What is the 'Einstein effect' that scientists say even if it is bullshit?
An experiment in which meaningless sentences generated by AI were presented as the words of a famous scientist and people were asked to evaluate their credibility revealed that people were more likely to trust the words of a scientist even if they made no sense. I understand. The research team has named the phenomenon in which a certain level of evaluation is given to information from sources that appear to be reliable the ``Einstein effect.''
The Einstein effect provides global evidence for scientific source credibility effects and the influence of religiosity | Nature Human Behavior
The Einstein Effect: People Trust Nonsense More if They Think a Scientist Said It
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-einstein-effect-people-trust-nonsense-from-scientists-more-than-spiritual-gurus
In 2020, while scientists and medical professionals are unanimously calling for the new coronavirus vaccine and the need to wear masks, self-proclaimed experts who deny science and advocate conspiracy theories are gaining influence on social media and video sharing sites. The pandemic that occurred in 2017 has led to a debate that has seriously shaken trust in science.
A research team led by Suzanne Hoogeveen, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, surveyed 10,195 volunteers recruited in 24 countries to find out how much the credibility of a statement is influenced by the attributes of the speaker. We conducted an experiment to find out. For the experiment, we used the New Age Bullshit Generator, which combines buzzwords and intellectual words to generate meaningful phrases. Participants were shown a random message automatically generated by an algorithm as a ``statement from a scientist'' or a ``statement from a guru,'' a leading expert in the spiritual field, and were asked to rate how much they believed it. .
Below is an example of a scientist's saying used in this experiment. In the words of a scientist named Edward K. Leal, ``Yes, it is possible to drive out what stands in our way, but that does not mean there is no hope for us. Turbulence precludes transformation. It is born in the gaps. By evolving, we can be reinvigorated.' However, this sentence is a meaningless list of words generated by the aforementioned algorithm, and the scientist Edward K. Leal is also a fictional character. The photo of the man is an unrelated image reproduced from Wikipedia with permission.
The results of this experiment showed that statements made by scientists were rated as more trustworthy than statements made by spiritual gurus. Specifically, when the same meaningless sentence was uttered by a ``scientist,'' 76% of participants rated it as ``highly reliable,'' but only 55% rated it ``highly reliable'' when it was uttered by a ``guru.'' That's it.
People who were determined to be religious in a preliminary survey tended to rate the ``guru'' higher than those who were not, but even in such cases, the statements of the ``scientist'' were rated higher than those of the ``guru.'' There was no change in the fact that there was a high possibility that the
The vocabulary of 'Guru' used in the experiment is as follows. Like the scientist mentioned above, this one is a nonsensical piece of text accompanied by an unrelated image and a fictitious person's name.
The research team calls this phenomenon, in which even incomprehensible sentences appear plausible when you think they are uttered by a scientist, the ``Einstein effect'' after Albert Einstein .
The research team explains the Einstein effect: ``From an evolutionary perspective, respecting trusted authorities such as teachers, doctors, and scientists is an adaptive strategy that helps in effective cultural learning and knowledge transfer . =mc2 '' or ``Antibiotics can cure pneumonia'' come from Einstein or your doctor, and people accept it without understanding what it means.''
In addition, the science news site ScienceAlert, which covered this research, said, ``It is a well-known fact that the information provided by scientists is trustworthy, and it is a well-known fact that the information provided by scientists is reliable, and that it is used in many advertisements and political campaigns around the world, and in It uses the statements of scientists as support.Fortunately, scientists and people involved in science recommend that ``to be fully critical when wild claims are made.'' 'I will,' he commented.
Related Posts:
in Science, , Posted by log1l_ks