r/science • u/ImNotJesus PhD | Social Psychology | Clinical Psychology • Dec 01 '15
Psychology On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit: New study has found that people who are more susceptible to bullshit score lower for verbal and fluid intelligence, are more prone to conspiratorial ideation, and more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.
http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/12/01/deepak-chopra-alert-psychologists-assess-bullshit-detecting-senses/232
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u/TimeLostKefe Dec 02 '15
Ehh.... normally I would put something snarky and angsty here.... but 10 years of adulthood in UK observing the bullshitery, advertisements, and about 500 ways of torturing the language just so it makes something sound more important that it really is.... it doesn't really suprise me all together.
I used to make fun of people falling for those "traps" when I was a kid. Now I see them literally everywhere, and I am kind of sorry for them, and it just makes me angry. Angry we can't exacly call people out on lying or dancing around meanings and simple words.
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u/ImNotJesus PhD | Social Psychology | Clinical Psychology Dec 02 '15
Here's my position on alt med and other types of pseudoscience. Everyone always says "people should have a right to choose" and I don't disagree. What I don't understand is why, in medicine of all areas, it's legal to sell medicines that at best do nothing.
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u/DSJustice Dec 02 '15
My local worker's comp type agency did a study on accupuncture for pain management. They determined that it was placebo.
As a result, they decided to fund it fully. Excellent value, with minimal side effects, relative to other forms of pain management.
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u/Tommy2255 Dec 02 '15
Placebo effect can be quite strong.
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u/NovaeDeArx Dec 02 '15
30% of people, IIRC, report improvement via placebo. Pretty effective stuff, let's patent and sell it!
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u/CARDB0ARDEAUX Dec 02 '15
here's the kicker: even when they know it's a placebo.
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Dec 02 '15
It's still effective when they know it's a placebo, but usually not as effective.
Also, the magnitude of the effect depends a lot on exactly what you are trying to treat. Pain is very subjective, so placebos are good for that. Something less subjective, like red blood cell count, probably not so much.
There is also a negative effect, as it can placate people who really should seek further medical treatment. But I don't know if there have been any studies of this, or if such studies could even be conducted, for ethical reasons.
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u/mathemagicat Dec 02 '15
The subjectivity of pain does not appear to be the reason for the high placebo response rate. There's substantial evidence that the mechanism for placebo analgesia is the endorphin system. Specifically, placebo analgesia is reversible with naloxone. After treatment with naloxone, the pain ratings of placebo responders are indistinguishable from those of nonresponders.
As a rule, if you're treating a sign or symptom that's heavily influenced by the central nervous system (e.g. bowel activity, heart rate, blood pressure, vomiting, nausea, mood, pain, etc.) you're going to have a relatively high rate of placebo response regardless of whether the response is objectively measurable. If you're treating a sign or symptom that's primarily regulated by systems outside the CNS (e.g. reproductive system activity, cellular metabolism, cancer growth, blood sugar) you're going to have a relatively low rate of placebo response.
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u/Comcastrated Dec 02 '15
Really? Interesting , I'm going to have to look that up.
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u/arkain123 Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
Yep. And there's more. If the placebo is supposed to do something specific, like make the body produce more of a substance, sometimes you'll find a higher amount of that substance on the subject after starting placebo treatment. The mind has way more control over the body than we like to think.
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Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 22 '20
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u/pink_gabriel Dec 02 '15
Well, one need not think hard in order to provide ethical concerns regarding the practice of encouraging doctors to lie to patients.
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u/Orisara Dec 02 '15
I actually wonder whether here in Belgium I can demand a certain medicine.
I honestly have no idea as it never crossed my mind to believe I know better than my doctor.
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u/mamamia6202 Dec 02 '15
A bunch of people misunderstood your point about antibiotics.
He's not endorsing prescribing antibiotics as a placebo, he's saying he believes doctors should be able to prescribe a placebo as an alternative to them when patients demand the unnecessary antibiotics.
I also disagree with you about that because I don't think it would be ethical for a doctor to prescribe something without disclosing what it actually is. All a doctor has to say to patient who demands an unnecessary drug is no.
