Thanks. One of the researchers mentioned in the article has a very interesting website. Here's a quote that seems especially relevant to LW:
Based on the dominant, Cartesian view people have been trying for many years to reform reasoning: to teach critical thinking, to rid us of our biases, to make Kants of us all. This approach has not been very successful. According to our theory this is not surprising, as people have been trying to reform something that works perfectly well—as if they had decided that hands were made for walking and that everybody should be taught that. Instead, we claim that reasoning does well what it is supposed to do—arguing—and that it produces good results in appropriate—argumentative—contexts. So, instead of trying to change the way people reason, interventions based on the environment—institutional in particular—are much more likely to succeed. If we can increase people’s exposition to arguments, if we manage to make them argue more with people who disagree with them, then reasoning should produce very good results without having had to be reformed.
That sounds likely to produce more effective argumentation rather than more effective reasoning. We're essentially talking about reviving Rhetoric as a subject of study, either formally as a course or informally by way of lots of practice in the domain -- and while that might include some inoculation against biases, it's not at all clear whether that would dominate the effects of learning to leverage biases more subtly and effectively.
At a guess, in fact, I'd say the reverse is true.
I saw this in the Facebook "what's popular" box, so it's apparently being heavily read and forwarded. There's nothing earthshattering for long-time LessWrong readers, but it's a bit interesting and not too bad a condensation of the topic:
A glance at the comments [at the Times], however, seems to indicate that most people are misinterpreting this, and at least one person has said flatly that it's the reason his political opponents don't agree with him.
ETA: Oops, I forgot the most import thing. The article is at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/arts/people-argue-just-to-win-scholars-assert.html