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Zusammenfassung von The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit

Name: The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit
Rating: 3.7 (175 reviews)
Author: John V. Petrocelli

John V. Petrocelli

Harnessing Critical Thinking Habits to Combat False Information

3.7 (175 Bewertungen)

24 Min.

Kurz zusammengefasst

'The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit' by John V. Petrocelli uncovers the science behind how people believe and spread false information. It explores the importance of critical thinking and provides tools to detect fake news.

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The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit
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What’s in it for me? Discover how bullshit spreads, and learn to resist it.

To some extent, we all bullshit. Even when we’re out of our depth in a conversation, we still feel the need to weigh in. So we do. But what comes out? Bullshit.

Bullshit is pervasive in our culture. Whether we want to or not, we all contribute to it. And we often feel confident in our ability to recognize and avoid it.

Yet there’s no clear understanding of what bullshitting actually is, why there’s so much of it, or what purpose it serves.

These blinks guide you through how and why people bullshit, what benefits it provides, and how you can identify it and resist its effects.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

prevalent tactics used by bullshitters;
how to avoid getting bullshitted by car dealers; and
how you can help rid the world of bullshit.

Bullshitting and lying aren’t the same.

In 2017, NBA superstar Kyrie Irving declared in a podcast that the earth was flat. He’d been taught the scientific view, of course, but he still declared that it just couldn’t be right. Why? Because, he said, there’s no concrete information other than what they’re telling us; meanwhile, what he called “the truth” was right in front of us.

He’s not alone in his belief. It may seem hard to fathom, but a survey of US adults found that 1 in 50 people believe the earth is flat. That’s six and a half million people – more than twice the population of Chicago.

If there were evidence of a worldwide conspiracy to create fake scientific findings, then, perhaps, it would make sense to believe in a flat earth. But there isn’t any. For flat-earthers, though, none of that matters. They actively disregard the truth and basic facts. In other words: they bullshit.

The key message here is: Bullshitting and lying aren’t the same.

Kyrie asked listeners to “do some research.” But plenty of it has already been conducted by professional scientists – people who know what they’re doing.

First among them was the Greek astronomer Eratosthenes. Two thousand years ago, he determined the shape of the earth by observing two sticks in the ground. One of them, in Syene, cast a shadow at midday on June 21. The other, 500 miles north in Alexandria, didn’t. This clearly demonstrated the curvature of the earth.

And yet, two millennia later, the basketball superstar ignored compelling scientific evidence and implied that the truth lies elsewhere. That was bullshit.

Bullshitting isn’t the same as lying, even though a liar and a bullshitter may say the exact same thing. The liar cares about the truth but wishes to hide it. The bullshitter, on the other hand, doesn’t care about what is or isn’t true.

Some bullshit is harmless; in other cases, it can be bad or even downright dangerous.

Former US president Donald Trump claimed the rain stopped immediately as he began his inauguration speech. It didn’t – but that kind of bullshit is pretty innocuous.

Trump also suggested that injecting disinfectant might help cure COVID-19. This was bullshit – and, as far as harm goes, it sits right at the other end of the spectrum. Some medical experts believe that it actually led to the deaths of people who followed Trump’s suggestion.

In the following blinks, we’ll examine some examples of everyday bullshit, how it may benefit the bullshitter to the detriment of everyone else, and how bullshitting works.

Bullshit impacts your memory, attitudes, beliefs, and decision-making.

When you buy something, you usually pay between 50 and 100 percent more than the wholesale price. That’s considered a reasonable markup for the risks the retailer takes.

But, in a restaurant, the wine often comes with a 400 percent markup. Many people know this and order a soda instead. Incidentally, this doesn’t make sense either – the markup on soda can be a staggering 1,000 percent!

Everyone is bullible to a greater or lesser degree.

Bullshit blindness, or what the author calls bullibility – a mashup of bullshit and gullibility – is something that affects us all. We accept bullshit as fact and fail to recognize that the bullshitter either disregards the truth or hasn’t even bothered to establish it.

Bullibility is one reason why Ponzi schemes attract so many investors. These scams promise a quick return, but all profits really come from the payments made by people further down the chain. The scheme generates no real profit, so it’s doomed to fail.

We produce more bullshit when we feel an obligation or expectation to contribute.

The philosopher Harry Frankfurt thought that bullshit occurs when we’re required to talk about something we’re not really familiar with. The author goes even further: his research shows that we bullshit whenever people ask us our opinions. How well-informed we are doesn’t even come into it.

And we’re even more likely to bullshit when we talk to people who know less than we do. In the author’s research, 41 percent of participants used bullshit when talking to someone new to a subject; but only 29 percent bullshitted when talking to someone knowledgeable.

Recognizing the common tactics of bullshitters will make you a better bullshit detector.

In 1989, Dr. Douglas Biklen introduced facilitated communication to the United States. It purported to give mute autistic patients a tool for communicating with others. The idea was, they’d use a typewriter and the assistance of a trained facilitator.

It was considered a major breakthrough – that is, until skeptics examined the approach more closely.

Critical thinking is essential for bullshit detection.

You’ve almost certainly watched some TED Talks – and you’ve probably found them inspirational and educational. These “ideas worth spreading” usually start with a bio that presents the credentials of the speaker. Its job is to convince you that you’re dealing with an expert – somebody whom you can trust to deliver facts, not fiction.

In reality, though, a lot of these talks spread bullshit.

If you don’t ask the right questions, you’re complicit in accepting bullshit.

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

This well-known phrase is attributed to Abraham Lincoln. If he was right, then there should be plenty of people who aren’t fooled by bullshit. And indeed, the author believes, there are.

We have an individual and collective responsibility to rid the world of bullshit.

Can you imagine a world without bullshit? A world where you don’t have to listen to people talking about things they know nothing about? A world where there are no more baseless arguments? A world based on evidence, reasoning, and rational decisions?

This world can exist. And building it is the responsibility of each and every one of us.

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Worum geht es in The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit?

The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit (2021) uses real-world examples to help you build critical thinking habits – which will enable you to recognize and resist all the false information that pervades society.

Wer The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit lesen sollte

Bullshit detectors who want to hone their skills
People who think they’re immune to bullshitting
Anyone who yearns for a bullshit-free world

Über den Autor

John V. Petrocelli is a professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, where his research interests include attitude strength and persuasion, counterfactual thinking, metacognition – and bullshitting. His research features in many scientific publications, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. He also offers keynotes and seminars on leadership, communication, and evidence-based management.

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