terrorists. But there remains a dangerous gap between the pace of progress and the scope and urgency of the threat – a gap that, if left unfilled, could lead to unparalleled catastrophe. We must close the gap – to take action now that, within a few years, could reduce the danger that terrorists might turn the heart of a U.S. city into a new Hiroshima to a fraction of what it is today.”

The Reversal Test: Eliminating Status Quo Bias in Applied Ethics by Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord

“Our strategy is as follows: first, we briefly review some of the psychological evidence for the pervasiveness of status quo bias in human decision making. This evidence provides some reason for suspecting that this bias may also be present in analyses of human enhancement ethics.”