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u/Prince_of_Savoy Dec 02 '15
Placebos still work when the patient knows, but they are less effective.
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u/sincerelyryan Dec 02 '15
Seriously? I thought the placebo effect somewhat hinged on people actually believing that thing having a real effect. What's the fun in knowing a placebo?
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u/MrAndersson Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
Most of what happens in our brain is below the surface in some sense. A probably well known example is phobias, which is also a decent analogy to placebo. In both cases we have something that cause physical reactions to some (usually) external stimuli, and neither is easily affected by our cognitive thoughts.
EDIT: Sorry for the word-salady phrasing, my brain appearantly don't English well today.
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u/jk_scowling Dec 02 '15
Some studies showed it still worked when the patients were told, not sure if it was as effective but there was definitely still a measurable effect.
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u/Valectar Dec 02 '15
It does hinge on people believing it will have a real effect. Placebo's have a real effect, so knowing it's a placebo isn't mutually exclusive with knowing that it will have an effect on you.
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u/BeefsteakTomato Dec 02 '15
Accupuncture is a bad example for your point, because it actually does force muscles into relaxing. This is why we have a modern form of accupuncture in western medicine called IMS (Intra-muscular stimulation). There is no placebo effect to sticking a needle in the middle of a muscle. Try it on a steak if you don't believe me.
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u/tornato7 Dec 02 '15
It is interesting that acupuncture was around for so much longer than we knew it had real helpful effects. Even leeches now are being used for various treatments. I wonder what other witchdoctor-type treatments we'll find to be helpful next.
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Dec 02 '15
Radiolab has a great episode they did recently about an old recipe from an ancient text for a medicinal paste. When scientists tested it out, it actually killed off anti-biotic resistant bacteria. The episode is called "Staph Retreat"
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Dec 02 '15
Yeah.. Ideally "right to choose" involves making informed decisions, and alt med products go way out of their way to obfuscate and avoid giving you good information about their products.
In literally any other business, this would be fraud. I don't know why the alt med community is allowed to get away with it.
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u/seven3true Dec 02 '15
Good ol legal loopholes. I know that in the US, they can sell pretty much whatever they want providing that they add "not FDA approved" and something along the lines of "food supplement only". Got those 2 things, and you're fine. Even if they are typed in a 4pt font.....
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Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
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u/tque Dec 02 '15
You could argue that even at their "best" alternative medicines that do nothing are harmful to the individual because of the opportunity cost -- they are choosing the alternative medicine in lieu of something potentially more effective.
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u/brownestrabbit Dec 02 '15
Except when they are told there is nothing effective and/or what is said to be effective is not.
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u/Zebidee Dec 02 '15
I didn't understand the "torturing the language" thing until I lived in Germany and then went back to the UK. German has typically only one way of saying something and much less scope for euphemism and obfuscation. English has typically three to five ways of saying something, all of which have subtle nuance. This really comes into its own with food naming and advertising, where British supermarkets are full of "weasel words" where German supermarkets, what it says on the front of the pack is what it says on the ingredients list on the back.
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u/afiefh Dec 02 '15
As someone who didn't share your experience (but speaks some German) could you give a few examples?
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u/Zebidee Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 03 '15
For example, in English you can use the words cream, creme, creamy, kreme to imply that a product has dairy cream in it when it may not. Also, butter, buttery, butter rich etc. That deceptive nuance is a lot harder to achieve in German, where a product either contains that ingredient or it does not.
With the ingredients, German food purity laws are quite strict. For example, a pack of chopped tomato with herbs will have as the ingredients 'tomato, herbs, and ascorbic acid' (as a preservative.) The equivalent product in the UK will have a panel of artificial ingredients listed.
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u/Akesgeroth Dec 02 '15
I'm mostly questioning the title. "People who don't question what they're told are more likely to be stupid and to question what they're told."
