Why Some People Think Total Nonsense Is Really Deep (washingtonpost.com)

Earthquake Retrofit writes: The Washington Post has a story about Gordon Pennycook, a doctorate student at the University of Waterloo who studies why some people are more easily duped than others. "Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena" was one of many randomly generated sentences Pennycook, along with a team of researchers at the University of Waterloo, used in a new, four-part study (PDF) put together to gauge how receptive people are to nonsense.

Those more receptive to bull**** are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions [beliefs in things for which there is no empirical evidence (i.e. that prayers have the ability to heal)] and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.

Comments

I.e. versus e.g.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that someone who doesn't understand the difference between i.e. and e.g. has no business criticising others.

Re:I.e. versus e.g.

[Anonymous Coward]

No.

i.e. = 'id est' = 'that is' = a clarification or further expansion on meaning.

e.g. = 'exempli gratia' = 'for example' = an example or illustration of what is being discussed.

they are *not* interchangeable, they mean different things, and are being used incorrectly in the summary, regardless of whether it is a direct quote or not.

if you still can't figure it out, re-read the summary out loud twice, first replacing uses of 'i.e.' with 'that is' and then 'for example'.

if you still can't figure it out, it's aliens.

Re:I.e. versus e.g.

[asylumx]

Why some people think total nonsense is really deep

e.g. this thread.

Re:I.e. versus e.g.

[AthanasiusKircher]

Actually, they are used correctly. The cognitive abilities the study used were verbal and fluid intelligence and numeracy. Thus, i.e. rightly denotes the complete list.

Actually, there's a further nuance to all this. The summary quotes the Washington Post:

Those more receptive to bull**** are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions [beliefs in things for which there is no empirical evidence (i.e. that prayers have the ability to heal)] and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.

The first "i.e." is actually in the original study, and as you point out, it is used correctly to reference the complete list of things they were studying.

The second "i.e." is, you will note, in brackets, because this is an explanation inserted by the Washington Post writer. The original sentence from the study reads:

Those more receptive to bull**** are less reflective, lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse complementary and alternative medicine.

Hence, it's the WASHINGTON POST which doesn't know how to use "i.e." correctly. If you read the original study, it's clear that it has a LOT of "e.g" and "i.e." In fact, it probably has a little too much of them, but they appear to be used correctly.

Re:I.e. versus e.g.

[jfengel]

Man, when your journalists are worse at grammar even than scientists, it may be time to turn out the lights. It's not just that they picked the wrong Latin abbreviation. They should never have been trying to insert editorial marks into a quote that was already grammatically complicated.

The original sentence is a bit over-long, but not out of place in a scientific journal. It is much too long for a newspaper article, and adding multiple levels of parentheses to it makes it worse.

I've come to think of science journalists as generally worthless at the science, but I thought they were at least getting grammar lessons in j-school. Apparently the author's degree is in "applied mathematics and economics", according to his bio, but he doesn't seem to have worked as an academic. But his editor should have fixed that and given him some writing homework.

I don't think...

[EmeraldBot]

Well, remember, what exactly is considered profound is up to each person. For some people, they may not consider the statement itself to hold any wisdom, but the vagueness might prompt themselves into a philosophical state, and so they associate that with the phrase itself. And honestly, at the end of the day, this whole article is really talking about imagination, is it not? Look at children, for those of you who have any: they can go on adventures with nothing but a few sticks and a rock. Likewise, I am sure that for some people, their minds can evolve meaning even out of nonsensical words. I don't think having an active imagination is really all that much of a vice, as they tend to be people who can come up with some very creative solutions and answers that most would dismiss as impossible.

That being said, going with the article's thesis, I agree. I could totally see them being more likely to believe in a religion for precisely the reason stated above, to see a pattern out of unrelated events, and once you believe there's an all powerful god, it becomes much easier to believe in the others listed. Ultimately though, we all have our vices, and I don't think naivety is all that bad of one to have in the grand scheme.

