In an article in New Scientist, Patrick Leman discusses the psychology of conspiracy theories.
Some interesting points sound somewhat axiomatic, but worth spelling out.
First, the propensity to cling to a particular conspiracy theory depends on the age of the proponent at the time of the event in question. The story goes that a particular event, sudden, shocking, international in scale, can affect someone on a personal level more easily when they are between 20 and 35 years old - so conspiracies around Kennedy and 9/11 generally attract different age groups.
There is also a connection between ethnic minorities and conspiracy belief, as well as income level. Both are explained by anomie - those with a higher feeling of disempowerment tend more to hold to conspiracies. This is not surprising, as with the corollary, that those with higher income or empowerment are less attracted to conspiracies. After all, why would you be as concerned if you're doing well personally?
Another psychological analysis finds that people often assume that a significant event is likely to have significant causes - ie more trivial explanations are discounted the more impact the event has. In a study, volunteers were given either of two accounts of an attempted assassination of a fictional president. Conspiracy was more likely to be read into it if the president died than if the president lived.
In another such study involving a fictional assassination attempt, additional but ambiguous or neutral information was later added. It was found to be used by people to bolster whatever conclusions they had already drawn. Thus either the conspiracy or non-conspiracy account is bolstered by the same piece of information.
I can say that I fit the templates here in some respects. I'm not inclined to be drawn by any conspiracy talk about the death of Diana Spencer, or by the World Trade Center tragedy, but more willing to listen to talk around JFK. (But then, that latter saga is quite smelly.)
Then again, I think that the machinations of international capital are more than enough to propel collusion without multiplying unnecessary factors (Occam's razor). Does that constitute conspiracy theory?
Showing posts with label epistemology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label epistemology. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
The Poodle scam scam
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on a scam in which Japanese – thousands of them – bought sheep under the mistaken impression they were poodles.
It started off:
It started off:
“Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.
Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets,
marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each….
The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and
wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food. She was crestfallen when told it was a sheep.
Then hundreds of other women got in touch with police to say they feared their new "poodle" was also a sheep.
One couple said they became suspicious when they took their "dog" to have its claws trimmed and were told it had hooves.”
Have a read of the full article - it's great!
Typical ignorant b----- Japanese, you’d think.
Now this was on the Herald’s web site.
And it was an Australian Associated Press wire story.
The first clue should have been where it said: “…Japanese police said, the The Sun reported.”
But I missed it.
But I thought I’d check it out anyway. Scant mention of “Poodles as Pets”. But then I did find this story on Neatorama. Well worth a read.
Totally debunked.
But… but… they were reliable news sources!
But note the reference to The Sun – a British tabloid that is not read for the truth.
I got sucked in, but got out in time. The Herald didn’t – nor did AAP. Unfortunately, it's now all over the net.
Just goes to show. Reliable sources are the simplest way to trust the internet. But a healthy scepticism remains important.
Just don’t get too cynical, or you’ll ruin your life.
Monday, August 07, 2006
World: On myths and half-knowledge
I’m a simple bloke with an analytical temperament. I don’t like fiction masquerading as fact. This is why I’ve always included a link to Snopes on the right.
Mythology per se has a real, cultural purpose, but I resent any attempt to pass it off as objectively real.
I get niggled by the little bits of misinformation and disinformation that spread through the net. Reading Snopes, it's apparent that a fair bit of urban myth is created maliciously, while some of it comprises stories (or opinion) that is eventually passed off as fact, via chinese whispers.
Snopes deals with the myth that eight glasses of water per day is good for you. As is typical, Snopes found it hard to identify the source of the original story. Like a lot of urban myths, it probably gained legs because it captured the imagination - entered popular culture as mythology does.
Also dispelled is the story of evil sulphates in shampoo (the bad ones were phased out, the not-so-bad ones are only minor irritants). This one’s probably being perpetuated by shampoo manufacturers who make a point of tagging their product “no sulphates” – probably in response to a previous generation of consumers.
