GENERATING AND BELIEVING BULLSHIT

This paper first appeared in the Winter issue of the 'Skeptical Intelligencer', 2021, pp2-3.

A few weeks ago my early morning blues were blown away when I read in the Times (6.11.21) an account (note 1) of a glorious piece of research conducted on a topic of growing interest in the media and even academia (note 2), namely bullshit or BS: how we can define and recognise it, why people (including you and me) are so ready to believe it, and how we can, collectively and individually, counter it. No doubt this research has been stimulated by the appearance of much BS in social media. An additional interest has been how we can generate it for ourselves, most recently by artificial intelligence.

The research in question (not yet peer-reviewed) specifically targeted something that has come to be known as pseudo-profound bullshit (PPBS). In their abstract the authors state:

In two experiments (N = 571) we examined the influence of speakers' admirability on meaning-seeking and wise reasoning in response to pseudo-profound bullshit. In both studies, statements that sounded superficially impressive but lacked intent to communicate meaning generated meaning-seeking, but only when delivered by high admirability speakers (e.g., the Dalai Lama) as compared to low admirability speakers (e.g., Kim Kardashian). The effect of speakers' admirability on meaning-seeking was unique to pseudo-profound bullshit statements and was absent for mundane (Study 1) and motivational (Study 2) statements. In Study 2, participants also engaged in wiser reasoning for pseudo-profound bullshit (vs. motivational) statements and did more so when speakers were high in admirability.

So, for example, a person confronted with the PPBS statement 'Our minds extend across space and time as waves in the ocean of one mind' may be more inclined to judge it as wise and meaningful if it is attributed Michelle Obama than to Justin Bieber (neither in fact said it). The tendency, which is discussed in less academic language in various sources (see, e.g., note 3), is known as 'the guru effect' and a Google search will yield numerous academic papers on this subject.

None of this is to say that those rightly admired for their wisdom and sagacity are not beyond uttering PPBS themselves. But the statements used in the above study were the output of two online facilities for this purpose, namely the New-Age Bullshit Generator (note 4) and the Random Deepak Chopra Quote Generator (note 5).

There are other artificial (as opposed to real-live) PPBS generators to be found online, some for specific domains such as finance and business, postmodernism, and art criticism (all easily found by a Google search). One that I think would be very useful, and which I haven't yet found online, is a politicians' answer generator (PAG). The main use of this would be interviewing politicians on radio and television. The output in response to each question could be read by an actor, leaving the politician to get on with the work they are doing, whether this be for the benefit of the nation or in pursuit of their own financial interests.

All this brings to mind those occasions when 'experts' have been hoaxed into accepting PPBS as the genuine thing, the most famous example being the article "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" by physics professor Alan Sokal which, despite being complete nonsense, was published in 1996 in Social Text, an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. However, hoaxes along these lines are not restricted to academic literature. In 1964, Ake Axelsson, a Swedish journalist, submitted four paintings to a famous art gallery in Gothenburg by 'an avant-garde' artist named Pierre Brassau. Many critics were impressed, including a certain Rolf Anderberg who opined, 'Pierre Brassau paints with powerful strokes, but also with clear determination. His brush strokes twist with furious fastidiousness. Pierre is an artist who performs with the delicacy of a ballet dancer.' However at least one other critic disagreed, remarking that the painting looked as if an ape had done it, which was indeed the case. There are other examples of this (note 6).

The guru effect appears to be a special instance of the more general phenomenon that whether we accept or how we judge a statement, claim, or opinion can depend greatly on how we feel about its source (an identified person or, for instance, a newspaper). Years ago I read an account of a parliamentary debate in which an MP on the government benches gave a positive appraisal of some aspects of the country's economic situation, only to be jeered and booed at by opposition MPs. The MP then informed the House that he was quoting exactly what one of the opposition front-bench MPs had said in a speech the previous week. Ouch!

Just recently (note 7) the instigator of a conspiracy theory that birds are really drone replicas built by the US intelligence service to spy on the public, which has caused mass protests, has now announced that he made the whole thing up. Thus we have an example of a hoax conspiracy theory (I leave it to the logicians to sort this one out).

And finally, I can't resist mentioning my all-time favourite hoaxer, an American by the name of Alan Abel, aka G. Clifford Prout. His most famous hoax claim was that he was president of an organization called the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (S.I.N.A.). He opined that naked animals were 'destroying the moral integrity of our great nation' and campaigned to have them clothed in pants and dresses. He attracted thousands of followers, and I vaguely recall that he raised an appreciable amount of money, some in the form of legacies left by people in their wills. I remember an interview he gave on British television in the 1960s, in which he expressed outrage when he was introduced to a cow with no clothes on. My memory is also of him producing a pair of pants that he had designed for frog. And he ended the interview by singing an anthem he had composed for his organisation. But that's not all: according to one account (note 7) amongst the 30 'high-profile' hoaxes he perpetrated over 60 years was his convincing the press that he had the world's smallest penis.

Notes

1. Kara-Yakoubian1, M et al. (2021) Hidden wisdom or pseudo-profound bullshit? The effect of speaker admirability. Prior to peer review at: https://tinyurl.com/y2bkfnth
2. The University of Washington now offers a short course entitled 'Calling Bullshit'. https://tinyurl.com/3t8ebxxf
3. https://tinyurl.com/2p8vyznu
4. https://sebpearce.com/bullshit/
5. http://wisdomofchopra.com/
6. https://tinyurl.com/6txrssun
7. https://tinyurl.com/bddx3hk9