Re: Mind's Eye Re: Magic and research

LOL and I thought my hoot an hollering routine was special.. but it
is about as effective as talking to them
Allan Heretic


On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 10:57 PM, Lee Douglas <leerevdouglas@gmail.com> wrote:
> As I get older my liking for shouting at the Tv has dramatically increased.
> More and more often I find myself shouting at the blatant lies on TV
> advertising. Only this morning wifey caught me at it and this started a
> discussion on whether or not this is indicative of our (English) society
> becoming more and more brain dead. Sadly I'm starting to believe it is. Or
> perhaps it is indicative of my growing curmudgeoningness (which I understand
> is indicative of getting older?) or perhaps both!
>
> On Thursday, 20 September 2012 16:52:17 UTC+1, archytas wrote:
>>
>> http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi/10.1371/journal.pone.0045457
>>
>> These Swedish researchers used a magic trick to show that people's
>> answers to survey questions are unreliable. I noticed many years ago
>> that most people haven't much clue what they are on about and can't
>> tell chalk from cheese. We are, in the main, moral wuckfits.
>>
>> The trick used was to get people to answer a few questions but change
>> a couple of the answers through a magic dodge. People argued in
>> support of the changed answers. even though they were the opposite of
>> the views they'd only just expressed. We have known 8 out of 10 cats
>> prefer Whiskas to powdered glass for many years (one of our pampered
>> pouch-devourers has just turn his nose up at Sheba as though I was
>> trying to poison him). Why do we have so much trouble taking in the
>> notion that companies pay for advertising because most people are
>> gulled by it and basically so stupid most of them operate with the
>> brain on switch off?
>>
>> This paper isn't all that interesting in-itself. What is interesting
>> is that much more material like this is appearing on PLos through open
>> access. One hopes the move away from vanity publishing and restricted
>> access. Over the years I found less than one in a hundred academic
>> papers worthwhile (one reads thousands in a research project and at
>> least half are likely to be outside the university's subscription and
>> cost $10 or so through inter-library loans - or $40 to the private
>> punter).
>>
>> Science doesn't have much comforting to tell us on human nature - this
>> is probably why most people don't want to know. It's probably time to
>> a new treatise on human nature. Economists are just discovering the
>> 'triune brain' (I was taught brain stem, reptilian, mammalian and the
>> cerebellum 45 years ago - I note that adds up to 4 and quadrune). In
>> fact there's plenty of reasonable science that demonstrates we are
>> lying, cheating, rationalising, broadly stupid bastards and some do
>> this in spades (we call them leaders or psychopaths) and most on a
>> less daring scale.
>>
>> Rather than describing human nature, great literature hides it from us.
>
> --
>
>
>



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|_D Allan

Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.


I am a Natural Airgunner -

Full of Hot Air & Ready To Expel It Quickly.

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