Peter Wason / 彼得·沃森

Peter Wason appears in 132.争论与说服：我们为什么吵架，怎么才算赢？ through the number-rule experiment: people see a few confirming examples, infer a rule, and often stop searching for disconfirming evidence. The episode uses this as evidence that people tend to map small samples onto large realities too quickly.

The source’s Wason thread supports public argument and constructive dissent. Argument can enlarge the sample by adding facts, rival cases, and alternative hypotheses, but only if participants do not immediately assimilate every new example into the old belief.

Connections

• Cognitive Inertia / 认知惰性 - stopping the search early reduces mental cost.
• Observation Before Inference - methodological corrective to small-sample certainty.
• Constructive Dissent / 建设性异议 - argument can help expose what the first sample missed.
• Rational Humility - confidence should fall when a rule has not been actively tested.