A field guide to bullshit

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028160.200-a-field-guide-to-bullshit.html?full=true&print=true

by sgoraya • 15 years ago

80 34 15 years ago

cj• 15 years ago

"Intellectual black holes" help a lot of people, in that it gives them a sense of purpose, security, etc. Religion is comforting to those grieving death.

However, the danger comes when intellectual black holes are propagated within society and thus accepted as truth, resulting in arbitrary notions of whats right and wrong.

kylemaxwell2• 15 years ago

And it depends on the effect of the black hole, as you say. If my neighbor believes in flying saucers, hey no skin off my nose. But when enough of my neighbors believe it that they affect space policy, or my even just that one neighbor starts up a floodlight at night as a signal beacon and thus I can't sleep, now we have issues.

wmat• 15 years ago

Off topic, but this comment describes how I feel about the Catholic School Board we have in Canada. Because of historical precedent, in Ontario we have two school systems, one that is secular and public, and one that is separate, for people of the Catholic faith. My problem lies in the public funding of this system. A good article about this was recently published in This Magazine: http://this.org/magazine/2011/06/09/abolish-catholic-schools...

lucasjung• 15 years ago

A lot of those effects are positive: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w

ISeemToBeAVerb• 15 years ago

I agree. My pet peeve with this article is that it isn't pointed in the right direction.

So what if someone wants to believe ghosts or aliens exist? He's certainly correct in saying that it CAN be a problem when things get too intense, but that only happens in a relatively small number of cases.

The place where the BS meter needs to be pointed is squarely at the people who have influence over our social and political policies. THAT would be an interesting book, though far more difficult to write I'm sure.

rwmj• 15 years ago

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre is one such book (aimed mainly at the damage caused by quack medical beliefs).

bluekeybox5• 15 years ago

"Then they insist that there are special people who can see - if only dimly - through this veil."

I have this pet theory (hey, maybe it's another intellectual black hole) that all religious, mystical, and irrational beliefs derive from this: we human brains have this property (either innate or easily acquired due to existing structure) that leads us to worship other individuals. By "worship" I mean trust without doubt and with unreasonable admiration. I think that the following phenomena are all manifestations of this same property: (1) religious thinking, (2) romantic love, (3) pop culture/culture of cool, (4) family ties. The third and the fourth one would be the most self-aware forms of this type of thinking, but the first two (the first one especially) can take on forms of the self-sustaining "black holes" mentioned in the post.

TL;DR: our idols are within us.

zwieback2• 15 years ago

Like the "God gene"?

I think your #4 may actually be rooted in evolution - there's some evolutionary advantage in family ties.

bluekeybox5• 15 years ago

Yes except the God gene hypothesis posits that we evolved to worship something (anything really), while I believe that we evolved to worship specifically other individuals (and God is just a byproduct of abstract thought combined with propensity for belief in magic powers of certain individuals).

The #2 and #4 were probably the driving factors (selected for by evolutionary pressure) for structuring the brain such that #1 and #3 also became possible as consequences. I don't literally believe in the God gene because I think that religious and mystical thinking are simply corollaries to possessing a brain structured for belief in magical power of other (attractive or otherwise powerful or desirable) individuals or even objects (idols).

I like to imagine this as nodes on a network where nodes are individuals/objects and each connection is a desired property linking the individual/object to other desired individuals/objects. Obviously, some nodes will be more connected than others. Our brains interpret (scan) this network, and past a certain threshold (with very densely connected nodes -- associated with many desired characteristics), religious/magical thinking is triggered such that our brains are led to believe that the very densely connected nodes are so powerful they are out of this world.

I thought about this long enough that I no longer find religious thinking perplexing even though I am a staunch atheist. Some people understand/understood how to trigger this religious response -- those people are/were prophets, founders of religions (Hubbard etc.) and, believe it or not, pop stars and certain state leaders... This is also why I think there is a serious danger that a strong AI may learn to exploit this bug in our brain...

cschwarm• 15 years ago

I would say you're mixing two different things: (1) irrational beliefs, and (2) worship. Belief in homeopathy, psychic powers, alien abductions are examples for (1), but lack (2).

There is good evidence that we're predisposed for (1): Our brains seem to have "interpreters", located mostly in the left brain hemisphere, that are trying to make "sense" from the input (Gazzaniga, M.S.: The Ethical Brain, 2005).

There are two situations when this gets more obvious:

1. When the brain input (or the brain connections) is partially broken. For instance, if one shows split-brain patients the word "Walk" so that only right brain hemisphere notes it, they stand up and walk. When asked why they did what they just did, they often come up with an ad hoc explanation: "I just wanted go get a coke." This is the interpreter working, trying to make sense from the fact that the person just stood up although the interpreter had no signal from other parts of the brain about possible reasons.

2. When the brain input is "unexpected". In psychology, so-called "non-deterministic" (or non-contingent) experiments make the participant believe she can influence the results or reactions of a setting, although, in fact, she can not. In such situations, humans also come up with explanations even if there's nothing to explain. In other words, they are trying to make sense out of non-sense input. These experiments go back to B.F. Skinner who was able to induce superstitious behavior in pigeons. [1]

What's interesting is how resistant some of these beliefs are. Generally speaking, the more effort is put into an explanation, the more resistant to change.

