# On Bullshit **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 3, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323 "2015-12-03T17:21:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/1 "2015-12-03T17:21:29Z")
I know it’s been a while since I’ve been here, but I stumbled across this journal article today and thought of ya’ll: [On the detection and reception of pseudo-profound bullshit](http://journal.sjdm.org/15/15923a/jdm15923a.pdf) Four studies on the human propsensity to rate bullshit as profound. Among other things, they created a Deepak Chopra scale, which cracks my ass up. > [@](#): > > …In addition to the 10 meaningless statements used in Study > 1, we obtained 10 novel items from [http://wisdomofchopra](http://wisdomofchopra). > com and [New-Age Bullshit Generator](http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/). As noted, we also > obtained 10 items from Deepak Chopra’s Twitter feed > ([x.com](http://twitter.com/deepakchopra); e.g. “Nature is a selfregulating > ecosystem of awareness”). The results are perhaps, not surprising. > [@](#): > > Those more receptive to bullshit are less reflective, > lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, > numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions > and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious > and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse > complementary and alternative medicine. > [@](#): > > As a secondary point, it is worthwhile to distinguish > uncritical or reflexive open-mindedness from thoughtful > or reflective open-mindedness. Whereas reflexive openmindedness > results from an intuitive mindset that is very > accepting of information without very much processing, re- > flective open-mindedness (or active open-mindedness; e.g., > Baron, Scott, Fincher & Metz, 2014) results from a mindset > that searches for information as a means to facilitate critical > analysis and reflection. Thus, the former should cause one > to be more receptive of bullshit whereas the latter, much like > analytic cognitive style, should guard against it Maybe nothing groundbreaking here, but hey, at least someone is bothering to look into this important matter. One of my favorite bits wrt methodology: > [@](#): > > Participants were also given an > attention check. For this, participants were shown a list of > activities (e.g., biking, reading) directly below the following > instructions: “Below is a list of leisure activities. If you are > reading this, please choose the “other” box below and type > in ‘I read the instructions’”. This attention check proved > rather difficult with 35.4% of the sample failing (N = 99). Happy Thursday! ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/2 "2015-12-03T17:37:39Z")
_“On Bullshit, On Dancer, On Blitzen, On Prancer!”_ Sorry. First thing that popped in my mind when I saw the title. ---
**Author:** ![jayrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jayrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayrey)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/3 "2015-12-03T17:47:21Z")
I would love to know what 35.4% of the participants did instead of checking the “other” box and typing in “I read the instructions.” Seriously, how hard is that? ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/4 "2015-12-03T18:21:32Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Those more receptive to bullshit are less reflective, > > lower in cognitive ability (i.e., verbal and fluid intelligence, > > numeracy), are more prone to ontological confusions > > and conspiratorial ideation, are more likely to hold religious > > and paranormal beliefs, and are more likely to endorse > > complementary and alternative medicine. This part is not unexpected, but I know a person who is a complete outlier, the CIO at my former employer (one unit in a large corporation). Intensely practical, obviously bright, funny and charming, but she constantly posts on facebook woo of the type quoted above. I think she has some kind of disconnect between the real world that she can put her hands on, and her aspirations towards spirituality or something. I find it very jarring. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/5 "2015-12-03T18:30:04Z")
Reminds me of [the Sokal affair -](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair) in which an author submitted an article composed entirely of bullshit to an academic journal, and it ended up getting published. Immediately after publication the author revealed the article to be bullshit, much to the embarrassment of the journal editors. I wonder how those editors would have fared as subjects of the OP’s study. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/6 "2015-12-03T18:37:54Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > Reminds me of [the Sokal affair -](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair) in which an author submitted an article composed entirely of bullshit to an academic journal, and it ended up getting published. Immediately after publication the author revealed the article to be bullshit, much to the embarrassment of the journal editors. I wonder how those editors would have fared as subjects of the OP’s study. I would love to see a follow-up study about bullshit in academia. I did read about a study where peers deemed the more obfuscating academic papers to be of a higher quality than those with more simple language. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2015, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/7 "2015-12-03T18:51:46Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I would love to see a follow-up study about bullshit in academia. I did read about a study where peers deemed the more obfuscating academic papers to be of a higher quality than those with more simple language. I suppose the original Saturn V blueprint seems a lot higher quality than [XKCD’s Upgoer Five.](https://xkcd.com/1133/)😃 ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/8 "2015-12-04T04:49:19Z")
I ran across this on a page that made the material a little more accessible. The researchers [created a page that randomly generates a wad of convincing sounding new-agey bullshit](http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/). It kind of reminds me of the stuff I have seen periodically posted elsewhere (not SDMB) uttered by the ultimate con-man Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (I cannot/care not to remember the name he switched to). Utter vapid profundity. Which makes me feel that our high schools ought to insert a Bullshit credit requirement for getting a diploma. Except, if they did that, this board would fade to a trickle of posts a day. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2015, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/9 "2015-12-04T15:40:39Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > _“On Bullshit, On Dancer, On Blitzen, On Prancer!”_ > > Sorry. First thing that popped in my mind when I saw the title. Ditto. ---
**Author:** ![jayrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jayrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayrey)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/10 "2015-12-05T00:47:40Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > The researchers [created a page that randomly generates a wad of convincing sounding new-agey bullshit](http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/). Oh. My. God. What a hoot! That is some funny stuff and sounds exactly like the kind of woo-bullshit my brother occasionally dispenses. Thanks for the laugh. ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/11 "2015-12-05T01:14:20Z")
> [@jayrey](#): > > I would love to know what 35.4% of the participants did instead of checking the “other” box and typing in “I read the instructions.” Seriously, how hard is that? Because they’re not paying attention to instructions, just skimming the question (or ignoring completely) and (randomly) selecting radio buttons. I’ve participated in a bunch of studies that use these verifying-attention questions. Generally, you’ll click to “next page” a bunch of times; some pages have multiple questions and some will have only one. The attention question will be on its own page. At the top will be a 3-5 line paragraph of instructions like **SpiceWeasel** quoted (“Below you’ll read a question about blah. To show you’re paying attention, choose blah\* [and usually type in “I have read the instructions”].”)" After a few line breaks, it presents the question like normal and the options. People who are just going through to finish quickly won’t read the instructions. It’s fair to assume that it indicates the rest of their responses are similarly slapdash or random and their data can be removed from the actually useful data. - might be one specific item when there’s a bunch and you can choose multiple options, or just “other”. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/12 "2015-12-05T01:58:57Z")
the real question is why “horseshit” is worse than “bullshit.” ---
**Author:** ![zweisamkeit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zweisamkeit/32/4360_2.png) [@zweisamkeit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zweisamkeit)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2015, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/on-bullshit/739323/13 "2015-12-05T02:32:30Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > the real question is why “horseshit” is worse than “bullshit.” My AP History teacher thought similarly. She had a doodle system when reading essays. If you were obviously \*shitting, she’d doodle an animal in size order based on the level of \*shit: Horse, then bull, then elephant . Woe betide anyone who earned an elephant!