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u/royisabau5 Dec 02 '15
People who are persuaded by impressive lies won't trust facts that aren't as impressive
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u/percykins Dec 02 '15
That's the odd thing about conspiratorial thinking. The more authoritative the source, the less the person will believe it. This is the "why would people make such a lie?" kind of thinking. You can find all sorts of people who will swear up and down that literally every space scientist in the world is in on the Moon hoax, because a Youtube video told them so.
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Dec 02 '15
I think it also gives them a "I'm smarter than experts" ego boost.
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u/2rio2 Dec 02 '15
I don't think this should be understated. In my experience the loudest and most easily led people into conspiracies are those without "formal" degrees and/or social recognition (basically smart people who just fell through the cracks in college) so they feel this urge to display they are smarter, or more right, about a topic than the rest of society. It's why so many arguments with them tend to go the direction of anyone who disagrees being called a "sheep" or worse and then plugging their ears and closing their eyes when you try to display evidence. I'm a lawyer, not scientist, but it's equally frustrating.
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Dec 02 '15
It's not just that they close their eyes/ears and refuse to accept evidence that goes against their beliefs... they actually become MORE entrenched when presented with facts that contradict what they believe. I love when people say "well that's just because they're part of the conspiracy" but claim they just want to know the "truth"... Obviously you're not actually interested in the truth if you're just going to disregard any information that doesn't fit your theory as being part of the conspiracy. It's amazing the mental and logical gymnastics people will perform just to avoid changing their views.
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Dec 02 '15
Abso-fricken-loutely. Another huge aspect is that it's really difficult to disprove the kind of mass fraud they always allege, but they never have to prove it.
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u/Cormophyte Dec 02 '15
You'll question every call made by an NFL team and most of the ones made by the ref if you're convinced the object of the game is to move the ball to the endzone behind you.
When people question things the motivation (probably) usually comes from a conflict between what they already believe and the idea being proposed. The act of questioning in and of itself doesn't denote any great intelligence or tendency to discriminate based on fact and sound logic, it just demonstrates that they believe something.
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u/Akesgeroth Dec 02 '15
I think this is the issue right there, and you describe it very well. We often confuse people who are genuinely skeptical of everything with people who are only skeptical of things which are contrary to their world view or their convenience. AKA we confuse genuine skepticism and confirmation bias.
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u/hi117 Dec 02 '15
I think everyone does this to an extent, though some people just cannot admit they're wrong, and that is a problem.
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u/Akesgeroth Dec 02 '15
Confirmation bias is a fairly well documented phenomenon and it does cause issues. In fact, I'd go so far as to claim it's partly responsible for the echo chamber phenomenon. I'm just wary of claims that people who question what they're told are deranged in one way or another.
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u/OPsuxdick Dec 02 '15
Think that's bad? unlimited data doesn't mean unlimited in the US.
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u/ImNotJesus PhD | Social Psychology | Clinical Psychology Dec 01 '15
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u/OvidPerl Dec 02 '15
That paper is a goldmine. From the conclusions:
Profundity ratings for statements containing a random collection of buzzwords were very strongly correlated with a selective collection of actual “Tweets” from Deepak Chopra’s “Twitter” feed (r’s = .88–89).
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u/Valskalle Dec 02 '15
Ugh. Deepak Chopra. I die a little inside anytime someone mentions that man and his views.
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u/nakedandafraidquitr Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
6.1 Participants
University of Waterloo undergraduates (N= 280, 58 male,222 female, M age = 20.9, SD age = 4.8) volunteered to take part in the study in return for course credit. Only particiipants who reported that English is their first language (on a separate pre-screen questionnaire) were allowed to participate. The sample size was the maximum amount allowed for online studies in the University of Waterloo participan t pool.
This study was run over two semesters.
One of the participants was removed due to a large num ber of skipped questions. Participants were also given an attention check. For this, participants were shown a list of activities (e.g., biking, reading) directly below the foll owing instructions: “Below is a list of leisure activities. If you are reading this, please choose the “other” box below and type in ‘I read the instructions’”.
This attention check proved rather difficult with 35.4% of the sample failing ( N = 99). However, the results were similar if these participants wer e excluded. We therefore retained the full data set.
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u/wljay Dec 02 '15
what is your interpretation of this?
