Re: The Einstein Effect

On 7/01/2025 9:49 pm, Martin Brown wrote:

On 07/01/2025 00:48, john larkin wrote:

On Mon, 6 Jan 2025 22:17:20 -0000 (UTC), Cursitor Doom
<cd999666@notformail.com> wrote:
>

On Mon, 06 Jan 2025 07:36:05 -0800, john larkin wrote:
>

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/einstein-and-adam-grant-agree-the-

puzzle-principle-will-make-you-instantly-smarter/91102339

>
Cohen's book looks interesting, so I ordered it.

 You do realise that the title of the book is actually taken from a paper about how total gibberish prose attributed to a scientist is more often believed by the general public than the same gibberish prose attributed to a mystic guru (aka religious leader proxy).
 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01273-8
 That is behind a Nature paywall but the original paper is free access here:
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347290885_The_Einstein_effect_Global_evidence_for_scientific_source_credibility_effects_and_the_influence_of_religiosity
 Religious leaders will just have to get used to the idea that scientists and rational thought now hold sway over ignorance and superstition.

At least for some people. Trump got re-elected after telling the electorate that immigrants in Ohio were killing and eating people's pets. The mainstream media couldn't find any evidence that this had ever happened, and Karmala Harris couldn't hide her amusement when he advanced the claim in the notionally presidential debate
The internet does seem to be delivering nonsense to gullible twits on a massive scale - Cursitor Doom and John Larkin re-post some the choicer items here.
Getting good data from even the scientific literature does depend on exercising quite a bit of careful scepticism, and it doesn't seem to be a skill that is widely taught - John Larkin sees to have got through a science course at Tulane without acquiring it.
<snipped sensible stuff about Newton - Neal Stephenson's "Baroque Cycle" cover's Newton's life, and Newton does show up in it from time to time, more or less correctly depicted.>
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney