The martian pyramid theory doesn’t hold any attraction for me. Maybe it’s because I’m supremely rational. But maybe it’s because, if someone really discovered a pyramid built on Mars, it would be extremely… irritating.
I’ve got decades of hard work invested in learning this whole big scheme of how the world works. The Martian pyramid would knock a lot of it down. And then I’d hardly be any better than anybody else.
That’s an very good point, especially because most smart people who really understand science share your opinions
I like your last point—that you feel better than everyone else now, because you do get real science, and so you’d hate to have everything change around. Maybe the people who do like.the idea of a Martian pyramid are those who currently feel worse than everyone else, but who would suddenly become better than everyone else if the pyramid were proven real, because they’re the only ones who have studied it.
That would also explain why I find some pseudohistory interesting but most pseudoscience just plain annoying.
Possible experiment to test this: give two randomly assigned groups a test on biology and medicine. Give one group a really easy test and tell them they’re within the top 10% regarding medical knowledge; give other people a really hard test and tell them they’re within the bottom 10% of medical knowledge. Then give both of them an article on some ancient natural alternative medicine treatment and see which group is more positive towards it. I predict the people convinced they know nothing about medicine will support the alternative treatment more, regardless of how much they actually know.
I like your last point—that you feel better than everyone else now, because you do get real science, and so you’d hate to have everything change around.
That was my first thought, because you know it’s very sexy on LW and OB to attribute your thinking to status signalling.
But I don’t think that’s it. I’m going to reclaim the rational high ground. I’ve seen lots of examples of the kinds of theories of the world that lead to pyramids on Mars, lost civilizations in the Atlantic, hollow Earth, auras, divination, etc.
They’re ugly theories. The pyramid on Mars is not enticing, because it would lend support to ugly theories and pull the rug out from under beautiful theories.
(If the pyramids on Mars were built by an ancient Martian civilization, then, fine. But if they were built by spacefaring aliens who visited the Egyptians—or, worse yet, by spacefaring Egyptians—not so fine. A human face on Mars would be even worse.)
(Gene transfer by bacterial conjugation is a little bit ugly, because it makes it a lot harder to predict things from evolutionary theory, and to make all sorts of inferences. I was going to give that as an example, but realized it isn’t the same thing at all. It makes the empirical realization of your theory messier, but it doesn’t force you to adopt a different, uglier theory.)
Gene transfer also resolves some very puzzling and ugly irregularities. Sometimes the beauty isn’t just the theory, but it’s relationship to data. If a theory’s very elegant, but the data too messy, it disturbs my sense of completion.
I disagree strongly with you about who is better, if there are artificial pyramids on Mars.
If you have received sufficient evidence to be pretty certain, you are acting rational on rejecting the notion of pyramids on Mars up to the point (and only up to there) you receive more convincing evidence to the fact that there are pyramids on Mars. In that case you should a) gather more evidence and decide which point is correct b) switch pretty immediately in case there really are pyramids.
In particular I claim you have basically zero evidence against martian pyramids except the general heuristic of occam’s razor.
Also, abstaining from making public your (uninformed) opinion on martian pyramids would reduce you credibility loss in case there are any.
Finally, science will not just turn to “wrong” just because there are martian pyramids,
most of it still stands as it is.
I was probably reading too much into the example, assuming that “pyramids on mars” was supposed to stand for more anti-scientific things like human faces on mars, hieroglyphic inscriptions on Mars, etc.
Pyramids or canals on Mars would be OK, as long as they’re built by Martians. That would even be exciting. My sense is that the Weekly World News wouldn’t run a story on anything on Mars unless it connected with ancient Earth civilizations. Or Batboy.
BTW, there are some natural pyramids on Earth. Very small ones, inside caves, as crystals.
I think the concept of feeling better or worse than the majority is important to the experiment. Being told that you suck is more convincing after a hard test regardless of how much you actually know.
The martian pyramid theory doesn’t hold any attraction for me. Maybe it’s because I’m supremely rational. But maybe it’s because, if someone really discovered a pyramid built on Mars, it would be extremely… irritating.
