"Conspiracy Theorists Have a Fundamental Cognitive Problem, Say Scientists," from reddit conspiracy

submitted by i_cansmellthat from (inverse.com)

all 8 comments
sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun

[–]i_cansmellthat[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Quick read through the article, says we try to see patterns where there are none. The solution is critical thinking. Which can be taught. I bet big pharma will develop a pill to help with critical thinking and truth seeking, too. Never fear fellow tinfoil hat wearers, "they" will save us!

[–]DownBelow 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's called Adderall

[–]OcculusResurrectio 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Is it a coincidence that they assault "conspiracy theorists" right before the release of the JFK files?

[–]Jesus 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

REDACTED

[–]an-arkhos 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Blanket statements like that are obviously false, degrading the definition of scientists

[–]necaremus 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

ok, read the article, now starting to read the paper.

first thing i noticed:

article:

This phenomenon, called illusory pattern perception, they write, is what drives people who believe in conspiracy theories, like climate change deniers, 9/11 truthers, and “Pizzagate” believers.

i can't find any reference to pizzagate in the paper this article is based on. the article just included it on their own. why?

not finished reading the paper. if i find a reference, i gonna refute this.

/edit: oh, and they are moving the goal post in the article... first they are talking about conspiracy theories in general, afterwards they reduce it to false conspiracy theories... the paper seems to only focus on false theories and not all.

/edit2: hihi, the paper is citing Rothschild... the irony x'D

[–]necaremus 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

ok, i kinda don't want to read the paper to the end. (but i guess i have to... maybe tomorrow, got rl to do)

my current analysis is, that the article is complete bullshit. the author most likely only read the abstract of the paper...

the paper itself i would rate as low quality to OK-ish. the studies were done via an online platform with a participant size of ~250 (varying). dat sample size... sure you can conclude a meaningful statement out of it regarding whole of humanity /s. additionally it may be possible that some people know how to change their IP and take the study more than once.

they are claiming they used "random" patterns... yeah, algorithm generated randomness... tell me more about it. talk to a crypto anarcho and try to claim an algorithm is random. he is going to stump you into the ground. they should have used the correct term of pseudo-randomness. most likely their "random" algorithm wouldn't even qualify for any cryptographic use, because it isn't pseudo-random enough to be secure. (just a claim! didn't look at the algorithm)

i lost it, when they first wrote that they've input a distribution of 50/50 over 100 coin tosses in the algorithm and afterwards claimed that every coin toss has exactly 50% chance of being heads or tails. dude, fucking learn and understand the algorithm you are using. after the first coin toss, the probability is 49/50. you coded it in yourself. that is not a 50% chance.

why should i trust anything out of this paper if you can't even do basic math?

at that point i stopped reading the paper... and no there is no reference of pizzagate in that paper until that point.

what. the. fuck.

... talk about critical thinking... -.-

[–]i_cansmellthat[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for going deeper on this! Unfortunately, many people will probably read the headline only, take it as fact, and go about categorizing those who stray from the headlines as a bit off. I started reading conspiracy sites and forums because I was trying to think critically. How can one make an informed decision or come to a solid conclusion without looking at many points of view? Ironic propaganda, this article just pisses me off, and I felt that way before you dug deeper and pretty much proved it!