Re:I don't think...

[John Allsup]

The biggest problem in religious belief is unconditional acceptance of dogma and a tendency not to question what one is told. Modern atheists often have their own dogmas, and all the same problems.

Re:I don't think...

[Sique]

I guess, that

Modern atheists often have their own dogmas, and all the same problems.

falls either in the bullshit or in the dogma category.

First, most atheists I know are quite undogmatic. They just don't have a religion, and they don't miss it. They've grown up without every being challenged about their (non-)religiousness. Being without religion is just some kind of natural state for them, the same as for instance being 5'10" or born in 1972. There is just nothing to be questioned about it, it is to them as it is. (Full disclosure: I am neither 5'10" nor born in 1972).

Second, it might be different in an environment where the majority of the population is religious and thus the minority constantly has to explain that they aren't, and that to them it's fine, and there are valid reasons for not being religious. If you don't stop questioning people about why exactly they (don't) believe what they (don't) believe, sooner or later everyone will sound dogmatic to you, but all they really are is being angry at you for continuously bothering them and not knowing when to stop.

Re:I don't think...

[c]

(Full disclosure: I am neither 5'10" nor born in 1972).

The atheist reader who is 5'10" and was born in 1972 is probably looking over his shoulder thinking "how did he know... ?"

(Full disclosure: can't be me; I'm just over 5'11").

Re:I don't think...

[ranton]

It is not a lack of belief. It is a belief that there is no god. It's as much a dogma as those who do believe in a god. It is certainly a belief system.

Incorrect. It is the lack of belief. Saying atheism is a belief system is no less ridiculous than saying not collecting stamps is your favorite hobby.

Atheists certainly do hold belief systems. Some believe religion is harmful. Some believe killing animals is wrong. Some believe bacon is the best food ever. But being atheist is not a belief system by any sensible definition of the term.

Re:I don't think...

[Ol Olsoc]

Atheism seems to have it's own type of religion.

And abstinence is a sexual position.

A cult with an agenda.

You've cracked the conspiracy! In the atheist world domination conspiracy, atheists:

get together in a building every week in (nowhere) on the atheist sabbath day (none) as prescribed in the book of (nothing) to pray to (no one) in order to (not) save their (non) eternal souls.

What you are doing is confusing the anger of some atheists as they are slowly being released from under the heels of the religious. And in getting confused, the religious - say for example the woman in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to gays - consider that an attack on them, rather than extension of basic rights to others.

Re:I don't think...

[Jamu]

1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

What a terrible definition. God isn't a well defined concept. How do you know which one it's referring to? Without bigotry to mandate what "God" is, the "definition" doesn't definite anything. It can only makes sense to someone who's a theist. For example: "the doctrine or belief that there is no Invisible Pink Unicorn". It's absolute nonsense to anyone else.

Re:I don't think...

[scamper_22]

I think there is a certain nature of movements.

Originally the pioneers are normally more 'consistent and true'.
However, as a movement becomes more general, it is going to get people belonging to it just as another other group.

For example, I left my faith of Islam. It's a huge deal. I was highly religious in my youth. It's not to my benefit in that sense. Loss of community support. Ostracized... But my brain is such that, once it sees it, it can't go back. It's been a real mental struggle fought with philosophy, identity, social belonging, truth, rationality...

Now, eventually, the agnostic/athiest movement will become the norm among Muslims, the same as it has in the West with Christianity (Bible Belt aside). And you will have people attaching itself to that agnostic/athiest label just because it is their team. They 'new athiests' will likely not be any less prone to irrationality/total nonsense than anyone else.

Let me give a little software example.
The originators of Agile were really well versed in Agile. They saw all the problems of Waterfall. Came up with a new ideology and set of practices. They probably used it to create some really good software.

But as it became a movement, a lot more people just joined into it. They don't get the intellectual aspects of Agile. They just attach onto it as a movement. It gets all the bad aspects that come with any movement. Scrum becomes the most important part. Just as say not eating pork becomes the main part of Islam. It becomes a sense of identity and belonging no different than anything else.

