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Cargando... Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Holepor Stephen Law
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. A very lively introduction to the mistakes we make in our beliefs and thoughts. The author identifies eight intellectual "black holes" that a person can fall into when they have a cherished belief they are trying to defend, and demonstrates how to avoid getting sucked into those black holes. A couple of weak spots were in his definition of science (he seems to be one of those who defines science as what scientists do, requiring all sorts of special skills and equipment) and in his concept of evidence, which seemed very strange indeed, since he ruled out as evidence things that were, in fact, very much evidence. Other than that, a very strong defense of critical thinking. This should be read widely by the very people who are the least likely to read it. sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
Wacky and ridiculous belief systems abound. Members of the Heaven's Gate suicide cult believed they were taking a ride to heaven on board a UFO. Muslim suicide bombers expect to be greeted after death by 72 heavenly virgins. And many fundamentalist Christians insist the entire universe is just 6,000 years old. Of course it's not only cults and religions that promote bizarre beliefs. Significant numbers of people believe that aliens built the pyramids, that the Holocaust never happened, and that the World Trade Center was brought down by the US government. How do such ridiculous views succeed in entrenching themselves in the minds of sane, intelligent, college-educated people and turn them into the willing slaves of claptrap? How, in particular, do the true believers manage to convince themselves that they are the rational, reasonable ones and that everyone else is deluded? Believing Bullshit identifies eight key mechanisms that can transform a set of ideas into a psychological flytrap. Philosopher Stephen Law suggests that, like the black holes of outer space, from which nothing, not even light, can escape, our contemporary cultural landscape contains numerous intellectual black-holes--belief systems constructed in such a way that unwary passers-by can similarly find themselves drawn in. While such self-sealing bubbles of belief will most easily trap the gullible or poorly educated, even the most intelligent and educated of us are potentially vulnerable.... No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Religion is the target of pretty much each of the trap examples, but Law is careful not to actually say something is BS (for example, he offers that while "psychic" anything is probably BS, someday, someone might actually be able to prove the "ability"). Still, the recipients of the analyses will likely take offense. ( )