Category: Behavior & Belief

Ignorant of your own ignorance. Frequently applied in a political context, the Dunning-Kruger (DK) effect has rapidly become a famous psychological concept. It describes a kind of double-whammy. If you suffer from the DK effect, you know very little about a subject—which is bad enough—but you also have the false impression that you know considerably …

Recently, I visited the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Connecticut, not knowing much about what I would find. I understood that it was a house museum in a beautiful mansion in the green and rolling hills of central Connecticut and that it contained some masterpieces of impressionist art. As advertised, Hill-Stead was an impressive building decorated …

Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I worked at a residential facility for children with severe autism. These kids had been rejected from many other schools because, if left on their own, they banged their heads against hard objects until their skin split open, bit themselves and other people, and attacked staff members …

In the fall and winter of 2001–2002, school children across the United States began to break out in a strange rash (Talbot 2002). Groups of children—overwhelmingly girls—in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Virginia turned up with itchy red blotches at school that disappeared when they went home. All this happened in the post-9/11 environment of anthrax scares …

Ignorant of your own ignorance. Frequently applied in a political context, the Dunning-Kruger (DK) effect has rapidly become a famous psychological concept. It describes a kind of double-whammy. If you suffer from the DK effect, you know very little about a subject—which is bad enough—but you also have the false impression that you know considerably …

Georgiana Houghton’s only major showing of her drawings in her lifetime was not a success. It was an elaborate affair at the New British Gallery in London organized at her own expense, but of the 155 pieces produced over a ten-year period, she sold only one. Nor was the critical reception particularly warm. According to …

In the fall and winter of 2001–2002, school children across the United States began to break out in a strange rash (Talbot 2002). Groups of children in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Virginia, overwhelmingly girls, turned up with itchy red blotches at school that disappeared when they went home. All of this happened in the post-9/11 environment …

By this past fall, vaccines had been widely available for months, yet a sizable group of Americans were still expressing doubts and not getting their shots. Just in time for Halloween, a number of “I Did My Own Research” memes surfaced on the internet. In Vancouver, one homeowner drew media attention for hanging a skeleton …

Almost all of us know someone—maybe a relative, friend, or coworker—who is unvaccinated. In my case, it’s a local craftsperson whose services I use on a regular basis. “I’m just not comfortable with it. I might get it if I had to travel abroad or something, but I don’t go anywhere.” However, I am quite …

Georgiana Houghton’s only major showing of her drawings in her lifetime was not a success. It was an elaborate affair at the New British Gallery in London organized at her own expense, but of the 155 pieces produced over a ten-year period, she sold only one. Nor was the critical reception particularly warm. According to …

In an effort to extend the Halloween season, I recently watched the 1960 French horror film Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes without a Face) directed by Georges Franju, and it got me thinking about scary faces. In the world of horror and suspense films, the human face is a common locus of fear and anxiety, …

Thanks to the COVID-19 vaccines, I recently had the opportunity to visit Paris, France, for the first time. In addition to the usual art museums and tourist spots, I approached the city with the goal of visiting some of its scientific and pseudoscientific points of interest. France has a proud history of achievement in science …

Almost all of us know someone. A relative, a friend, or a coworker who is unvaccinated. In my case, it’s a local craftsperson whose services I use on a regular basis. “I’m just not comfortable with it. I might get it if I had to travel abroad or something, but I don’t go anywhere.” However, …

Imagine you are about to buy a new home, and the real estate agent says, “I have some more information about the maintenance history of the house. Do you want to see it?” The question seems silly; of course you do. It’s a basic principle of economics and rational decision-making that when making a transaction …

Thanks to the COVID-19 vaccines, I recently had the opportunity to visit Paris, France, for the first time. In addition to the usual art museums and tourist spots, I approached the city with the goal of visiting some of its scientific and pseudoscientific points of interest. France has a proud history of achievement in science …

As he drove from his home in North Carolina to Comet Ping Pong in the northwest neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Edgar Maddison Welch recorded a message for his two young daughters: “I can’t let you grow up in a world that’s so corrupt by evil, without at least standing up for you and for other …

Imagine you are about to buy a new home, and the real estate agent says, “I have some more information about the maintenance history of the house. Do you want to see it?” The question seems silly. Of course, you do. It’s a basic principle of economics and rational decision-making that, when making a transaction …

The celebrities are back. Many of you will remember when, in 2007, actress and former Playboy model Jenny McCarthy published her book Louder Than Words, which attributed her son’s autism to vaccines. She and her boyfriend at the time, actor Jim Carrey, made the rounds of the talk shows, and McCarthy and her son appeared …

One of the best theme parties I’ve ever attended was on May 21, 2011. The evangelical Christian broadcaster Harold Camping had garnered considerable publicity with a prediction that The Rapture would occur on that date and that approximately 3 percent of the world’s population would be swept up to heaven to meet their maker. The …

On March 17–20, 2021, the Aspen Institute Science & Society Program (New York, NY) and the Instituto Questão de Ciência (Question of Science Institute [São Paulo, Brazil]) cosponsored the first Global Congress on Scientific Thinking and Action, originally planned for Rome but conducted over Zoom due to the pandemic. One hundred scientists, scholars, journalists, and …

