Woo Argument Flowcharts

[Normal Dude]

I have a prototype automated bingo card creation ready. : )



Basically uses Excel and 75 words, 15 each randomly assigned per column, just like "official" bingo. Hitting F9 reproduces a new card.

I don't have any programming skills, so this is the best I can do.

 

[articulett]

Excellent! Lots of fun and possibilities in the idea.

One suggestion: Add "matrix" to the list of words?

yes...and turing machine (or turing test) (or just turing). And epistemology. And reductionism or monism. Unless, of course we have too many words already.

 

[Normal Dude]

For it to be legit bingo, it is 75. So we have already have plenty. Although we can always make subject-specific sets.

 

[Blue Wode]

There is a missing idea from these flow charts, an examination of the underlying causes of failure to accept the evidence.

Is it a knowledge deficit? Is it a processing deficit? Is there a short in the brain's wiring system?

These flow charts are very useful, so don't get me wrong. But I'd like to see us explore a little deeper into the processes involved which leads to someone believing all scientists are either invisible, in on the scam or duped. What is it that makes a person ignore the contradictory evidence and just go on arguing the same old tired stuff? And what kind of process is going on in a brain that truly believes they have put all the pieces together when they clearly haven't?

A comprehensive psychological analysis from the late Barry Beyerstein:

If only ignorant and gullible people accepted far-fetched ideas, little else would be needed to explain the abundance of folly in modern society. But, as James Alcock discusses in this issue of SRAM, many people who are neither foolish nor ill-educated still cling fervently to beliefs that fly in the face of well-established research.

-snip-

So, if an unorthodox therapy:

(a) is implausible on a priori grounds (because its implied mechanisms or putative effects contradict well-established laws, principles, or empirical findings in physics, chemistry, or biology);

(b) lacks a scientifically acceptable rationale of its own;

(c) has insufficient supporting evidence derived from adequately controlled outcome research;

(d) has failed in well-controlled clinical studies done by impartial evaluators and has been unable to rule out competing explanations for why it might seem to work in uncontrolled settings; and

(e) should seem improbable, even to the lay person, on "common sense" grounds;

why would so many well-educated people continue to sell and purchase such a treatment?


Read on….

http://sram.org/0302/bias.html

 

[articulett]

I have a prototype automated bingo card creation ready. : )

[qimg]http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/1322/bingoviewfq3.th.jpg[/qimg]

Basically uses Excel and 75 words, 15 each randomly assigned per column, just like "official" bingo. Hitting F9 reproduces a new card.

I don't have any programming skills, so this is the best I can do.

But we aren't limited to 75... because Bingo has a set number of balls that must come up... we're only limited to the English language... So we can run the program multiple times with any set of 75 words and change them at whim, right? We could have general woo and new age woo and creationist woo and truther woo...

CLD photoshopped his scorepad to mark of the "hits"... I know we have a highlighting function in the html editor...

I think it would be fun even if I had to print out the card and play along at home.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

A comprehensive psychological analysis from the late Barry Beyerstein:

Hey, that's great. Thanks.

 

[articulett]

With that in mind, does having the logical response to the woo positions have any effect?

In other words, should be be dealing just with the logical response or is there something else we can do to address confirmation bias?

I think Randi does it by fooling people and then showing them how easily they can be fooled. And humor does it too... I think Jon Stewart is great... Bill Maher... but I'm guessing that flies over most people's heads. I'm not sure if anything works. I try to think about what changed my thinking and ask others how they changed or what it would take to convince them... I think questions... are good... that's what prodded me... my own and everyone elses... and asking people if they'd want to know if they were wrong (or if there was no god) etc.-- lots of people just don't think of these questions.

But woo is pretty hard to change as you can see on these forums. I remember reading about getting people to change their views and it's kind of insidious-- you start by showing all your areas of agreement and then complementing their intelligence or intuition, etc. so they see you reflecting an intelligent person back at them and then you get them to move an inch forward via a question like the one above... something where it wouldn't be much to admit that yes, some psychics are fake (or whatever)--some schizophrenics have claimed to be saviors... etc. But the more you push, the more they manufacture reasons like a teen girl told that her dad forbids her from dating some dude. Flatter their ability to figure things out for themselves.

The woo that come here, probably won't change... maybe seeds will get planted--but others see the posts and learn... I learn from so many people here...and it gives us practice at communicating these ideas. And sometimes it's fun just to have fun with them.

But if deprogramming was simple then woo wouldn't be the force that it is--

I wonder how professional deprogrammers do it... and what a deprogrammed cult member thinks...

There are a couple of great books on the topic--one is called Persuasion (I think) by Robert Levine (?)-- another is called Influence by Cialdini.
But the key is to let people at least feel they've discovered skepticism and so forth by themselves due to their desire to know the TRUTH or to distinguish the real leaders from the fake gurus or whatever.

 

[Normal Dude]

But we aren't limited to 75... because Bingo has a set number of balls that must come up... we're only limited to the English language... So we can run the program multiple times with any set of 75 words and change them at whim, right? We could have general woo and new age woo and creationist woo and truther woo...

CLD photoshopped his scorepad to mark of the "hits"... I know we have a highlighting function in the html editor...

I think it would be fun even if I had to print out the card and play along at home.

I think the reason 75 is chosen as a limit is to guarantee someone will actually get a bingo sooner or later. Too many words/numbers, and games will last forever and get boring.

And yes all I have to do is change the words entered, the spreadsheet does the rest. Hit prnt screen and save as a picture, and you got a score card.

 

[Normal Dude]

Bump. So how shall we do this? I am thinking start a specific thread, everyone who wants to play I will send a bingo score card.

I also have the program set up to randomly select the words from the scorecard. Then a "Bingo Master" will call at regular intervals the word. Thoughts?

 

[articulett]

Bump. So how shall we do this? I am thinking start a specific thread, everyone who wants to play I will send a bingo score card.

I also have the program set up to randomly select the words from the scorecard. Then a "Bingo Master" will call at regular intervals the word. Thoughts?

Maybe we could have a thread in the forum members area--
I thought we'd hunt for words via the woo posts like a scavenger hunt and mark them when we found them... but I don't know how we'd keep score.

 

[Normal Dude]

Maybe we could have a thread in the forum members area--
I thought we'd hunt for words via the woo posts like a scavenger hunt and mark them when we found them... but I don't know how we'd keep score.

That's a good idea - I hadn't thought of that. I will make a separate score card specifically for that purpose.

 

[Orphia Nay]

Great work, Normal Dude.

I was thinking along the lines that we could have a thread where someone suggests a woo web page or site (?) or JREF thread and participants each can be given a random bingo card. The Bingo master (who has a list of all words) calls out words they've found on the page/site (the draw from the barrel), and whoever gets a row wins.

 

[Normal Dude]

Another good idea... my suggestion is that we try each one in turn. : ) I will start another thread in the Forum Community.