So while I think there are varying stages to movements and at certain times, a particular movement might be 'more true or consistent', I have a general belief that overtime, every movement becomes prone to non-sense as it becomes generally accepted.

Re:I don't think...

[swell]

actually I do think, and I liked this comment:
"Being without religion is just some kind of natural state for them..."

Which reminds me of a similar statement- 'a man without religion is like a fish who has lost his bicycle'. Is this a serious dilemma?

I, for one, am often the subject of well meaning concern from (mostly christian) religious people. They pray for my soul, of course, and gently try to convert me by quoting from their holy books. I would happily quote Nietzsche in return but that would create an interminable discussion which leads to no good end.

A blind person can be dependent upon his cane, a cripple on his crutches, and an emotionally confused individual on his god. But the first two don't try to encourage others to have the same dependence.

What's the metric equivalent of a short plank?

[Hognoxious]

Thick people are less intelligent, claims report. Film at 11.

Deepak Chopra's Twitter Stream

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

Profound has a meaning...

[Viol8]

Its supposed to be something that gives you a deep insight into some area of knowledge that you didn't possess before. Its NOT supposed to be anything that you don't really understand but is grammatically correct and uses a lot of impressive multisyllable new age/religious buzzwords and phrases.

Emperor's shiny new clothes

[codeButcher]

From The not-very-proFound Article:

The precise reasons that people see profundity in vague buzzwords or syntactic but completely random sentences are unknown.

I think a large reason for the phenomenon (accepting the premise of around a quarter uncritical test subjects uncritically for the sake of the argument) is for the same reason that a whole city, save one child, all said how nice the emperor's new clothes are (despite all seeing his imperial nakedness): not wanting to look foolish/out-of-fashion/contrary to society in the eyes of their peers.

In other words: I read a random phrase that is touted as being (at least mildly, score 1) profound. It contains some multi-syllable words. I don't really understand it, but I guess it must be somewhat profound - philosophy have for ages given new meanings to existing words and fixed combinations thereof (heck, the media does so every day these days), so maybe this is another example where those words mean something that I haven't encountered yet in my academically undistinguished career - so just to be safe and not the laughing stock of all those ivory tower dwellers, I give it a score of 3 or 4.

And voilà!

Duds will be duped, film at 11

[Opportunist]

Open YouTube. Search for "Flat Earth". Wonder how some people can breathe without aid.

The world is a vastly complex place. Too complex to grasp for even the most learned and intelligent people on our planet, how much more overwhelming does it have to be for someone with, let's put it kindly, limited mental resources? It's dwarfing and people don't like that. So what they are looking for is easy answers for complex problems. And of course they will get them. Usually such answers involve some scapegoat, some big and nebulous enemy and a huge conspiracy around it all.

Fuck, I'm in the wrong business. I should start writing books for those idiots and get rich off them, too.

Ontological Confusions

[mentil]

It makes sense that people who don't require empirical evidence would be more likely to believe in dogmas/supernatural/paranormal/gods, and alternative medicine. However I object to the term 'ontological confusions', some people's philosophies aren't founded on logic; if logic is cast aside, then internal/external consistency aren't necessarily valid ways to judge a philosophy's validity. As a metaphor, someone might say "I do not recognize the validity of this court."

If confronted with facts contradictory to your beliefs, you might believe that the facts were fabricated as part of a conspiracy to suppress The Truth. If given supporting facts, then the conspiracy must be even larger. This proves your beliefs must be true, and is the source of True Believer Syndrome.

Understanding of the psychological root of religiosity is worth pursuing, particularly to priests. If it turns out to be dimwittedness and cognitive disorders, they can just say that their flock has been "blessed by god to see the truth." Most people suffer from several minor cognitive distortions; I wonder what would happen if all the sub-clinical cases were cured...

