
The Fine Art of Baloney Detection (1995) - denzil_correa
https://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-fine-art-of-baloney-detection#email-newsletter
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I was born into a charismatic Christian cult and escaped in my early 20s, left
to pick up the pieces of a completely shattered world view. No one in my life,
at that point, really understood the internal turmoil I was in. This piece in
particular and, in general, all of the Demon Haunted World couldn't have come
at a better time for me. It gave me the tools I needed to overcome a lot of
the biases and crazy charismatic thought patterns that were established at a
very early age. I will forever be indebted to Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan for
making my life a lot more bearable and for helping me out of the existential
quagmire I was stuck in.

~~~
ARandomerDude
> charismatic Christian cult

These words don't go together. Cults are definitionally aberrant, i.e., non-
Christian. Many of us in high Christian orthodoxy would certainly regard the
entire charismatic movement as heterodox at best.

Lest anyone should cry "no true Scotsman," the difference is Christianity has
a well-defined view of orthodoxy, as propounded by Scripture and understood by
the Church going back to its earliest days. The Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed,
etc. are excellent examples of a united, cross-denominational understanding
recognized by all _except_ the cults. That's not to say we don't disagree
about some of the particulars in other areas, but all Christian churches
believe in "one holy, catholic (universal), apostolic, Church."

Edit to add: I'm sorry you had trouble with a cult. I know there's a lot of
real pain caused by many of these groups. Come check out the real thing. We'd
love to have you.

~~~
journalctl
You took someone’s painful experience with a cult and No True Scotsman’d it
into a sales pitch for your religion.

There is a time and a place for everything. And for the record, having also
left an evangelical cult that tried really hard to get me to hate myself
because of my sexuality, I’m not too sold on any branch of Christianity at
this point. The last thing I’d wanna hear after telling people about my
experiences like that is “but have you tried my flavor of Christianity?”

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_edo
> According to the World Health Organization, smoking kills three million
> people every year worldwide. This will rise to ten million annual deaths by
> 2020

We're up to 7 million according to the CDC, not 10:

> Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than 7 million deaths per year[0].

Sagan predicted 7 million in growth and we only saw 4 million. That's a ~40%
overstatement. And in the very next sentence from the CDC:

> If the pattern of smoking all over the globe doesn’t change, more than 8
> million people a year will die from diseases related to tobacco use by 2030.

While we're on the subject of skepticism and 'baloney detection' whenever
somebody says _X will happen in Y years_ there's usually a bit of baloney in
there. It's a well-meaning practice to present bad scenarios to create social
change but it happens so often that when somebody says "The oceans will rise X
feet in Y years!" I get skeptical. Then I get in trouble for being skeptical
which just makes me _more_ skeptical...

[0] -
[https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast...](https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm)

~~~
simtel20
I feel you are not taking into account the importance of "unless something
changes". I see the publication date of this as being 1997. That was around
the time when globally it started to be conceivable that restaurants and
public areas and even bars could be areas that were smoke-free. Changing the
norm seems to have lowered the number of smokers and thus smoking deaths.

You scoff at these projections but I feel that turning your energy a bit and
focusing it at how these projections indeed were used to good effect would get
you closer to the truth than what appears to be your assumption that nothing
was done and the projections were false. So much has changed in the
intervening 22 years.

~~~
_edo
Maybe I wasn't clear enough because I'm seeing a lot of the same comment here.

At some point anybody who's producing statistics and projections has to decide
what's more important between accurately predicting the future and changing
the future. Is being truthful more or less important than being revolutionary?
It's fine and noble to want a better future but it introduces a bias into
projections and how they're reported.

Carl Sagan was more than smart enough to know that society was likely to learn
the dangers of smoking and to act accordingly. I'm guessing he had his public
prediction which he put in his book that deaths due to smoking _will rise to
ten million_ but if you asked him over coffee when he wasn't driving home a
socio-political rant about Big Tobacco he would probably produce a lower
number more in line with what has actually happened.

If this sort of convenient number selection happens _in a lecture about
baloney detection_ we should probably expect it to happen in other places,
too.

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technothrasher
I met Carl Sagan at a talk he gave at a local astronomy telescope in the 70's
when I was just a kid. He pointed me to CSICOP (Now just CSI), and it made a
huge impact on my young mind by leading me down the path of skepticism. I've
always been incredibly grateful to that man for his approximately two minutes
of personal advice.

www.skepticalinquirer.org/about

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
And yet Sagan was one of the biggest promoters of the “Drake Equation” which
takes advantage of the fact that humans are really bad at very large and very
small numbers to make it seem like alien civilizations, of which we have never
had any evidence of, are widespread throughout the universe.

This was just baloney wrapped in numbers.

~~~
mikeash
The Drake Equation is perfectly reasonable. You just have to interpret it as
“these assumptions imply aliens” rather than “there are definitely aliens.”

~~~
bnegreve
It is not, because at least 3 factors of the equation are incredibly difficult
to estimate. About as difficult as estimating the probability of an alien
encounter. So the equation is basically useless.

~~~
mikeash
And what’s the term for a figure that’s hard to estimate but which you guess
at anyway? An “assumption.”

~~~
bnegreve
Yes, and in this case, an unreasonable one.

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ohazi
> Commercial culture is full of similar misdirections and evasions at the
> expense of the consumer. You’re not supposed to ask. Don’t think. Buy.

> Paid product endorsements, especially by real or purported experts,
> constitute a steady rainfall of deception. They betray contempt for the
> intelligence of their customers. They introduce an insidious corruption of
> popular attitudes about scientiﬁc objectivity. Today there are even
> commercials in which real scientists, some of considerable distinction,
> shill for corporations. They teach that scientists too will lie for money.
> As Tom Paine warned, inuring us to lies lays the groundwork for many other
> evils.

It's gotten so much worse since Sagan wrote this. I wonder what he'd think of
the advertising monstrosity we have today, courtesy of Google, Facebook, etc.

~~~
dmix
I wonder how long until there's a well developed product placement ad system
in podcasts. Everyone is skipping livereads so they'll sprinkle ad names
within the content.

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dmix
This fermatslibrary.com website is a great idea. I've been looking for a
curated list of academic papers to read. They should be promoted like great
literature.

The software they are building that augments long form writing works cleanly
in the browser. Hopefully they have a long-term sustainable business model to
keep this going.

