A link to a good article proposing that our minds evolved to see patterns and significance, predisposing us to magical and superstitious beliefs:
http://theconversation.com/caveman-instincts-may-explain-our-belief-in-gods-and-ghosts-26945
This supports the notion that a major challenge in data science is overcoming our inbuilt behavioral predispositions, for instance the tendency to overfit data samples or to conflate correlation with causation. This is Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 at work, the mind that leaps to conclusions versus the slow and methodical scientific mind.
A link back to the TedX presentation I gave in November 2013 that covers similar themes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4d1DArZKgo