This week's New Scientist bursts the bubble on antioxidant supplements. A recent study found that while there is benefit from antioxidents ingested naturally from fruit and vegetables, there is no benefit when extracted from the proper food stream and taken as pills.
Be aware that even good sources can sometimes snag. For example, Karl Kruszelnicki is an Australian scientist who spends his time these days spreading enthusiasm for science through books and radio. I have a lot of respect for him; like myself, he’s a sponge for information, and his gusto is infections. Yet despite an extensive background debunking misconceptions, he’s occasionally prone to propagating some himself. (Recently he made an off-the-cuff comment that the word hello was invented specifically for the telephone, whereas its use clearly predates that innovation.)
This is just to illustrate that nobody’s perfect. The best one can do is to check information, be able to refer back to your sources. Be suspicious of anything that is counter-intuitive, and check it up. And sometimes be prepared to drop that long-cherished belief that has no foundation.
Mythology per se has a real, cultural purpose, but I resent any attempt to pass it off as objectively real.
I get niggled by the little bits of misinformation and disinformation that spread through the net. Reading Snopes, it's apparent that a fair bit of urban myth is created maliciously, while some of it comprises stories (or opinion) that is eventually passed off as fact, via chinese whispers.
Snopes deals with the myth that eight glasses of water per day is good for you. As is typical, Snopes found it hard to identify the source of the original story. Like a lot of urban myths, it probably gained legs because it captured the imagination - entered popular culture as mythology does.
Also dispelled is the story of evil sulphates in shampoo (the bad ones were phased out, the not-so-bad ones are only minor irritants). This one’s probably being perpetuated by shampoo manufacturers who make a point of tagging their product “no sulphates” – probably in response to a previous generation of consumers.
This week's New Scientist bursts the bubble on antioxidant supplements. A recent study found that while there is benefit from antioxidents ingested naturally from fruit and vegetables, there is no benefit when extracted from the proper food stream and taken as pills.
Be aware that even good sources can sometimes snag. For example, Karl Kruszelnicki is an Australian scientist who spends his time these days spreading enthusiasm for science through books and radio. I have a lot of respect for him; like myself, he’s a sponge for information, and his gusto is infections. Yet despite an extensive background debunking misconceptions, he’s occasionally prone to propagating some himself. (Recently he made an off-the-cuff comment that the word hello was invented specifically for the telephone, whereas its use clearly predates that innovation.)
This is just to illustrate that nobody’s perfect. The best one can do is to check information, be able to refer back to your sources. Be suspicious of anything that is counter-intuitive, and check it up. And sometimes be prepared to drop that long-cherished belief that has no foundation.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Tech: Wikipedia - where’s that critique of unsourced information?
I was drawn to a piece on Radio National’s Counterpoint programme, which promised to be a critique on Wikipedia. Here’s evidence of the mainstreaming of a hidden gem: to have it discussed nationally on radio. Not that I needed that evidence, on an anecdotal level at least. I frequently encounter non-technical people nowadays that use Wikipedia as their first reference source.
However, Wikipedia emerged favourably from the the two discussions I picked up in this exercise, and I’m still waiting for a serious challenge to its burgeoning pre-eminence.
The first point of contention came from Jaron Lanier. Who’s he? Despite his own bio and that in Wikipedia (vetted quite recently by him), his substance is rather elusive to me, although he has clearly been involved in technical and critical spheres. Undeniably he is literate, and has garnered recognition, including an honorary doctorate, as well as notable people who are willing to put a fair bit of thought into responding to his essays.
I believe the teaser for the interview with Lanier said words to the effect that Wikipedia was a “revolution in unsourced information”. I was thus looking forward to a critique of its accuracy. Now the Wikipedia model is somewhat counterintuitive in that it sounds like it lends itself to both misinformation and disinformation, yet in practice works particularly well.
