- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Foreword: Navigating a Post-Truth World: Ten Enduring Lessons from the Study of Pseudoscience
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Pseudoscience: What It Costs and Efforts to Fight It
-
1 Pseudoscience and the Pursuit of Truth -
2 The Psychology of (Pseudo)Science: Cognitive, Social, and Cultural Factors -
3 The Illusion of Causality: A Cognitive Bias Underlying Pseudoscience -
4 Hard Science, Soft Science, and Pseudoscience: Implications of Research on the Hierarchy of the Sciences -
5 Food-o-science Pseudoscience: The Weapons and Tactics in the War on Crop Biotechnology -
6 An Inside Look at Naturopathic Medicine: A Whistleblower’s Deconstruction of Its Core Principles -
7 Risky Play and Growing Up: How to Understand the Overprotection of the Next Generation -
8 The Anti-Vaccine Movement: A Litany of Fallacy and Errors -
9 Understanding Pseudoscience Vulnerability through Epistemological Development, Critical Thinking, and Science Literacy -
10 Scientific Failure as a Public Good: Illustrating the Process of Science and Its Contrast with Pseudoscience -
11 Evidence-Based Practice as a Driver of Pseudoscience in Prevention Research -
12 Scientific Soundness and the Problem of Predatory Journals -
13 Pseudoscience, Coming to a Peer-Reviewed Journal Near You -
14 “Integrative” Medicine: Integrating Quackery with Science-Based Medicine -
15 Hypnosis: Science, Pseudoscience, and Nonsense -
16 Abuses and Misuses of Intelligence Tests: Facts and Misconceptions -
17 Reflections on Pseudoscience and Parapsychology: From Here to There and (Slightly) Back Again -
18 Using Case Studies to Combat a Pseudoscience Culture -
19 “HIV Does Not Cause AIDS”: A Journey into AIDS Denialism -
20 Swaying Pseudoscience: The Inoculation Effect -
21 The Challenges of Changing Minds: How Confirmation Bias and Pattern Recognition Affect Our Search for Meaning -
22 Truth Shall Prevail - Contributor List
- Index
The Illusion of Causality: A Cognitive Bias Underlying Pseudoscience
The Illusion of Causality: A Cognitive Bias Underlying Pseudoscience
- Chapter:
- (p.45) 3 The Illusion of Causality: A Cognitive Bias Underlying Pseudoscience
- Source:
- Pseudoscience
- Author(s):
Fernando Blanco
Helena Matute
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
In the last decades, cognitive Psychology has provided researchers with a powerful background and the rigor of experimental methods to better understand why so many people believe in pseudoscience, paranormal phenomena and superstitions. According to recent evidence, those irrational beliefs could be the unintended result of how the mind evolved to use heuristics and reach conclusions based on scarce and incomplete data. Thus, we present visual illusions as a parallel to the type of fast and frugal cognitive bias that underlies pseudoscientific belief. In particular, we focus on the causal illusion, which consists of people believing that there is a causal link between two events that coincide just by chance. The extant psychological theories that can account for this causal illusion are described, as well as the factors that are able to modulate the bias. We also discuss that causal illusions are adaptive under some circumstances, although they often lead to utterly wrong beliefs. Finally, we mention several debiasing strategies that have been proved effective in fighting the causal illusion and preventing some of its consequences, such as pseudoscientific belief.
Keywords: heuristics, visual illusions, cognitive bias, casuality
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- Title Pages
- Dedication
- Foreword: Navigating a Post-Truth World: Ten Enduring Lessons from the Study of Pseudoscience
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Pseudoscience: What It Costs and Efforts to Fight It
-
1 Pseudoscience and the Pursuit of Truth -
2 The Psychology of (Pseudo)Science: Cognitive, Social, and Cultural Factors -
3 The Illusion of Causality: A Cognitive Bias Underlying Pseudoscience -
4 Hard Science, Soft Science, and Pseudoscience: Implications of Research on the Hierarchy of the Sciences -
5 Food-o-science Pseudoscience: The Weapons and Tactics in the War on Crop Biotechnology -
6 An Inside Look at Naturopathic Medicine: A Whistleblower’s Deconstruction of Its Core Principles -
7 Risky Play and Growing Up: How to Understand the Overprotection of the Next Generation -
8 The Anti-Vaccine Movement: A Litany of Fallacy and Errors -
9 Understanding Pseudoscience Vulnerability through Epistemological Development, Critical Thinking, and Science Literacy -
10 Scientific Failure as a Public Good: Illustrating the Process of Science and Its Contrast with Pseudoscience -
11 Evidence-Based Practice as a Driver of Pseudoscience in Prevention Research -
12 Scientific Soundness and the Problem of Predatory Journals -
13 Pseudoscience, Coming to a Peer-Reviewed Journal Near You -
14 “Integrative” Medicine: Integrating Quackery with Science-Based Medicine -
15 Hypnosis: Science, Pseudoscience, and Nonsense -
16 Abuses and Misuses of Intelligence Tests: Facts and Misconceptions -
17 Reflections on Pseudoscience and Parapsychology: From Here to There and (Slightly) Back Again -
18 Using Case Studies to Combat a Pseudoscience Culture -
19 “HIV Does Not Cause AIDS”: A Journey into AIDS Denialism -
20 Swaying Pseudoscience: The Inoculation Effect -
21 The Challenges of Changing Minds: How Confirmation Bias and Pattern Recognition Affect Our Search for Meaning -
22 Truth Shall Prevail - Contributor List
- Index
