Idola tribus

Idola tribus is a fancy word that means "idols of the tribe" in Latin. It's a way to describe mistakes that people make because of how our brains work.

Imagine you have a toybox with all your toys in it. You like playing with your favorite toy the most, so you tend to pick that one out of the box first. That's sort of what happens when our brains make mistakes based on idola tribus.

Our brains love patterns, so we want to put things into groups. That can be really helpful when we're trying to learn things or remember them. But sometimes our brains put things into groups that don't really belong together.

For example, let's say you learn that all bats have wings. That's true! But then you start to think that all things with wings are bats. That's not true! Birds have wings, too, but they're not bats. That's an example of an "idol of the tribe" because our brains are grouping things together based on patterns that aren't actually correct.

So, in summary, "idola tribus" means mistakes that people make because of the patterns our brains like to make, but those patterns might not actually be correct.