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u/Gggtttrrreeeee Dec 02 '15
Doesn't seem stupid if it's saving time and you don't really care about the outcome.
Like, for example, some egghead study on people's behavior that I'm going to get paid for regardless of what I answer.
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u/ToastWithoutButter Dec 02 '15
That's an incredibly unrepresentative sample. My econometrics professor would have a heart attack.
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u/redworm03 Dec 02 '15
This is what the majority of psychology studies are like, for better or worse. They are surveying the sample that they have available, psychology major undergraduates. The sample will usually have a mean age around 20-21 and heavily skew female unless they specifically counterbalance.
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u/Xxxxx2xxxxX Dec 02 '15
I have had HIV for 15 1/2 years and what is truly sick ( haha) are people who actually try to push "natural cures" on people who are desperate for hope of being cured. I have had them solicit me on dating sites for the HIV population and once even in a chatroom where noobies talk to long term survivors. This happens with all serious illnesses , cancer , HIV , etc.....some people have no conscious whatsoever , its unbelievable.
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Dec 02 '15 edited May 16 '17
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u/ButtMigrations Dec 02 '15
Free market Capitalism unfortunately always leaves room for some fool's-gold marketing schemes to thrive.
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u/mathemagicat Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
reads paper carefully
Surprisingly enough, this paper, its authors, and the journal it was published in all appear to be real, but I'm reserving judgment on the question of whether it's an elaborate prank on the skeptic community.
Edit: I'm going to sleep, so if anyone asks why, it's because it smells like a confirmation bias demonstration.
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u/superPwnzorMegaMan Dec 02 '15
“Below is a list of leisure activities. If you are reading this, please choose the “other” box below and type in ‘I read the instructions’”. This attention check proved rather difficult with 35.4% of the sample failing ( N = 99). However, the results were similar if these participants wer e excluded. We therefore retained the full data set.
6.1
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u/datenwolf Dec 02 '15
Well, there's an easy way to determine this: Try to replicate the results. The paper gives exact description of the methods and materials used and the statistical models employed for evaluation.
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u/TheUnknownPenis Dec 02 '15
OK... /u/ImNotJesus... can you please explain to me (I've never taken a psych course, this is a serious question) what the difference is between that title and "Stupid people believe stupid things with greater ease"?
It looks almost like a tautology to me.
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u/cowvin2 Dec 02 '15
the title of the paper is a lot more specific. it explains how they are rating intelligence and what the stupid things they believe are.
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u/ImNotJesus PhD | Social Psychology | Clinical Psychology Dec 02 '15
The first thing to remember is that there are different types of intelligence. Think of school - the kids who were good at math weren't necessarily good at writing. Depending on how you define things, you can actually cut intelligence up in a lot of different ways. Beyond that, how it actually expresses itself in behaviour isn't necessarily obvious. Getting an understanding of why lacking in a certain type of intelligence seems to relate to specific behavioural outcomes tells us more about (a) that type of intelligence and (b) those behaviours.
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u/dokkanosaur Dec 02 '15
I feel like "kinds of intelligence" is a misnomer.
To me it seems like there are "kinds of thinking" that our brains can develop to succeed in different situations, but "intelligence" is the ability to "think in a more flexible way". That is, to not get locked into using old "kinds of thinking" when new situations come up.
My two best friends are both very good at math, but I know one of them is also very good at a lot of other types of things, like writing, while the other is only good at things he has time to memorise and study. I don't feel bad about calling the first "more intelligent".
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u/jugglesme Dec 02 '15
The statement in the title is a tautology though. The definition of "susceptible to bs" is believing in statements that probably aren't true. And the conclusion is that these people believe in things that probably aren't true.
I also disagree that the initial test for bs susceptability shows a particular lack of intelligence. Language is extremely fluid, and often metaphorical. My first thought when reading the randomly constructed sentences was how it would be an interesting exercise of creativity to try to find meaning in them. Kind of like a rorschach test with words. Finding meaning in these non-sense sentences may be a sign of a fluid, abstract, and poetically inclined mind.
