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Three University of Waterloo researchers share this year’s Ig Nobel Peace Prize — an award on the silly side of science — for their analysis of why people believe meaningless garbage.
The trio and two American partners put it more crudely in a paper called “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bulls—.” (They didn’t use the little dashes.)
Their theory: If you take a meaningless jumble of important-sounding words and mount them on a wall in an impressive frame, people will think it means something.
For example, they got student volunteers to believe this was profound: ““wholeness quiets infinite phenomena.”
And the same for: “hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty.”
“There is little question that bulls— is a real and consequential phenomenon,” the scientists wrote. And it’s all around us in ordinary life, co-author and Waterloo psychologist Jonathan Fugelsang, told the Citizen.
“I think one of the best real world examples of the proliferation of ‘bulls—‘ would be in politics,” he said by email from Boston. “I consulted with one of the co-authors on this work about your question this morning, Nathaniel Barr, as he has his finger on the pulse of these issues in politics. He thinks the place where ‘bulls—‘ is most blatantly strewn is during political debates (take for example the recent Democratic and Republican debates), where fact checking often shows that many politicians play very fast and loose with the truth.”
Even Deepak Chopra took a hit from their research, for this gem: “Attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation.”
The Ig Nobels are an ancient and honoured tradition among scientists, singling out the quirky and zany each year. For instance, several years ago one winner showed why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. This year someone showed that swearing relieves pain.
The prizes, awarded in Boston, bring a large-denomination banknote from Zimbabwe that’s worth less than a dollar. The glory, however, lasts forever.
Fugelsang shares the prize with Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathaniel Barr and Derek Koehler.
tspears@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
The trio and two American partners put it more crudely in a paper called “On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bulls—.” (They didn’t use the little dashes.)
Their theory: If you take a meaningless jumble of important-sounding words and mount them on a wall in an impressive frame, people will think it means something.
For example, they got student volunteers to believe this was profound: ““wholeness quiets infinite phenomena.”
And the same for: “hidden meaning transforms unparalleled abstract beauty.”
“There is little question that bulls— is a real and consequential phenomenon,” the scientists wrote. And it’s all around us in ordinary life, co-author and Waterloo psychologist Jonathan Fugelsang, told the Citizen.
“I think one of the best real world examples of the proliferation of ‘bulls—‘ would be in politics,” he said by email from Boston. “I consulted with one of the co-authors on this work about your question this morning, Nathaniel Barr, as he has his finger on the pulse of these issues in politics. He thinks the place where ‘bulls—‘ is most blatantly strewn is during political debates (take for example the recent Democratic and Republican debates), where fact checking often shows that many politicians play very fast and loose with the truth.”
Even Deepak Chopra took a hit from their research, for this gem: “Attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation.”
The Ig Nobels are an ancient and honoured tradition among scientists, singling out the quirky and zany each year. For instance, several years ago one winner showed why woodpeckers don’t get headaches. This year someone showed that swearing relieves pain.
The prizes, awarded in Boston, bring a large-denomination banknote from Zimbabwe that’s worth less than a dollar. The glory, however, lasts forever.
Fugelsang shares the prize with Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathaniel Barr and Derek Koehler.
tspears@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/TomSpears1
查看原文...
