The Golden Age of Bullshit [Bob Hoffman, April 2014]

[Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyTn_DgfcFE]

Someone is ‘bullshitting’ if they’re asserting something without any concern for whether they’re telling the truth or not. Supposed experts bullshit all the time in the advertising industry, and dress up their bullshit opinions as hard facts. It’s extremely corrosive. With this level of bullshitting, we should be skeptical and cautious of expert opinions, and work hard to find the truth. Examples of bullshit:

• Experts predicted that many of the changes in technology would totally disrupt traditional, paid, mass-marketing. In many areas, however, technology has made only a small to moderate change to traditional advertising.
• Traditional, paid, mass-marketing has been pronounced dead, repeatedly in the last 11 years. And yet it’s still growing incredibly quickly, at around 10%.
• Digital Video Recorders which emerged in 1998 were supposed to totally disrupt the TV industry because people could just record their shows and skip through the ads. In fact, only 8% of people watched shows on their DVRs, and only half of them skipped through the ads. DRVs even helped boost ratings.
• The internet was supposed to kill TVs because of its increased convenience. But in the 3rd quarter of 2013, 97% of TV viewing was done on TV, and 3% online.
• Interactive ads were meant to disrupt advertising. But online banner ads have a click-rate of 1/1000. Additionally, more than half of activity on the internet is not human, but automated, so those ads are being wasted.
• Social media marketing was seen as the holy grail. You wouldn’t even have to pay for advertising any more. People, it was thought, would engage with brands, and share their enthusiasm for them with friends. But just look at Facebook: loads of traditional paid ads, and no conversations about ads. Additionally, Facebook’s pages platform reaches only 6% of a brand’s followers, and it’s getting less. Consequently, most social media programs are much less effective at driving sales than promised. For example, in 2010 Pepsi canceled all its TV ads and Super Bowl advertising, and bet everything on social media. They got 3.5m Facebook likes, but suffered a 5% loss in market share which they have not recovered, and that year they dropped from the 2nd best-selling drink in the US to 3rd.
• Advertisers ignore American over-50s, and justify that with bad reasons. If they were a country they’d be the third largest economy in the world, yet they’re the target of only 5% of adverts because:
• “They’re dying out.” But they’re growing at 3 times the rate of under 50s.
• “They’re stuck in their ways and won’t change brands.” But baby-boomers are just as likely to change brands as younger adults.
• “They want to be like young people.” No, they want to be youthful, but not like young people.
• “They’re downsizing.” No, they’re spending more than ever.

Advertising theory and the internet

• The internet is best at fulfilling demand, not creating demand. Radio, television, magazines and newspapers were traditionally the means of creating demand. The Yellow Pages/phonebook was a way of fulfilling demand: you know what you want (e.g. a pizza), and you look up someone who can get you that. Internet advertising has created very few brands at all; but the internet is excellent at helping you find a tutor, a new bike, or a plane ticket.
• Just because lot of people access a medium -- like the internet -- doesn’t mean it’s useful for advertising. For instance, everyone had telephones, but they were a lousy way to advertise.

Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science? [National Geographic, March 2015]

[Source: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/science-doubters/achenbach-text]

Why do reasonable people not believe the scientific consensus over issues like vaccines, evolution, climate change, the moon landings, or GM foods?

1. We often find science awkwardly unintuitive (surely tampering with the genes of wheat is dangerous). Our 'naive beliefs'—those beliefs that make intuitive sense—always feel preferable to us, even if we’re sufficiently educated to know they're wrong.
2. Our beliefs are more strongly motivated by emotion than the by scientific method's rational argument. The strongest emotions arise from social, political, and religious affiliations.
3. We tend to use knowledge to reinforce, not correct, those beliefs that are motivated by our broader worldview. Possession of more knowledge therefore leads to stronger beliefs, but not necessarily truer ones.
4. The news media fortify public distrust of the scientific consensus by giving the impression that big scientific advances happen when lone mavericks make shocking discoveries.
5. The internet and cable TV allow us to confirm our beliefs by choosing the sources of information we listen to or filter out. Back when elite universities, encyclopedias and major news organisations were the gatekeepers of scientific information, this was not possible to the same extent.

Is it possible that there is a vast conspiracy over issues like climate change or evolution?

• No. Scientists love debunking each other too much for a conspiracy of that scale to be possible.

Does this matter, given that so few people mistrust the scientific consensus?

• Yes. Parents not vaccinating their children strains herd immunity. US legislation for reducing emissions has been stalled by a noisy minority.

How can we convince people?

• We can use people’s emotional motivations for their good. Skeptics can be convinced by people they trust and with whom they share fundamental values. E.g. if a conservative republican denies climate change, the most likely person to convince them of it is another conservative republican.
• People need to be educated in the scientific method, and not just scientific facts. First, the objectivity of the scientific method will help people to value truth above emotion. Second, understanding something of statistics, fair tests, peer review, repeatability of experiments and so on will help people to make better judgements.
• Scientists should avoid involving themselves in policy battles, because that undermines the public’s view of their objectivity. Unless scientists stick to talking about science, it's easy for skeptics to allege that the scientists' research—about, say, climate change—is colored by a political agenda, and so untrustworthy.