Chapter 1: Psychology and Scientific Thinking Flashcards
What is belief perseverance?
The tendency to cling to our beliefs despite contrary evidence.
What is psudoscience?
A set of claims that seems scientific but isn’t.
What are some signs of psudoscience?
Exaggerated claims, over-reliance on anecdotes, absence of connectivity to research, lack of peer review, lack of self-correction when contrary evidence is published, fancy scientific-sounding vocabulary, talk of “proof” instead of evidence.
What is the ad hoc immunizing hypothesis?
A loophole used by defenders to protect a theory from being disproven.
What is patternicity?
The tendency to detect meaningful patterns in random stimuli.
What is the terror management theory?
It proposes that our awareness of our death leaves us with an underlying sense of terror we cope with by adopting reassuring cultural worldviews.
What are logical fallacies?
Thinking traps that can lead to mistaken conclusions.
What is the emotional reasoning fallacy?
Basing your view of situations, yourself, or others on how you feel.
What is the bandwagon fallacy?
Doing or thinking something because everyone else is doing it.
What is the not-me fallacy?
The thinking that something won’t happen to you because it only happens to outsiders.
Why should we be concerned about pseudoscience?
Opportunity cost, direct harm, and an inability to think scientifically as citizens.
What is scientific skepticism?
The approach of evaluating all claims with an open mind but insisting on persuasive evidence before accepting them.
What is the correlation/causation fallacy?
Error of assuming that because one thing is associated with another, it must cause the other.
What are the six scientific thinking principles?
Ruling our rival hypotheses, correlation is not causation, falsifiability, replicability, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and Occam’s razor.
What is falsifiability?
Capable of being disproven.
