posted 02-23-2006 12:54 PM            

quote:

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If you can accept and repeat an untruth like that - without questioning it, without checking it - then anything you say must be suspect, because you'll believe anything.

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In our current example,Lysimachus believes the pronouncements of this Dr. Said person, to the exclusion of other, reputable physicians. (I'm deliberately assuming that Lysimachus falls into the category of "ignorant dupe" rather than "insidious shill". The jury is still out on that issue.) Another example from a few years ago was Isabelle, who believed she had fungus in the blood, because some homoeopath had shown her dark-field micrographs that "proved" it, despite the fact that real doctors disagreed.

So why do the gullible believe hacks and quacks, but don't believe real physicians and scientists? I can think of a couple of reasons, but would be interested in hearing others' opinions.

posted 02-23-2006 01:16 PM            

The first is telling. Most doctors have treated enough really sick people, and seen enough of them die, to understand their own limitations. Furthermore, informed consent laws compel the doctor to outline all the ways his treatment recommendations might go wrong.

The people treated by naturopaths are, by and large, not very sick, except in their minds. Few die. Furthermore, there seems to be no enforceable requirement of informed consent for naturopathic "therapy." (How could there be?) Add to this the fact that, if the naturopath wasn't better at making sales pitches than practicing medicine, he'd be practicing real medicine, and you have an important selection bias.

I once had a physician suggest I try a couple of the more plausible herbal medications for my prostatitis, on the grounds that scientific medicine didn't have much left to offer me. I find it almost impossible to picture a naturopath telline me that a condition I was presenting was serious enough to need a physician. (I can picture this from some chiropractors, which is why I consider chiropractic to be only 90% quackery.)

Sufficiently stupid people will mistake humility for incompetence.

posted 02-23-2006 01:39 PM            

As can be seen from their web site, the "Envia Gold Stairway to Success" appears to be a basic pyramid scheme.

posted 02-23-2006 09:19 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Chaon:
Does this 'Concorde Fallacy' also apply to projects like the invasion of middle-Eastern countries?

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posted 02-24-2006 06:47 AM            

- to find people who have a pre-disposition to doubt commonly-accepted scientific ways of finding out and knowing things and then presenting the pitch in terms which will appeal to them (the 'science doesn't have all the answers', try-it-and-see-for-yourself appraoch), and/or

- to find people who have a pre-disposition to accept without question commonly-accepted scientific ways of finding out and knowing things and then presenting the pitch in terms which will appeal to them (the pseudo-scientific approach), and/or

- to find people with just a little bit of larceny in their hearts. Just a tiny little bit.

It's been my observation that those who practise MLM are overwhelmingly lower-middle-class, white and socially-conservative. The socio-political aspects of the Amway leviathan have been well-documented, and Amway is about as lily-white as it gets. As a copper friend of mine says, you'd never get anyone from the criminal classes into Amway - they can see the worm in the apple a mile off.

Hitting the intersections of the target audiences described is no mean feat, and requires a pitch of a high order - even in the instant case, we can see the conflicts, where conventional medicine is trashed in one part of the pitch, and yet we are supposed to value the opinions of a conventional MD in another part of the pitch. The whole tale has to have just enough of each part in it to reach out to each target segment, without having so much of any one part as to alienate another target segment. It's actually quite a trick. That's why I mused about the connection to the skills of the carnival barker.

In some ways, the architecture of the Web page makes this easier - as one may see from a casual trip to the website in question here. Want the pseudoscience? Follow this link . . . and all of a sudden, the pages and the links concentrate on the pseudoscience. It's Dr this and University of That and Nobel prize winners all over. Want the all-natural approach? Follow this link . . . and all of a sudden, the medical doctors and the research fade into the background, and it's all about depleted soils and natural Solutomic biovailability and Different Ways of Knowing. Just want the money? Follow this link, and forget all about the product, because that's secondary - here's the chart that shows you how much you'll make.

It's Fascinating, and I am Fascinated. McKay wrote about this in 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds', 160 years ago, and this is obviously nothing new.

llater,

llamas

------------------
. . . a truly bad and evil man. So bad and evil that he's banned by Kim du Toit.

"All things are ready, if our minds be so."
King Henry V, Act 4, scene 3

posted 02-24-2006 09:00 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by DaveL:
Gullibility seems to be a very common characteristic of the junk science True Believers. I'm curious, though, as to why the gullibility is a one-way ratchet. Why do TB's credulously accept the pronouncements from self-proclaimed expert A, but not from experts B, C, D, etc.?

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This manifests in court proceedings; where juries have to weigh up the evidence of different experts, I fear that they sometimes are not incisive on the expert evidence. Come what may, it is very easy to be swayed by people, rather than facts.

posted 02-24-2006 09:18 AM            

I'm new to the forum - a regular contributer here suggested I might have some insight into this area, so I set up an account. I'll comment in another post, but just wanted to introduce myself first.