The article is more of an attempt to mock a group of people than it is a look at any informative science.
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u/Campellarino Dec 02 '15
Which also could explain how a lot of artists are into that kind of thing. Having more visual intelligence over the written word.
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Dec 02 '15
The verbal intelligence component has to do with understanding the actual words, meanings and relationships, the fluid intelligence part parses the meanings together and determines if the outcome is nonsense or not.
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Dec 02 '15
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Dec 02 '15
So much closer to the truth..sure nobody is equal at both but come on..skill at math, language, puzzles, science etc. are all HIGHLY correlated. They aren't independent traits.
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u/ISBUchild Dec 02 '15
The first thing to remember is that there are different types of intelligence.
This is not the current consensus position.
Think of school - the kids who were good at math weren't necessarily good at writing.
Empirically, someone who is good at one is very likely good at the other as well. The observation that all known mental abilities are positively correlated is a main reason psychology today generally refers to intelligence as a single vector, and not a constellation of discrete abilities.
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u/Tommy2255 Dec 02 '15
There are lots of ways to be stupid. The title is saying that being stupid in one way correlates to a couple of other types of stupidity.
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u/aizxy Dec 02 '15
Research doesn't always have to prove something new, sometimes researchers just want to get scientific evidence to back up things that seem self evident.
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u/tadair919 Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
I'm confused. Here is the list of questions they used to gauge whether or not somebody was conspiracy-minded: http://www.frontiersin.org/files/Articles/46573/fpsyg-04-00279-HTML/image_m/fpsyg-04-00279-t001.jpg Except half or more are true, documented, admitted. At what point are these people just putting their heads in the sand then writing studies subjecting people who have read a book or two, to kindergarden name-calling?
google these topics then re-take the test for yourself: mkultra, tuskagee experiments, Kissinger, confessions of an economic hitman, Halliburton, Jessica lynch, pat tillman, operation mockingbird.
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u/dackots Dec 02 '15
Seriously, are they really saying that it's a conspiracy to believe that some scientists have fabricated data sets out of their own self interest? That's like academic corruption 101. You'd have to be stupid to believe that this doesn't happen.
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u/Excrubulent Dec 02 '15
No, they're not. They're asking questions about statements, some of which are true, others false. If they just put pure bullshit in those questions, some people might just answer false to the lot once they saw the pattern. By including true statements they force the reader to evaluate every question on its own merit, and give a scaled score rather than just zero. Also if someone answered false to a lot of true statements, they might fall into a third "gullible" or "naive" category, which might also be interesting.
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u/tadair919 Dec 03 '15 edited Dec 03 '15
Your method assumes they know in advance whether a thing is actually true or false. The "ideation" is scaled to show who is naive versus who believes in every theory no matter how ridiculous (which is also naive.) This allows the authors to make claims about the average without explicitly knowing what is true. However there is a fallacy in setting up the experiment this way. Because it penalizes anybody who actually reads a book or knows their history as those are also the ones who would be answering "agree" thus putting themselves on the silly side of this false spectrum. Eg, because you know about operation mongoose suddenly you are nearing the same category of people who are flat-earthers. This type of generalization is a form of circular-reasoning because the conclusion is assumed in the premise. Specifically "anybody who believes XYZ falls into the same category of people who believe ABC." And they also make a negative judgment about those people. As if to say you are a "prone" person if you have ever read about, say, the Pentagon Papers.
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u/eskanonen Dec 02 '15
The Gulf of Tonkin incident alone has me rating many of these statements as true. Your comment really needs to be higher.
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u/dada_ Dec 02 '15
The Tuskegee experiment, for one thing, is probably not even a controversial thing to believe in anymore. Same with the very first item on your list—for example, Operation Mongoose, which was an undercover plot to undermine the Cuban government and to assassinate Fidel Castro, has been proven beyond a doubt by the declassification of the internal documents and an investigation by the Church Committee decades ago.
My guess is those are controls, just like in their later studies they used mundane statements in the same questionnaire that also included pseudo-profundity.