I’ve got decades of hard work invested in learning this whole big scheme of how the world works. The Martian pyramid would knock a lot of it down. And then I’d hardly be any better than anybody else.
That’s an very good point, especially because most smart people who really understand science share your opinions
I like your last point—that you feel better than everyone else now, because you do get real science, and so you’d hate to have everything change around. Maybe the people who do like.the idea of a Martian pyramid are those who currently feel worse than everyone else, but who would suddenly become better than everyone else if the pyramid were proven real, because they’re the only ones who have studied it.
That would also explain why I find some pseudohistory interesting but most pseudoscience just plain annoying.
Possible experiment to test this: give two randomly assigned groups a test on biology and medicine. Give one group a really easy test and tell them they’re within the top 10% regarding medical knowledge; give other people a really hard test and tell them they’re within the bottom 10% of medical knowledge. Then give both of them an article on some ancient natural alternative medicine treatment and see which group is more positive towards it. I predict the people convinced they know nothing about medicine will support the alternative treatment more, regardless of how much they actually know.
That was my first thought, because you know it’s very sexy on LW and OB to attribute your thinking to status signalling.
But I don’t think that’s it. I’m going to reclaim the rational high ground. I’ve seen lots of examples of the kinds of theories of the world that lead to pyramids on Mars, lost civilizations in the Atlantic, hollow Earth, auras, divination, etc.
They’re ugly theories. The pyramid on Mars is not enticing, because it would lend support to ugly theories and pull the rug out from under beautiful theories.
(If the pyramids on Mars were built by an ancient Martian civilization, then, fine. But if they were built by spacefaring aliens who visited the Egyptians—or, worse yet, by spacefaring Egyptians—not so fine. A human face on Mars would be even worse.)
(Gene transfer by bacterial conjugation is a little bit ugly, because it makes it a lot harder to predict things from evolutionary theory, and to make all sorts of inferences. I was going to give that as an example, but realized it isn’t the same thing at all. It makes the empirical realization of your theory messier, but it doesn’t force you to adopt a different, uglier theory.)
Gene transfer also resolves some very puzzling and ugly irregularities. Sometimes the beauty isn’t just the theory, but it’s relationship to data. If a theory’s very elegant, but the data too messy, it disturbs my sense of completion.
I disagree strongly with you about who is better, if there are artificial pyramids on Mars.
If you have received sufficient evidence to be pretty certain, you are acting rational on rejecting the notion of pyramids on Mars up to the point (and only up to there) you receive more convincing evidence to the fact that there are pyramids on Mars. In that case you should a) gather more evidence and decide which point is correct b) switch pretty immediately in case there really are pyramids.
In particular I claim you have basically zero evidence against martian pyramids except the general heuristic of occam’s razor.
Also, abstaining from making public your (uninformed) opinion on martian pyramids would reduce you credibility loss in case there are any.
Finally, science will not just turn to “wrong” just because there are martian pyramids, most of it still stands as it is.
I was probably reading too much into the example, assuming that “pyramids on mars” was supposed to stand for more anti-scientific things like human faces on mars, hieroglyphic inscriptions on Mars, etc.
Pyramids or canals on Mars would be OK, as long as they’re built by Martians. That would even be exciting. My sense is that the Weekly World News wouldn’t run a story on anything on Mars unless it connected with ancient Earth civilizations. Or Batboy.
BTW, there are some natural pyramids on Earth. Very small ones, inside caves, as crystals.
You may find some statistical effect, but why not give them all the same test, and rank them on their actual knowledge of biology and medicine?
I think the concept of feeling better or worse than the majority is important to the experiment. Being told that you suck is more convincing after a hard test regardless of how much you actually know.
Seems too potentially confounding. How would you distinguish between:
a) A person who knows a lot about biology wants to promote scientific values in order to become a more valuable person.
and b) A person who knows a lot about biology is smart enough not to believe pseudoscience involving biology?