ralphpnj wrote: > I could not agree more since attempting to read the entire paper just > gave me a terrible headache. So while the paper may or may not be an > example of pseudo-profound bullshit, it is most definitely a very fine > example of pseudo-academic bullshit.
Just because a long, detailed paper may give the reader fatigue or a headache is not an indication that it lacks academic rigor, potentially quite the opposite. On the other hand, the authors' concluding sentence is quite humorously self-aware: > That people vary in their receptivity toward bullshit is perhaps less > surprising than the fact that psychological scientists have heretofore > neglected this issue. Accordingly, although this manuscript may not be > truly profound, it is indeed meaningful. The claim that because an area of study is novel, it is necessarily meaningful is also a -non sequitur-, and I'm calling bullshit on that one! There are many things that have not been studied and can be left unstudied without any loss to the body of human knowledge or wisdom. I would further suggest that the particular area of Bullshit Receptivity is -a priori- not sufficiently distinct from other psychological studies of gullibility for which the literature is abundant. I also find some of their methodology flawed: E.g., given a set of pseudo-profound bullshit statements of equal, but zero merit, it would be a brave soul who rated them all as "Not at all profound." The human tendency to rate everything on a curve, played a role here, along with the reasonable assumption that the prompt for the questions "We are interested in how people experience the profound." was probably sincere, given the academic setting. That deceitful introductory rubric to Study 1 was a pure gullibility test, and the average response of 2.6 on that study measured the subjects' receptivity to the set-up, and general trust of academic institutions more than it did to the nonsense the followed. My summary: quite entertaining, but not useful. ---------------------- "Dreamer, easy in the chair that really fits you..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ dsdreamer's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=12588 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=104729 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
