Embedded Files
How we are fooled, and how we can try to avoid it
How we are fooled, and how we can try to avoid it
Some good websites and some useful articles about how we are fooled - and how we can try to avoid it.
Contents
2011-10-21
Was Shirley, the real 'Sybil', woman of 16 personalities faking?
Was Shirley, the real 'Sybil', woman of 16 personalities faking?
Psychology shows some old stories are actually stories of a different thing.
"She wasn't faking. I think a better way to talk about what Shirley was doing was that she was acceding to a demand that she have this problem."
Real 'Sybil' Admits Multiple Personalities Were Fake : NPR
This is the 'Sybil' of the eponymous book of the same name by Flora Rheta Schreiber, subtitled: The true story of a woman possessed by 16 separate personalities.
Got this one from Jennifer Oullette, when she was on Google+. (Yup, this is name dropping; I, too, was on occasional chatting terms with famous people).
Top2011-10-20
Beware the garrulous friend!
Beware the garrulous friend!
How social context twists our truths.
"Stories make sense. Life usually doesn’t."
How Friends Ruin Memory: The Social Conformity Effect
Got this one from Jennifer Oullette, when she was on Google+, too.
Top2011-10-13
The giant prehistoric squid that ate common sense
The giant prehistoric squid that ate common sense
How unquestioning media perpetuates silly claims.
Extract from the article The Giant, Prehistoric Squid That Ate Common Sense by Brian Switek on Wired Science:
Image source: Wired Science
...There is no direct evidence for the existence of the animal the McMenamins call “the kraken.” No exceptionally-preserved body, no fossilized tentacle hooks, no beak – nothing. The McMenamin’s entire case is based on peculiar inferences about the site. It is a case of reading the scattered bones as if they were tea leaves able to tell someone’s fortune. Rather than being distributed through the bonebed by natural processes related to decay and preservation, the McMenamins argue that the Shonisaurus bones were intentionally arrayed in a “midden” by a huge cephalopod nearly 100 feet long. (How the length of the imaginary animal was estimated is anyone’s guess.) But that’s not all – the McMenamins speculate that his “kraken” played with its food...I guess a giant, ichthyosaur-eating “kraken” wasn’t enough. A squid with a stroke of artistic genius was clearly the simplest explanation for the formation of the bonebeds...
But what really kills me about this story is the fact that no reporter went to get a second opinion. Each and every story appears to be based directly off the press release and uses quotes directly from that document. No outside expert was contacted for another opinion in any of the stories – standard practice in science journalism – and, frankly, all the stories reek of churnalism. What does it say about the general quality of science reporting when major news sources are content to repackage sensationalist, evidence-lite speculations and print them without further thought or comment? Whether you think the “kraken” story should have been reported or ignored due to lack of evidence, the fact remains that journalists should have actually done their jobs rather than act as facilitators of hype. You don’t have to be a paleontologist to realize that there’s something fishy about claims that there was a giant, ichthyosaur-crunching squid when there is no body to be seen.
TopPage updated
Report abuse