Here I present another analysis. Nature magazine carried out a survey (which Lanier is wont to quote) comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. It concluded there is not a great deal of difference between the two – a finding favourable enough to the former to draw the ongoing wrath of the latter. Nature stood by its conclusions. Four major errors were spotted in each; smaller errors of fact were of an equal order of magnitude: 162 for Wikipedia and 123 for Britannica. The sampling was relatively small (42 pairs of usable reviews), but it’s not surprising Britannica was wringing its hands at the prospect of its reputation being usurped by such a young upstart. That link to the survey leads to all the details of Britannica's criticisms and Nature's rebuttals.
Back to Lanier. If you read his comments carefully enough (in the Counterpoint interview and particularly in the essay that probably caught their attention – Digital Maoism), he is actually bewailing the fact of collaboration, and the apparent loss of the individual voice. He contrasts it with myspace.com, which he expresses enthusiasm for – specifically because it is an individual, signed voice - regardless of the quality of the content.
Lanier has an axe to grind against collective collaboration, and doesn’t seem to disparage the accuracy of Wikipedia per se. It’s an interesting perspective for a professed computer scientist: it’s much more that of an artist. Art and science/knowledge, I contend, have very different purposes and in the ultimate, science (and knowledge) is more concerned with successful collaboration, whereas it is in art that the individual's voice has strongest relevance to the subject matter.
Further, Lanier is misleading in claiming that that collective content of Wikipedia is homogenised. In fact, if any contentious issues therein are tested, they are found to have a plurality of voices, proffering often diametrically opposed views on the same issue.
I have a side issue with how the man encourages himself to be portrayed. The radio presenter, Michael Duffy, credited Lanier as being an “academic at the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley”. At a brief whizz past (which is all radio listeners will get), this sounds like Lanier’s been given cachet by being associated with the University of California, Berkeley. In fact, a) that Institute is not associated with U of C, and b) Lanier would not seem to be an academic at ICSI. His Wikipedia biography doesn’t mention it; in his own website bio, he mentions various “associations” with that Institute, but the Institute’s staff list doesn’t mention him at all. I think the artistic desire for signature won out over the scientistic regard for accuracy.
So we have Lanier’s critique of what he calls the “hive mind” – for what it’s worth. I’m still waiting for a challenging critique of Wikipedia.
However, Wikipedia emerged favourably from the the two discussions I picked up in this exercise, and I’m still waiting for a serious challenge to its burgeoning pre-eminence.
The first point of contention came from Jaron Lanier. Who’s he? Despite his own bio and that in Wikipedia (vetted quite recently by him), his substance is rather elusive to me, although he has clearly been involved in technical and critical spheres. Undeniably he is literate, and has garnered recognition, including an honorary doctorate, as well as notable people who are willing to put a fair bit of thought into responding to his essays.
I believe the teaser for the interview with Lanier said words to the effect that Wikipedia was a “revolution in unsourced information”. I was thus looking forward to a critique of its accuracy. Now the Wikipedia model is somewhat counterintuitive in that it sounds like it lends itself to both misinformation and disinformation, yet in practice works particularly well.
Here I present another analysis. Nature magazine carried out a survey (which Lanier is wont to quote) comparing the accuracy of Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica. It concluded there is not a great deal of difference between the two – a finding favourable enough to the former to draw the ongoing wrath of the latter. Nature stood by its conclusions. Four major errors were spotted in each; smaller errors of fact were of an equal order of magnitude: 162 for Wikipedia and 123 for Britannica. The sampling was relatively small (42 pairs of usable reviews), but it’s not surprising Britannica was wringing its hands at the prospect of its reputation being usurped by such a young upstart. That link to the survey leads to all the details of Britannica's criticisms and Nature's rebuttals.
Back to Lanier. If you read his comments carefully enough (in the Counterpoint interview and particularly in the essay that probably caught their attention – Digital Maoism), he is actually bewailing the fact of collaboration, and the apparent loss of the individual voice. He contrasts it with myspace.com, which he expresses enthusiasm for – specifically because it is an individual, signed voice - regardless of the quality of the content.
