Beliefs are our brain's way of making sense of our complex world． They are mental representations of the ways our brain expects things in our environment to behave， and how things should be related to each other- the patterns our brain expects the world to conform to． Beliefs are models for efficient learning and are often key to one's survival．
    The brain is an energy- expensive organ， so it has to evolve energy- conserving efficiencies． As a prediction machine it must take shortcuts for pattern recognition， as it processes the vast amounts of information received from the environment by its sense organ outgrowths． Beliefs allow the brain to distill complex information， enabling it to quickly classify and evaluate information and to jump to conclusions．
    In its need for economy and efficiency of energy consumption， the tendency of the brain is to fit new information into its existing framework for understanding the world， rather than repeatedly reconstruct that framework from scratch．
    It seems likely that the processes in the brain involved in abstract belief formation evolves from simpler processes involved in interpreting sensory perception．
    Since we experience the world entirely through our senses， we find it hard to accept that these opinions are sometimes subjectively misrepresented and that they are not necessarily reliable experiences of objective reality． People tend to trust their physical senses and to believe their opinions no matter how strange their perceptual distortions are． People will layer explanations on top of their perception of reality to explain away contradictions．
    We give our subjective experience too much trust， and so too our beliefs． We will more readily explain away evidence that contradicts our cherished belief by expanding and describing that belief with additional layers of distorted explanation， rather than abandoning it or fundamentally restructuring it．
    Science values the changing of minds through disproving previously held beliefs and challenging received authority with new evidence． Science requires training． It is a disciplined method that tries to systematically overcome or bypass our intuitions and cognitive biases and follow the evidence regardless of our prior beliefs， expectations or preferences．
    The increasing application of the scientific method in the last four centuries has promoted unprecedented progress in humanity's quest to understand the nature of reality and made vast improvements in quality of life． Discovering just how mistaken we collectively were about so many things has been the key to sensational societal progress．

The shortcuts in （1） predicting predicting the environment	●Beliefs are our way to （2） understand understand the world． ●Beliefs model ways to learn efficiently and enable us to （3） survive survive ． ●Beliefs allow the brain to summarize， classify and evaluate information．
The （4） reasons reasons for difficulties in changing beliefs	●To save energy， our brains tend to （5） apply apply the existing framework to the new information rather than reconstruct it． ●（6） Interpretation Interpretation of sensory perception is important to abstract belief formation． ●Because of our way to experience the world， it is hard for us to admit our（7） misunderstanding/misrepresentation misunderstanding/misrepresentation about objective reality． ●We are too （8） confident confident about our subjective experience and beliefs．
The excitement of proving ourselves wrong	● Science （9） challenges/overcomes/bypasses challenges/overcomes/bypasses our intuitions and cognitive biases． ● Our （10） discovery/awareness discovery/awareness of our misinterpretation of the world will benefit the development of society．