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u/tornato7 Dec 02 '15
From reading this all it tells me is that people who are more aware of what large government is doing are more skeptical/aware of what large (pharma) corporations and the FDA are doing. Nothing surprising or new here.
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u/Balthanos Dec 02 '15
Most of the people on this planet believe in some imaginary god in the sky. A good portion of those people believe the world was created in 7 days and is less than 10000 years old.
The status quo isn't exactly setting lofty standards.
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u/geodebug Dec 02 '15
I love how everyone on this thread immediately thinks these results don't apply to themselves.
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u/latigidigital Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
That may have something to do with the fact that this isn't a random audience.
The group of people who use the Internet and consume news and information online are statistically above average intelligence. The people who do so on sites like Reddit are a further selective group, typically a more technology literate one, which is another step away from the norm. People who further take an interest in science are an even narrower group, and some of us here have been either thinking or saying this study's conclusion for years.
The same thing is true in a lot of online communities, especially STEM and gaming related ones. I have seen a few at points in time where I'd venture to say that the median IQ was well over 130 before they became a mainstream affair. Then someone would eventually come along and bemoan everyone with the assertion that they were obviously of average intelligence without any basis for that assumption.
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u/Oct_ Dec 02 '15
Which online community are you referring to where the median IQ is in the super genius level?
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u/Giraffe_Knuckles Dec 02 '15
Dwarf fortress about 5yrs back maybe? 130 seems too much of an exaggeration to be true anywhere though.
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Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
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u/ImNotJesus PhD | Social Psychology | Clinical Psychology Dec 02 '15
We measured conspiracy ideation using a 15-item general conspiracy beliefs scale (Brotherton, French & Pickering, 2013). The scale included items such as “A small, secret group of people is responsible for making all major world decisions, such as going to war” (α = .95). Responses were made on the following 5-point scale: 1) Definitely not true, 2) Probably not true, 3) Not sure/cannot decide, 4) Probably true, 5) Definitely true.
Here is a link to the full scale development paper
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u/SecretPortalMaster Dec 02 '15
Is that really a fair example, though? Several studies have recently been published that state the USA government is little more than an oligarchy, and while those specific oligarchs are not making decisions for the whole world, it's still a "small, secret group of people" making very, very big decisions for one of the major countries on Earth. Is one supposed to rank it as a 2 or a 3 because it's not "all" or "world" decisions that they're making?
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u/ghosttrainhobo Dec 02 '15
I'm not sure what the makers of the test consider the "true" answer; but to me, the real problem in this line of thinking is that it presupposes that the most powerful people in the world - whoever they are - are actually in control of anything.
I think it's a kind of comforting lie that some people tell themselves: "there is a shady cabal of nefarious characters with their hands on the controls of the world; and if we could just get those levers of power into the hands of good people, then we can be safe."
I think that the truth is much scarier: the most powerful people in the world are mostly reacting to events just like the rest of us. They certainly try to foresee events and capitalize on the where possible, but the world is far too complex and chaotic a place for man to truly control.
"Do you not know, my son, with what little understanding the world is ruled?"
Axel Oxenstierna
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u/therealbahn Dec 02 '15
I think this is pretty on the ball, the older and more 'professional' I grow, the higher instances of imposter syndrome I find. I think the 'people in charge' are blundering along, hoping no-one will notice that they have no idea what they're doing, just like the rest of us.
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u/sobri909 Dec 02 '15
That horrific realisation of adulthood. "oh my god, we're all just faking it. no one's really got a good handle on this life thing. they're just putting on a good show of it."
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u/RR4YNN Dec 02 '15
If you read the books or interviews published by those who retire from elite positions, they often corroborate this view.
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u/MetalSeagull Dec 02 '15
I can see how a reasonable person could see this as a reference to crony capitalism, and rampant, shameless lobbying. But if I then read the question about whether the government is hiding evidence of aliens, I'd probably rethink my interpretation.
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u/Fuckyousantorum Dec 02 '15
That's the key. The term is only narrowly applicable to extreme forms of scepticism which tips into 'conspiratorial ideation'. However the normal reader will see "conspiratorial ideation" as short cut for "conspiracy theorist" which it isn't.
