It's to the best of our knowledge. I'm Anne Strain Champs. Have you ever asked yourself

how you know what you know? Take climate change, or gay marriage, or gun control. You have

opinions, but how exactly did you form them?

The findings in social psychology show that we are much more like lemmings than we are like mavericks able to do whatever they think, right.

We're not very good at reasoning to weigh up all the pros and cons and decide which policy will yield the best results overall.

Mostly, we take what we believe for granted, whether it's about politics, human nature, or God. I think sometimes

the way monotheists talk about God is unreligious. People will say, God loves that, God wills that,

and God despises the other. And very often the opinions of the deity are made to coincide exactly with those of the speaker.

Today, how to challenge your own beliefs.

Take a second to think about what you know about yourself.

Maybe it's that you're the smart one in your family, or that you're one of those highly creative right brain types.

Well, it turns out that even the most basic things we believe about ourselves are often

wrong.

And the reason has to do with how the brain works.

Neuroscientist Julian Keenan studies self-awareness and deception.

He's the author of The Face in the Mirror, How We Know Who We Are.

You know, this age-old question, how do you know you're you?

It's a hard question to ask.

Who's the I asking the question?

Right.

That's one of the first complicated questions here. In science, we call it the

Cartesian theater, the idea that there's someone inside my head looking at someone

...