Worship, on the other hand, seems to be a more complex and special kind of belief. It's not just trust without doubt or unreasonable admiration, but also magical thinking: the idea to be able to influence reality by appealing to a powerful being.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_t...

bluekeybox5• 15 years ago

Thanks for the response, that was interesting, especially the superstition in pigeons link. When I wrote about magical thinking, I was more concerned about worship than the kind of superstition you describe; I wasn't very clear about that (I'm not a neuroscientist). What you were trying to describe seems to be how brain generates rationalizations for events. My opinion is that the these rationalizations you describe as "magical thinking" are in fact the same type of thought process that also occurs on much higher levels, when scientists generate hypotheses for example -- except that expert scientists have far more experience to "ground" these rationalizations correctly (i.e. on evidence that is empirical and can be replicated and validated).

Although the rationalizations you describe are probably the origin for many magical beliefs, my opinion is that those beliefs don't perpetuate/last very long unless they are also associated with worship of some type. My observation was that most forms of religion and mysticism are concerned about "soul" or some other supposedly magical property of humans. Homeopathy is probably one of the few types of magical thinking that doesn't really concern itself with human beings as being special, but I think that most other types do.

I don't consider worship to be a very complex phenomenon -- I think that it is simply an innate or readily acquired (at early stages of development) mechanism that triggers intense pleasure when confronted with individuals or objects that possess many desired characteristics (above a certain threshold). When combined with rationalizing magical thinking you describe, worship results in us placing unreasonable trust in the individuals/objects possessing those characteristics.

mikk0j2• 15 years ago

I like what your pet theory states. For me, it highlights the bigger question: _why_ do we have this propensity to "trust without doubt"?

My pet theory for that is based on risk-avoidance and (behavioural) rational choice theory. When we try to figure out the world in order to effectively interact with it, uncertainty is a huge problem. It is primarily a cognitive processing problem: if you don't know what it going on and what you should or can do about it, you are cognitively stuck and cannot take action. This increases our perception of risk, and possibly real risk too due to our cognitive machinery being engaged and confused.

Unconditional belief to the rescue! If there is something that we can trust without doubt, whatever the rationale behind it might be, it sounds appealing - even if the belief is mistaken, it frees up the cognitive machinery. The more abstract or unfalsifiable a belief, the easier it is to completely trust it and believe in it.

<troll>Cue religion, UFOs, nationalism, horoscopes, communism, homeopathy, libertarianism, rational choice theory, karma.</troll>

bluekeybox5• 15 years ago

Religion, UFOs, horoscopes, karma: belief that human beings or other types of vaguely humanoid intelligent beings (aliens, angels etc) are special and possess special powers; rooted in propensity to worship individuals.

Other things you list --- those probably originate in our desire to rationalize everything that probably has to do with our need to win arguments.

gaulinmp• 15 years ago

Did anyone else get a sense that this article provided no special insight? It mentioned repeated examples like "I just know" works for Ted but not flying saucers. What is the difference between Ted out the window and a saucer? I felt the author relies heavily on the audience sharing his sense of the obvious and absurd, but provides no argument to support his claims.

brudgers• 15 years ago

It's not exactly special insight, but presumably all the people involved have experienced a number of encounters with Ted whereas for flying saucers, it is generally the case that all parties to the conversation have not had a number of encounters with flying saucers - unless one has - to a high degree of probability - entered an intellectual black hole of the sort described in the article.

The argument is premised on long standing principals of ordinary language philosophy, i.e. "It's not Ted, because Ted is on holiday," is an appropriate response whereas, "It's not Ted, but a robotic doppelganger," is a bullshit response [a recent addition to the philosophical classification of propositions] in ordinary circumstances.

kd0amg• 15 years ago

On top of that, there have also been many cases of believing incorrectly that somebody else is out of town.

bigiain• 15 years ago

No special insight for most Hacker News readers, sure.

Try showing it to that strange religious uncle of yours, or the crazy guy who lives under the freeway, or a typical middle school teacher. I suspect there's some insights for some of those people to think about / argue against...

burgerbrain• 15 years ago

I'm not sure, but I think we may have just gone nuclear...

roundsquare• 15 years ago

I suppose the most useful part about it is that it lists out the most common things to look out for. Having this list in front of you (or in the front of you mind) can be useful even if all the elements on the list are obvious.

Also, it isn't necessary to deal with the edge cases to handle 99% of what most people encounter.

projectileboy• 15 years ago

This is somewhat tangential, but I get mildly irritated reading articles like this when they equate medicine with hard science. If the physics community operated like the pharmaceutical community, I think our knowledge of the universe would be less than it is today, to put it mildly. (As a reference, check HNSearch for "Prozac" and "placebo".)

nanerj• 15 years ago

The 'need' for breakthroughs in physics isn't quite the same as the 'need' for medicine.

That said, 'back off man, I'm a scientist'! I just don't think the general public gives a damn about things that don't directly affect them... things like CERN. I told my parents the other day about the breakthroughs in quantum superposition and they could not possibly have cared less. Now if there were some miracle weight loss breakthrough they'd be all ears!

