Why ... do we think the way we do?

Remember back in early 2008 ... the news was that in a poll of 3,000 British teenagers, almost one fourth thought Winston Churchill was a fictional character ... actually 23% ... same as Florence Nightingale. However, they both had to take back seats to King Richard I. Almost half ... 47% thought "Richard the Lionheart" to be a fictional character. Surely the estate of Conan Doyle designed and conducted the survey as almost 60% thought Sherlock Holmes real. Why do we think the way we do? I suspect that it has a bit to do with how we were taught ... at home and at school. For some time now, the emphasis in school seems to be split between making students feel good about themselves and passing some standardized tests to demonstrate they have a good grasp of the material. Sounds good, now don't it?! The focus we had in some of my classes in high school ... and most of my math and actuarial classes in college was somewhat different. We were graded "on the curve" subject to an arbitrary minimum "raw score" for passing. Additionally, the tests were designed so that achieving a perfect score (100%) under test conditions was impossible! The purpose being to allow the teachers to properly graduate the students. Of course, these days it's the kids who do the graduating. "I graduated High School" or "I graduated College" is what you hear from them ... and it shows! Winston Churchill was a fictional character ... bah humbug! At some time during my hour of strutting and fretting upon the stage, I reached the conclusion that we all share something in common other than being allotted but an hour ... not sure exactly when but probably somewhere in the first 10 minutes, for I remember it was a long time ago. Well, to be fair, it was more of a sudden awareness of what I then thought to be a simple truth than it was a conclusion ... that "we all believe that we're right!" Well, I'm no longer sure that it is a simple truth ... but I do still believe it to be a truth, sorta ... we all believe that we're right or that we don't know ... except on those rare occasions when we believe we're wrong. While I was in the process of trying to become semi-educated, I was frequently required to take tests ... many was the time when I believed that an answer I had given was wrong, and that belief was usually proven correct ... but not always. I remember once giving up in frustration and responding that I couldn't solve the problem ... to my surprise, I got full marks as the problem turned out to be a classical "unsolvable" that the professor included, for reasons never revealed. Better lucky than good, I took it! Sometimes you're wrong when you're right. On another of his tests, I remember getting my paper back with one problem having the notation "excellent approach, technique, execution - a perfect solution!" ... but receiving zero credit and "Read The Problem!!" written repeatedly in huge red letters across the entire two page solution. The test question had something to do with the problem, but wasn't asking for its solution. Believing that you're wrong gets kinda confusing for if you're right you're wrong and if you're wrong you're right! However, in usual context, we don't believe we're wrong ... to so do is nonsense and just doesn't compute. Indeed, if we conclude we're wrong, we change our minds and positions so as to believe that we're right. Another thing we all share in common is sometimes being wrong when we think we're right! All this may sound like nonsense too ... but that awareness served me rather well. I guess it was another way of telling me that if I knew "why" the other fellow believed as he did, I would have a better chance of changing his mind ... or mine. Frank and Winnie were like that, methinks ... oft was the time when they disagreed ... they didn't always think alike but they knew how the other thought.