Lanier has an axe to grind against collective collaboration, and doesn’t seem to disparage the accuracy of Wikipedia per se. It’s an interesting perspective for a professed computer scientist: it’s much more that of an artist. Art and science/knowledge, I contend, have very different purposes and in the ultimate, science (and knowledge) is more concerned with successful collaboration, whereas it is in art that the individual's voice has strongest relevance to the subject matter.
Further, Lanier is misleading in claiming that that collective content of Wikipedia is homogenised. In fact, if any contentious issues therein are tested, they are found to have a plurality of voices, proffering often diametrically opposed views on the same issue.
I have a side issue with how the man encourages himself to be portrayed. The radio presenter, Michael Duffy, credited Lanier as being an “academic at the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley”. At a brief whizz past (which is all radio listeners will get), this sounds like Lanier’s been given cachet by being associated with the University of California, Berkeley. In fact, a) that Institute is not associated with U of C, and b) Lanier would not seem to be an academic at ICSI. His Wikipedia biography doesn’t mention it; in his own website bio, he mentions various “associations” with that Institute, but the Institute’s staff list doesn’t mention him at all. I think the artistic desire for signature won out over the scientistic regard for accuracy.
So we have Lanier’s critique of what he calls the “hive mind” – for what it’s worth. I’m still waiting for a challenging critique of Wikipedia.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Pers: the myth of UFOs, and Occam’s Razor
Last night I applied Occam’s Razor, and found I did not believe UFO sightings were of extraterrestrials. [Thanks to Mark for reminding me that what I was trying to express at one point was indeed Occam.]
Of course I could be wrong, but that’s the beauty of scientific analysis: it’s fun to be proven wrong. Unless you have invested too much in the stance. Being proven wrong represents an opportunity to explore a whole new world, from a fresh perspective.
According to my Macquarie, Occam’s Razor is “the principle that entities must not be unnecessarily multiplied, which as the principle of economy of hypothesis, is applicable to scientific research”; “William of Occam, d1349?, scholastic philosopher.” [As you can imagine, being a logician in that era, he was excommunicated.] The key phrase here is “economy of hypothesis”. In effect, go for the simplest explanation that covers the evidence.
Of course, often enough commonly accepted scientific hypothesis doesn’t cover all available evidence. Sometimes it’s accepted that some evidence falls outside the hypothesis, and needs to be tidied up by later refinement of theory.
By my application of Occam’s Razor, UFO sightings haven’t been extraterrestrial. The simplest explanation relates to technology at the height of the fad – 1950s, odd – being rudimentary by today’s standards, and so giving less precise recordings. Further, that the cold war fostered a type of paranoia which was propitious for “other” interpretations of unusual phenomena (although sometimes UFOs were attributed to Soviet technology, extraterrestriality was possibly less world-threatening, having no direct implications of nuclear destruction - not to say more realistic, especially with what we know now about Soviet technology). In fact, it could be said that "alien" now frequently substitutes for "supernatural" or "divine", reflecting the respective zeitgeists. A bit like St Elmo’s fire, which was seen by sailors as supernatural.
In support of this idea, I note that Wikipedia’s list of major sightings has them concentrated in the cold war era.
My problem with the ET explanation is fourfold:
1) Wormholes aside, it would take years for a life form to travel from home base to our solar system. We’re three to four light years from the nearest star, and much much more distant from the nearest star with plausibly inhabited systems. Further, if life forms had the technology to make it here, they wouldn’t be playing hide and seek. There’s precious little to be gained from travelling huge distances for brief observations then travelling back again.
2) With today’s technology available to amateurs everywhere being much more sophisticated than was available at top levels in the 1950s, any presence would bring multiple, documented reports. Even if the sighting was in an isolated location, the object would necessarily be tracked in travelling to that location.
3) Some of the descriptions included the physically impossible, for example high speed right-angle turns in the sky.
4) We know from SETI projects that there are no ETs nearby. At least, none that are using any communications systems, yet it would be near inconceiveable not to communicate.