TikiTDO2• 15 years ago

I feel this article is guilty of exactly what it argues against. Many of the views he writes off as ridiculous may be the results of countless thought processes working in any number of contexts. Instead of accepting this, he simplified each view that contradicts his own down to an obviously ridiculous claim, then makes use of what is effectively a traditional straw man argument. Sure, it's true that if your views are rationalized the way he expects them to be then you have no logical let to stand on. On the other hand should you have any sort of more complex and rational approach to the matter it appears that he will still gladly lump you with the lunatics.

That said, I do agree that the issue he is trying to point out is of vital importance. The fact is that most of the people that believe in mysticism, religions, UFOs, psychic powers, and other things to that effect are completely disconnected from the physical reality that they inhabit. However, I do not think the solution is to tell these people that their views are ridiculous, before quoting scientific facts the implications of which you might not even understand yourself. You would be better off establishing a rapport, and gradually introducing more and more facts that do not agree with their interpretation of the world. In the end you may both find some wisdom in the result.

jerf• 15 years ago

"I feel this article is guilty of exactly what it argues against.... Instead of accepting this, he simplified each view that contradicts his own down..."

Do you know what a "field guide" is? They're not generally full course textbooks on zoology.

If you want a more full treatment, I hear there's this "Believing Bullshit" book by, I don't know, some guy or other, I heard about it somewhere. (Haven't read it, so I can't guarantee it has any given thing, but I bet it's a good deal longer than that article.)

I think one is generally allowed to allude to belief in extraterrestrial visitation and psychic powers being a bit on the poorly-grounded side without popping open a footnote and pouring 150,000 words on the topic into it, especially in what is basically a sales pitch for a longer work.

TikiTDO2• 15 years ago

Sure, if I wanted the full treatment, I also hear there's this "Believing Bullshit" book. Unfortunately, I recall reading a synopsis, and I get the feeling that I would be wasting my money were I to buy it. The tone and content of the article in no way suggested that the book would be anything but more of the same. This isn't something you could fix with a footnote, or by writing 150,000 words on the topic. It is, I feel, a fundamental flaw of the author.

Maybe I'm being too hard on the book, and it is actually much more interesting than the article gives it credit for. Unfortunately, I'm not particularly interested in looking into the matter, and that is where the article failed for me.

danielmason• 15 years ago

That seems like a pretty empty criticism when the article itself is basically a dust-cover synopsis of his book. He's illustrating particular points using representative commonly-held irrational beliefs, not laying out a point-by-point case against each.

Your line of thinking seems to imply that every counterargument must be considered before drawing a conclusion. Since the possible counterargument space is basically infinite, we wouldn't be able to decide anything. That can't be right. You have to be able to identify patterns of reasoning that are common to a whole set of "thought processes working in any number of contexts," and recognize how certain patterns will invalidate any argument that relies on them. Which is exactly what he's doing. And why he can feel confident in calling certain beliefs irrational without having heard every possible argument in their favor.

tokenadult• 15 years ago

A good example of applying reality tests to controversial ideas is the Science-Based Medicine blog,

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/

which corrects quite a few mistaken ideas found in the popular press (and, thus, here on HN) about medical research.

fourk• 15 years ago

Isn't most science the result/process of having ridiculous beliefs and scientifically validating your theories? Remember that, at one point, Heliocentrism was universally considered to be an utterly absurd idea.

bad_user• 15 years ago

Scientists only have beliefs in falsifiable theories and are always working towards proving or disproving said theories. But yes, theories that are really hard to prove either way, like the string theory, quickly become what the article names intellectual black holes for same people.

On the other hand, believing in homeopathy is tricky as there have been evidence that it doesn't work that well.

I do take issue with this statement:

    Any theory, no matter how ludicrous, can be 
    squared with the evidence, given enough ingenuity

Well, yeah, but it can take hundreds of years for said evidence to emerge. We still have no clue about how to predict natural disasters, we barely know the reasons for why tornadoes happen and we haven't yet fully cracked the human brain -- we have a long, long way to go before fully understanding the phenomenons around us.

It's also not only about ingenuity - sometimes you have that, but don't have the proper tools yet. Proving Einstein's theory turned out to be quite a challenge and the theory itself is so groundbreaking that many thought Einstein is a nutjob.

Personally, I admit theories that have no evidence yet, such theories only have to pass the falsifiability test.

StavrosK• 15 years ago

You can never prove scientific theories, only disprove them.

mikk0j2• 15 years ago

"-But even scientists admit that they can't explain everything. -There probably are questions that science cannot answer..."

I would love to get rid of this intellectual appeasement of supernaturalists. It is only there to avoid accusations of scientism so I find it an argumentative cop-out.

Sure, science can't answer some questions. Like: "what hair colour is bald?", "where does god live?" and "what is the meaning of life?".

But is the problem with science or with the question? Always challenge the question, especially if it contains assumptions.

athst• 15 years ago

Sometimes an article is worth writing just for the title you can put on top.

A field guide to bullshit

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