Re:Ontological Confusions

[aaaaaaargh!]

if logic is cast aside, then internal/external consistency aren't necessarily valid ways to judge a philosophy's validity.

As a philosopher and logician, I fail to see why someone's "philosophy" shouldn't be judged on the basis of consistency like everything else, just because that person refuses validity, consistency, etc for him- or herself. Surely you must try to understand someone else's position first, but that cannot mean that you can only evaluate that position by adopting it - that would make no sense. Besides, it is my experience after 20 years of doing philosophy that people who refuse logic and mathematical method in general really just do so out of laziness, fear, and sometimes even hatred against things they believe they can't understand. Their criticisms are practically always insubstantial and uninteresting, and have been discussed within the discipline extensively before.

Anti-logical attitudes are particularly amusing and depressing at the same time, because for most purported criticisms of logic there is already a logic as a remedy. (A valid criticism may be that there are too many logics, but you rarely hear that one from non-logicians.)

Doctorate?

[Big Hairy Ian]

If this is what his doctorate is on his PHD thesis should be about the stupid things people get qualified in!

Quite. It smells like bullshit.

[denzacar]

There is a long list of cognitive biases to which ALL humans with biological brains and nervous systems are susceptible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Many of them come down to nonsense and noise appearing to make sense.
Because that is the primary function of our brains - making sense and information out of completely random stimuli generated by the world around us.

It's not a game.
It's a necessity for a crushable biological entity to quickly make sense of those vibrations it's sensors are picking up.
Is it thunder, wind or is something heavy coming down on it from above?
Quick! Milliseconds mean life or... too late.
We get pareidolia cause those who didn't recognize that bear-shaped object in the distance didn't make it through the evolutionary process.
Not cause we adapted to think that teddy bears are cute or so that we could interpret smileys and emoji.

And when we can't make sense of some stimuli - we start getting anxious and afraid. And that makes us stupid. And then we get hurt and then we die.
Which is why we'll jump on any quick and easy explanation like "ghosts" or "aliens" or conspiracy theories.
Cause they can provide easy and simple solutions to ANY unsolvable problem. And they provide it quickly.

Why am I poor? Because secret world government keeps me that way.
Why am I ugly? Because aliens made me so.
Why did I get an incurable disease when I'm really a nice person? Because chemtrails.
Why will I and everyone else I love eventually have to die? So we can live forever in a much better place.
Why did my tire blow out? Bad luck. Or gremlins.

Quoting Agent Kay:

[kheldan]

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet.

Cynical, but undeniably true. In my opinion, the day that the vast majority of human beings alive on Earth look at things like religion and superstitions and say "That doesn't make any sense!", will be the day that the Human race will start truly becoming what I consider to be 'sentient' and 'civilized'.

Inspiration can come from noise

[Theovon]

I don’t know about some people, but I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas from bullshit. Yeah, I know what I’m reading is poppycock, but for bullshit to be believable by ANYONE, it has to have some plausibility. So if you run with some of the plausible parts, you can come up with a wholly different idea that isn’t bullshit. Some people feel that their creativity is enhanced when they listen to white noise or the sounds of the ocean or rain. With bullshit, there is not just meaningless noise but some actual information content, even if it’s mostly wrong.

When I was in grad school, I was not smarter than my classmates. But having industry experience, I could code rings around them. My secret to success was not that I could come up with better ideas. In fact, they were mostly worse. However, I could implement and fully rule out the bad ideas a lot faster, and what was left over were ideas that were not only good but already provably good with some of the experimentation already done. So in this case, I was my own bullshit generator, and I used empirical analysis as the bullshit filter, and I had tiger blood and won.

Re:So, today's college students?

[tehcyder]

Ever look at a curriculum for a non-STEM degree?

"Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena" sounds like it belongs there.

But hey, we make them feel "safe".

Make them think? No so much.

Translation: I am an eighteen year old in the first year of a Computer Science degree and think that I am godlike.

Mind you, that applies to at least half the posts on slashdot.