As he drove from his home in North Carolina to Comet Ping Pong in the northwest neighborhood of Washington, D.C., Edgar Maddison Welch recorded a message for his two young daughters: “I can’t let you grow up in a world that’s so corrupt by evil, without at least standing up for you and for other …

(Cover Image Credit: Pixabay)   Not long ago, I was scrolling through Instagram when I saw a video of people in Perth, Australia, gathering in small crowds outdoors, no face coverings in sight. From my perspective in the United States, where an average of over 2,000 people a day were dying of COVID-19, it was …

Featured Image Credit: Wikimedia   One of the best theme parties I’ve ever attended was on May 21, 2011. The evangelical Christian broadcaster Harold Camping had garnered considerable publicity with a prediction that The Rapture would occur on that date and that approximately 3 percent of the world’s population would be swept up to heaven …

Cover Image Source: Pixabay   My last column for Skeptical Inquirer landed me on a conservative Chicago-area talk radio program. I think something about the title, “COVID-19 and the Tyranny of Now,” caught the eye of one of the show’s hosts, so they invited me on to discuss the article in the morning drive slot. The …

Cover Image: Elevator buttons from the Flamingo Hotel & Casino, site of CSICon 2019. (Author photo)   In my May/June 2020 column, I described the influence of feng shui on the Chinese real estate market. Although it would be hard to match the pervasive presence of traditional Chinese superstition in real estate and other areas …

On Friday, March 13, 2020, I invited a few friends over before we all went into lockdown. We did not stay six feet apart—the norm of social distancing had not yet been fully absorbed—but in a nod to good hygiene we washed, used disinfectant, and avoided shaking hands or hugging. That evening of food and …

Last October, I wrote about my experiences with the nascent skepticism movement in Brazil. In August of 2019, I traveled to São Paulo to speak at a number of events organized by the newly formed Instituto Questão de Ciência (IQC; Question of Science Institute), and I was introduced to a remarkably energetic group of science …

Prologue Even before President Trump began calling it the “Chinese virus,” the outbreak of sudden acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), set the occasion for a disturbing wave of anti-Chinese racism. I am aware that, merely by writing about superstition and COVID-19, I might be accused of …

A recent study of the communication technique rapid prompting method (RPM; a.k.a. spelling to communicate)1 in a prestigious journal bears the bold title “Eye-Tracking Reveals Agency in Assisted Autistic Communication.” Unfortunately, the study does nothing of the kind. It does, however, reveal the lengths to which proponents of this unsubstantiated communication method are willing to …

This is the first of a two-part series on the effect of superstitious belief on the real estate market. The second installment will appear in a future Behavior & Belief column. I recently discovered a disturbing fact: my home office is in the northwest corner of my house, which is very bad. Furthermore, I often …

Recently a friend and colleague posted a LiveScience article on Facebook that suggested atheists are more intelligent than religious believers (Geggel 2017), and soon I was drawn into one of those sticky internet conversations that rarely work out well. The article was based on a 2013 meta-analysis of sixty-three studies of the relationship of religious …

Banner photo: Elevator buttons from the Flamingo Hotel & Casino, site of CSICon 2019. (Author photo)   In my January column, I described the influence of feng shui on the Chinese real estate market. Although it would be hard to match the pervasive influence of traditional Chinese superstition in real estate and other areas of …

Cover Image Source: Wikimedia commons I recently discovered a disturbing fact: my home office is in the northwest corner of my house, which is very bad. Furthermore, I often sit in my home office facing northwest, which is also very bad. So said Los Angeles feng shui expert Carol Assa in a New York Times …

Brazil is considered a developing country with substantial levels of poverty, yet São Paulo, the largest city in South America, is a sophisticated modern metropolis and home to the largest university on the continent. Because citizens are guaranteed healthcare as a constitutional right, Brazil operates the largest national healthcare system in the world, and Brazilian …

I don’t have any Taylor Swift albums, and I’ve never been to one of her concerts. I recognize that she is very talented and successful, but my musical tastes go in a different direction. I think my children were fans, but now that they are grown, even they have probably moved on to different tunes. …

Recently, a friend and colleague posted a Live Science article on Facebook that suggested atheists are more intelligent than religious believers, and soon I was drawn into one of those sticky internet conversations that rarely work out well. The article was based on a 2013 meta-analysis of sixty-three studies of the relationship of religious belief …

Cover Image Source: Twitter   Imagine the following scenario. Two social scientists write an article proposing a provocative new theory about women’s values, preferences, and the very essence of what it means to be a woman. The authors make some logical arguments, cite publicly available data, and, in support of each point, include several quotes—let’s …

Brazil is considered a developing country with substantial levels of poverty, yet São Paulo, the largest city in South America, is a sophisticated modern metropolis and home to the largest university in South America. Because citizens are guaranteed healthcare as a constitutional right, Brazil operates the largest national healthcare system in the world, and Brazilian …

Cover Image: Logo for the 1973 film (Wikimedia)   Exorcism is back. For many of us, our most vivid images of exorcism come from the 1973 movie, The Exorcist, based on the William Peter Blatty novel of the same name. Who can forget Linda Blair’s screaming, spinning head, and green projectile vomit? But the latest …

Cover Image Source: Twitter   Imagine the following scenario. Two social scientists write an article proposing a provocative new theory about women’s values, preferences, and the very essence of what it means to be a woman. The authors make some logical arguments, cite publicly available data, and, in support of each point, include several quotes—let’s …