Improving reasoning and decision making skills

People often do not reason well. Perhaps this is down to our evolutionary history, or perhaps it is simply an outcome of an undisciplined or untrained mind but it is clear that how human beings actually reason often differs from how we ought to reason. We’ve evolved to follow certain heuristics (shorts cuts in reasoning) and these can lead to cognitive biases which negatively impact our reasoning and decision making. Simply being made aware of these cognitive biases and heuristics can mitigate their effects which will result in improved reasoning and decision making, but formal training and practice in Critical Thinking guarantees this.