Everyone knows that optical illusions trick us because of
the way we see. Now scientists have discovered hat cognitive illusions, a set
of biases deeply embedded in the human mind, distort the way we think.
In Inevitable Illusions cognitive researcher Massimo
Piattelli-Palmarini…opens the doors onto the newly charted realm of the
cognitive unconscious to reveal the full range of illusions, showing how they
inhibit our ability to reason, no matter what our educational background or IQ.
The problem(s) with “ufological thought” -- an oxymoron
surely – is blatantly on display in many internet places where UFOs are the
topic: UFO UpDates is one such place.
But a capsule site for erroneous thinking is Kevin Randle’s
blog, A Different Perspective.
Mr. Randle isn’t the problem; he opens his blog to all
comers (mostly) giving free reign to an admittedly few UFO hobbyists: ET
advocates, exemplified by David Rudiak (who is a member of Mr. Randle’s Roswellian
Dream Team), skeptics, represented by Lance Moody, Christopher Allen, and
Gilles Fernandez, along with assorted nobodies.
Mr. Randle’s visitors continue to get immersed in the
minutiae of the 1947 Roswell incident, hacking away at the tale, ad infinitum,
ad eternum, and ad nauseum,
A scrutiny of the back-and forths, beclouded by Mr. Rudiak’s
extensive displays of Roswell detritus, shows that the thinking behind the
commentary is flawed, in ways that Piattelli-Palmarini examples in his book
(pictured above).
The over-riding premise of “cognitive illusions” is
footnoted by quasi-magical thought, the psychology of typicality, and heuristic
“mental tunnels” which create bias. [Page 19 ff.]
Chapter Six of the book, The Fallacy of Near Certainty, provides
references to capital and systematic mistakes with its naive forms of
extrapolation. [Page 111 ff.]
The patina of Mr. Rudiak’s droning presentations highlight
what Piattelli-Palmarini is driving at:
In the world of probability one cannot, even where the
reliability is very close to 100 percent (or absolute certainty) – such as 95
percent – extrapolate. [ibid]
The specifics of “overconfidence” outlined, beginning on
Page 116, derive from a 1977 paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology
[Fischoff, Slovic, Lichtenstein] where persons “certain of their subjects”
thought they were 100 percent correct, and rated their probability of being
wrong as one in a thousand, in ten thousand, or even in a million. [Page 117].
Mr. Rudiak presents his views with that kind of
overconfidence.
That Mr. Rudiak knows his subject matter, Roswell, better
than most, is obvious.
That skeptics (Moody, CDA, Fernandez) goad him into
lavishing his knowledge on Randle’s readers creates an argumentative scenario
which diminishes the basics of the Roswell incident and UFOs in general.
Roswell, no matter how one perceives it, tells us nothing
about UFOs as they exist today. Or what their import is from past observations.
The details that Mr. Rudiak generously provides and Mr.
Randle encourages are not debunked by the skeptical group. They engage, also,
in many of the cognitive flaws that Piattelli-Palmarini outlines, such as not
knowing or using Bayes’ Law when attempting to refute Mr. Rudiak or employ a
“tunnel of pessimism” [Page 139 ff.]
Piattelli-Palmarini gives several examples that, for me,
show how the skeptics ruin their argumentation: Externally modulable and
Subjectively incorrigible (where telling [Mr. Rudiak] that he is…inclined to
commit certain errors does not immediately lead him to cease doing so. [Page
140]
UFO aficionados are inclined to be belligerent and
illogical.
That’s the endemic nature of the UFO topic.
UFO UpDates provides the caustic examples of belligerency
and illogic.
Mr. Randle’s blog isn’t as compassing, but it gives an
outline of how far and how low the UFO phenomenon has driven academic civility.
Perhaps some of Mr. Randle’s habitués will seek out the book
mentioned here and mend their ways.
(I doubt any will do that. They are victims of their own
cognitive illusions.)
RR
