The Value of "Wanna Bet?"

• When someone challenges our beliefs, it (hopefully) triggers a reaction causing us to take stock of what we really know, and don’t know.

“It frequently happens that a man delivers his opinions with such boldness and assurance that he appears to be under no apprehension as to the possibility of his being in error. The offer of a bet startles him, and makes him pause. If we imagine to ourselves that we have to stake the happiness of our whole life on the truth of any proposition, our judgment drops its air of triumph, we take the alarm, and discover the actual strength of our belief.”—Immanuel Kant