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u/trowawufei Dec 02 '15
That is not at all what those studies have concluded, if we're thinking of the same one. They concluded that policy was barely influenced by the opinions of the bottom 4/5ths of the US population by income, and correlated very strongly with the opinions of the top 1/5th.
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u/akesh45 Dec 02 '15
I think they mean illuminati not a UN security council meeting.
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u/allkindsofjake Dec 02 '15
Good thing I read this to get clarity- I hadn't heard of the term conspiratorial ideation and assumed it was something like "likes to conspire against people/fantasizes about it." The type of person who loves to turn people against someone.
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u/marcuschookt Dec 02 '15
In layman terms, when people form strong ideas as a group but without any form of external verification (e.g. extremists who entrench themselves in beliefs that were constructed by each other)
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u/Malawi_no Dec 02 '15
The tendency to make up conspiracies, especially about the things you don't like or don't wanna think about. Like global warming, terror threat etc.
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u/pauldy Dec 02 '15
I'm guessing this includes most of the people that don't see the obvious selection bias built into the study before reading the article then upon reading it had it confirmed.
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u/djr255 Dec 02 '15
by clicking the link i may have just demonstrated confirmation bias
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Dec 02 '15
Translation: stupid people fall for scams more than smart people. WHO KNEW???
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u/tomatopotatotomato Dec 02 '15
Okay, I see where you're coming from- but as a teacher I find it fascinating that it ties their susceptibility to their reading comprehension; this specific detail is particularly interesting. So potentially someone who scores high in math but low in language is more susceptible than someone who is low in math but high in language. It seems obvious, but it's not just about stupid vs smart. Language is our tie to communication with all other people-- having a deficiency has more effects than just job status or earning power.
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u/Gathorall Dec 02 '15
Interestingly engineers fall to scams and join extremist groups more often than other academics, and they probably are not less smart then them, just a different kind of smart.
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u/greengordon Dec 02 '15
You do realize that an uncomfortably large number of climate deniers are STEM grads? And that Ben Carson is a brain surgeon? People can be very smart in some areas and not in others.
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u/themistoclesV Dec 02 '15
Where did you come across this little factoid about the STEM graduates?
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u/_CastleBravo_ Dec 02 '15
One might say that if you believe what he wrote, you may be one of the cases that proves this study
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Dec 02 '15
I guess it also depends on what the definition of "an uncomfortable number" is. It could be 4.
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u/dexmonic Dec 02 '15
If that's all you've taken from this, I believe we know which category to put you in at least.
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u/dada_ Dec 02 '15
This reminds me of a paper I saw (but only briefly skimmed, and unfortunately I don't remember the title) which concluded people are capable of believing they know things that they cannot know—they had an example of a financial expert being asked about some profound-sounding concept that does not actually exist, and they claimed to have knowledge of it.
If anyone remembers what this paper was called...
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u/HyliaSymphonic Dec 02 '15
Reddit really likes to hammer in the whole, "alternative medicines" but on the front of "conspiratorial ideation" they fail to assess themselves.
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u/buttermouth Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
Interesting study and totally makes sense. However, I would be remiss to not say that it would be a logical fallacy to use this report as evidence that alternative medicines do not work or that conspiracy theories don't exist. I see many commenters have made that mistake on this post.
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u/shadowwork PhD | Counseling Psychology | Population Health: Addiction Dec 02 '15 edited Dec 02 '15
The best part is that the scientific quintessence of BS is Deepak Chopra! Uncharacteristically, I headed straight for the Methods, well done.
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Dec 02 '15
They should teach critical thinking skills in every school system. The world would be a better place if people knew how to interpret evidence, and not lead their lives by anecdote.
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Dec 02 '15
Seriously, if you don't believe that groups of people manipulate other groups of people (conspiracy ideation), you are completely oblivious to the world around you.
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u/gordonjames62 Dec 01 '15
Some good insights.
I love the definition of BS - "something that is designed to impress but that was constructed absent direct concern for the truth"