Baloney Detection

How well do you think that you can tell if someone is feeding you bullshit? 

It may seem like a strange question but it is a fact of modern life that bullshit is everywhere. 

It is pervasive in all aspects of our information gathering and especially so with the dominance of social media, the trend of fake news and even within the 140 character restriction of Twitter. In fact, the latter is perhaps most to blame in that it has to assert any statements intended to impress as true and meaningful in a condensed form when actually what is being presented is empty and unfounded. 

Faced with this onslaught on our thoughts and perceptions it is surprising that only in the last couple of years has an authoritative study been undertaken to measure our reception and detection of what has been called pseudo profound bullshit. 

This piece of research comes from a University in Canada and produced some interesting results and conclusions.

The method adopted involved presenting 10 statements across four study groups of participants and recording their reaction. 

Two main sources of statements were wisdomofchopra.com and the New Age Bullshit Generator at sebpearce.com. 

The former comprises the random assembly of words that have appeared in the vague tweet history of Deepak Chopra, the American author, public speaker and amongst many other things an advocate of alternative medicine. 

The latter is an engine that assembles yet more random words but in an airy fairy new age type-speak. 

The combination of these sources produces such phrases or mantras as;

 “Perception is an ingredient of subtle sensations" ,

"Your movement relies on the barrier of fulfillment", 

"Wholeness transcends descriptions of success", 

"Greatness depends on the doorway to images" and 

"Infinity transforms species specific external reality”. 

Those taking part in the study were, after seeing the statements, asked to grade them on a 1 to 5 scale rating, the higher being an indication of being very profound. 

The outcome of the academic analysis was that some people accepted things as true and meaningful anyway but with the differentiation being whether they were able to assess it as bullshit or the truth.

Others were more receptive to certain types of bullshit but could not always detect it. 

If statements, for example, were presented in plain language then there was a higher sensitivity to exposing it as bullshit. 

The more the group were able to reflect on the subject, the more sceptical the response.

The main conclusion of the study was that bullshit is a part of the human condition. 

It is used by people who should know better in political rhetoric, marketing and even in academia.

Above all, if we know how to detect and reject the bullshit of others we may be able to recognise our own.

(Inspired by IgNobel Award 2016)