The authors reckon this work is the first published empirical research on bullshit (BS). Most people think they can reliably detect BS but Pennycook’s work shows we are not as good at this as we think. And I have written before about the unreliability of much published scientific research, particularly bio-medical research. It is obviously important to have a good BS detector to navigate in a world full of BS. Pennycook reminds us that most of us think our detectors are pretty good but almost 99 per cent of participants in Pennycook’s study rated at least one BS item to be somewhat profound.

Source: The Irish Times February 15, 2018 03:00 UTC