Have you ever exclaimed "UGH I KNEW IT!" after looking up something that had been bugging you all day? Well this describes hindsight bias, in psychology known as the "I knew it all along" tendency to overestimate how much we know. This idea is so important to understand because it is a crime that humans commit all the time. We must look at situations and make sure we have proven our facts correct and not just assume we know what we're talking about, especially when it comes to scienctific thought.
An example of hindsight bias can be as simple as any day-to-day occurrence, especially when it comes to gossip. Often times, a friend will come up to me and whisper in my ear, "did you know Kelly and Jake started dating?!" I would, of course, respond with "I KNEW THEY LIKED EACH OTHER!" Did I really know this? Or am I just commiting the crime of hindsight bias?
This example may not seem like such a big deal, but when taking on scientific research and acting as if the results to our problems were already common knowledge to us, may lead to overconfidence or mistakes in further analysis.
Even though sometimes "I knew it all along" tendency of hindsight bias can be seen as a bad quality in science, does it ever do good?
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