My reservations about this are:
a) Some difficulty explaining all UFO phenomena; Wiki has a comment that about 35% of the best [strongest] cases are unexplained.
b) a miniscule possibility that technological extraterrestrials could develop in environments too hostile for us to consider inhabitable;
c) Wormholes.
However, I’m happy to be proven wrong.
More on the wormholes… someday.
14-May-06 Update: It's plasma
The percentage unexplained just took a dip, due to Project Condign. This study, by the UK Department of Defence, examined 10,000 witness reports, and attributed most sightings to plasmas, electric atmospheric phenomena caused by a range of circumstances, including meteors; air flows shaped them into UFO-like phenomena. (My source, the Sydney Sun-Herald via UK's Guardian newspaper, seems to imply all sightings were attributed to plasma, which doesn't sound right to me.)
Of course I could be wrong, but that’s the beauty of scientific analysis: it’s fun to be proven wrong. Unless you have invested too much in the stance. Being proven wrong represents an opportunity to explore a whole new world, from a fresh perspective.
According to my Macquarie, Occam’s Razor is “the principle that entities must not be unnecessarily multiplied, which as the principle of economy of hypothesis, is applicable to scientific research”; “William of Occam, d1349?, scholastic philosopher.” [As you can imagine, being a logician in that era, he was excommunicated.] The key phrase here is “economy of hypothesis”. In effect, go for the simplest explanation that covers the evidence.
Of course, often enough commonly accepted scientific hypothesis doesn’t cover all available evidence. Sometimes it’s accepted that some evidence falls outside the hypothesis, and needs to be tidied up by later refinement of theory.
By my application of Occam’s Razor, UFO sightings haven’t been extraterrestrial. The simplest explanation relates to technology at the height of the fad – 1950s, odd – being rudimentary by today’s standards, and so giving less precise recordings. Further, that the cold war fostered a type of paranoia which was propitious for “other” interpretations of unusual phenomena (although sometimes UFOs were attributed to Soviet technology, extraterrestriality was possibly less world-threatening, having no direct implications of nuclear destruction - not to say more realistic, especially with what we know now about Soviet technology). In fact, it could be said that "alien" now frequently substitutes for "supernatural" or "divine", reflecting the respective zeitgeists. A bit like St Elmo’s fire, which was seen by sailors as supernatural.
In support of this idea, I note that Wikipedia’s list of major sightings has them concentrated in the cold war era.
My problem with the ET explanation is fourfold:
1) Wormholes aside, it would take years for a life form to travel from home base to our solar system. We’re three to four light years from the nearest star, and much much more distant from the nearest star with plausibly inhabited systems. Further, if life forms had the technology to make it here, they wouldn’t be playing hide and seek. There’s precious little to be gained from travelling huge distances for brief observations then travelling back again.
2) With today’s technology available to amateurs everywhere being much more sophisticated than was available at top levels in the 1950s, any presence would bring multiple, documented reports. Even if the sighting was in an isolated location, the object would necessarily be tracked in travelling to that location.
3) Some of the descriptions included the physically impossible, for example high speed right-angle turns in the sky.
4) We know from SETI projects that there are no ETs nearby. At least, none that are using any communications systems, yet it would be near inconceiveable not to communicate.
My reservations about this are:
a) Some difficulty explaining all UFO phenomena; Wiki has a comment that about 35% of the best [strongest] cases are unexplained.
b) a miniscule possibility that technological extraterrestrials could develop in environments too hostile for us to consider inhabitable;
c) Wormholes.
However, I’m happy to be proven wrong.
More on the wormholes… someday.
14-May-06 Update: It's plasma
The percentage unexplained just took a dip, due to Project Condign. This study, by the UK Department of Defence, examined 10,000 witness reports, and attributed most sightings to plasmas, electric atmospheric phenomena caused by a range of circumstances, including meteors; air flows shaped them into UFO-like phenomena. (My source, the Sydney Sun-Herald via UK's Guardian newspaper, seems to imply all sightings were attributed to plasma, which doesn't sound right to me.)
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