SOME BS DETECTION – I feel compelled to debunk a deceitful “experiment” (actually a total scam) because many many of my friends fell for it. The experiment illustrates the ludic fallacy (that is, a reduction of real life to an oversimplified, domain-dependent experiment giving results often opposite to reality).
-We are shown identical twins, one chewing gum, the other completely idle (or trying to be so). We are told that the majority of people imparts positive qualities to the one who is chewing gum … and that the experiment was done with a “large n” of twins. But these results come from the fact that he is animated while the other one is frozen, nothing to do with gum –and the fact that someone standing still in front of a camera looks devoid of human qualities.
-Note that the chewing gum industry is financing the “experiment”.
-To make the experiment “real” or “ecological”, you need to film the twins in real life doing real things, only one of the two chewing gum.
– GENERALIZING: In a nutshell, although this is not a real experiment, it shows in a carricatual way why many academic papers in social science are BS in spite of looking like a “controlled experiment”.
via SOME BS DETECTION – I feel compelled to debunk a… – Nassim Nicholas Taleb.