I'm a doctoral student in educational psychology (learning and cognition focus) at UT Austin, with an interest in 'fundamentalism' and how people convince themselves that their viewpoints are correct, especially against competing explanations or contrary evidence. Anyhoo, I'll be posting more soon.

posted 02-24-2006 10:04 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by nmcvaugh:
Hey all,

I'm new to the forum - a regular contributer here suggested I might have some insight into this area, so I set up an account. I'll comment in another post, but just wanted to introduce myself first.

I'm a doctoral student in educational psychology (learning and cognition focus) at UT Austin, with an interest in 'fundamentalism' and how people convince themselves that their viewpoints are correct, especially against competing explanations or contrary evidence. Anyhoo, I'll be posting more soon.

Nate

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Nate - welcome to the Pleasuredome, we've been expecting you. Look forward to seeing what you have to say - this is a subject area which has exercised us greatly in the past, and if you have data, that would be wonderful.

llater,

llamas

------------------
. . . a truly bad and evil man. So bad and evil that he's banned by Kim du Toit.

"All things are ready, if our minds be so."
King Henry V, Act 4, scene 3

posted 02-24-2006 10:49 AM            

DaveL:

quote:

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Gullibility seems to be a very common characteristic of the junk science True Believers. I'm curious, though, as to why the gullibility is a one-way ratchet. Why do TB's credulously accept the pronouncements from self-proclaimed expert A, but not from experts B, C, D, etc.?

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It's probably more informative to look at gullibility from a slightly different perspective. We all have expectations, ideas and 'narratives' that we use to explain the world. And when new information is encountered, we try to understand it using what we already know. In the case of gullibility that you're talking about, I suspect that you'll find that adopting positions of A as opposed to B, C or D has a lot to do with how closely A reinforces and supports existing beliefs.

It also helps to keep in mind that most people have no problem compartmentalizing (technical term) knowledge and believing things that literally contradict each other. In other words, A and B may disagree, but if different claims of A and B appeal to somebody, they have no problem in accepting both claims.

An example from Creationism provides a good example. Many Creationists view the second law of thermodynamics (or 2LOT) as showing that it's impossible for complexity to spontaneously emerge. At the same time, they point to the Miller-Urrey (sp?) experiment that produced amino acids as being wrong because it doesn't duplicate prebiotic conditions on earth. The interesting thing is that according to their understanding of 2LOT, Miller-Urrey shouldn't have produced amino acids in the first place. Yet this point is never considered, and conceptions of 2LOT and Miller-Urrey are maintained seperately and used for completely different purposes.

More soon, but I don't want to drone on too long without feedback.

posted 02-24-2006 11:01 AM            

quote:

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I've heard this called the "Concorde fallacy"; once you've invested a lot in a project, it's very difficult to cut and run. I would note that it doesn't necessarily have to be a financial investment;

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Yep - any investment in building up a something is worth protecting, regardless of whether it's a physical artifact or a mental construct like a belief system. The critical item to consider is whether the risk of being wrong is significant or not. If it will 'cost' little to change beliefs if you don't have much resting on them, if you have a lot resting on them, then that cost is very high, and you'll need extraordinary circumstances before a change is considered.

An analogy from V. L. Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain considers a general who's getting ready to attack the enemy at 6:00 knowing from multiple scout reports that he has 600 tanks while the enemy only has 400. At 5:58, a scout comes in and tells the general that the enemy actually has 600 tanks. The general discounts this report and goes on with the battle as planned - too much is invested to change the strategy now, and the scout may be mistaken given the other reports that he's heard.

Now imagine that the scout instead reports that the enemy has nuclear weapons. At this point, the general may decide that the risk is too great to continue with his strategy.

Hope this isn't just restating the obvious.

posted 02-24-2006 11:19 AM            

Good stuff.

posted 02-24-2006 11:23 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by LaneH:

Good stuff.

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Indeed. It has some of the flavor of the public choice theory of rational ignorance.

... Rational moonbattery? I feel a blog post coming on.

posted 02-24-2006 11:32 AM            

Hope to see much more from you in the NTDF. We can sorely use someone for whom this is a primary area of study.

posted 02-24-2006 12:10 PM            

quote:

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I have a sister that is a full blown quack follower. IMO, the belief in this stuff is partially driven by a desire to see oneself as more enlightened then the average person.

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barisax

quote:

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Another factor, I think, is that it is hard for people to admit that they are wrong, or even to consider the possibility. Their pride prevents them from properly processing the information you give them, and they filter out anything contrary to their already formed opinion.

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And I think that both of you have hit one of the central issues - ego or self-concept. As I said, most of my interest is in religious fundamentalists, and there too the majority of beliefs seem to be devoted to nothing so much as assuring the person who holds them that they are Right and people who believe otherwise are Wrong. Being part of the select few who are blessed with The Truth has got to be a huge ego boost.

Unfortunately, the personality aspect is also something that I know the least about. Psychology tends to view the clinical and personality specializations as slightly refined voodoo, and Freud certainly has a lot to do with that reputation. I understand that personality theory may be shedding the Freudian vestiges in much the same way that psychology moved beyond behaviorism, but I'm profoundly ignorant of the current state of the art.

I will be taking some personality classes, but I just haven't had a chance to yet. So much reading, so little time...

posted 02-24-2006 12:15 PM            

Oh, and I only have dial-up at home, so as a rule I don't post during weekends. This forum doesn't look like it will eat much bandwidth, so I may be a bit more active during weekends than I can be on the NYT forums. That said, happy Friday all!

posted 02-24-2006 12:37 PM            

quote:

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So why do the gullible believe hacks and quacks, but don't believe real physicians and scientists?

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Perhaps it's because the hacks/quacks will give them time and attention that they desire even more strongly than a true solution to whatever ails them? Similarly, by promoting something outside the mainstream that they believe in, they may generate further attention than they would if they simply echo what conventional _____ is currently indicating?

In both instances they get the attention they are seeking. In the first it arises from someone cashing in on them, but that probably matters little. In the second the attention may be negative, witness the SBI discussions of yore, but it is attention nonetheless.

posted 02-24-2006 12:49 PM            

llater,

llamas

------------------
. . . a truly bad and evil man. So bad and evil that he's banned by Kim du Toit.

"All things are ready, if our minds be so."
King Henry V, Act 4, scene 3

posted 02-25-2006 02:22 PM            

quote:

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Being part of the select few who are blessed with The Truth has got to be a huge ego boost.

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This is not too different from the adolescent need to wear the "right" jeans, and go to the "right" places, and associate with the "right" people in order to be part of the inner circle.

Adults have the same need, but they have more variety in hierarchies with which they can associate. Most of these groups are benign, my parish choir for instance, but occasionally there is one that ends up harming its members or society at large.

By the way, I believe there was a Harvard psychologist named David McMillan who proposed a "need for affiliation" as a basic human drive. He also proposed a "need for achievement" and I saw a video on that in college. These proposals did not apparently go very far. I think that may have more to do with his being head of the Harvard Psychology Department when Timothy Leary was discovering LSD than any actual merit, howver.

posted 02-25-2006 07:02 PM            

quote:

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I sometimes wonder if "true' believers" are as helpless to their reactions as herds of cattle are to stampedes.

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A famous experiment on this subject was done by Solomon Asch in the 1950's. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments. Asch found that most people have a strong need to conform to the beliefs of the group, even if they are obviously wrong.

posted 02-25-2006 08:34 PM            

A few more thoughts on the previous post about 'public choice theory' (as KGB suggested).

Note that some of the implications of this model should be noticed. If the 'cost' of switching ideas (or artifacts) is low or non-existant, there will be little resistance to making changes. In new learning, it's best to nip preconceptions in the bud before they begin to form the basis of other beliefs. Catching them early makes it 'cheaper' to change.

Conversely, if it becomes too 'expensive' to maintain an existing set of beliefs, then there's also a lessened resistance to making changes.

The problem seems to be in how we evaluate the costs of different options. I'm sure that there are probably some cross-disciplinary articles that have been done with economists. I'll see if I can find anything on this in the literature. Speaking of which...

Jessho:

quote:

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Logic and careful examination are replaced by the blind urge to flee and survive.

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There's some evidence that this stuff does go on at a neurological level, at least for personality 'defense' strategies ala Freud. Now I'm no fan of Freud's developmental schemes or personality theory, but I do like what he had to say about the types of defenses people use in place of rational arguments. Projection, denial, rationalization, confabulation etc are all real phenomena. I highly suggest a chapter of Ramachandran's Phantoms in the Brain for some enticing neurological hypotheses. I can post an excerpt I scanned in online if there's interest, though I'll only keep it up a short time because of copyright.

Victor

quote:

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He also proposed a "need for achievement"

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I vaguely recall McMillan from emotion & motivation. I think he still gets mentioned every now and then. Don't recall a thing about him though. :-)

posted 02-26-2006 10:03 AM            

quote:

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I vaguely recall McMillan from emotion & motivation. I think he still gets mentioned every now and then. Don't recall a thing about him though. :-)

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I had actually not heard of him until fairly recently. The short video in college on the "need for achievement" did not mention him by name. I did recall the video a few years back when I was reading Simon Baron-Cohen's book, the Essential Difference. Baron-Cohen identifies two sets of skills, one he calls empathizing, the other systemizing. These align very neatly with the need for affiliation and the need for achievement and led me to do some research. That is how I found McMillan's name.