May 17, 2005

When Analogies Mislead

There's a great summary over at Photon Courier of a study that shows people can make analogies from the flimsiest resemblences. In the test scanario, subjects were inspired to find analogies between a hypothetical threat from one nation to another: and it was shockingly easy to get them to see either the Vietnam war or WWII as parallels.

Quite an insight into our teeny tiny minds.

Posted by: Attila at 10:51 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 This may explain the success of Michael Moore crockumentaries.

Posted by: Ciggy at May 18, 2005 07:46 AM (0B3lJ)

2 It certainly explains the m.o. of this Bush Administration... Oh wait, the m.o. is "a lie told often enough becomes the truth."

Posted by: littlemrmahatma at May 18, 2005 07:52 AM (BZ0tI)

3 Somebody, in comments somewhere, suggested that the results may be somewhat artificial, in that the subjects were students--and have probably learned well to suck up to their professors, using whatever cues are available to indicate the desired answers...

Posted by: David Foster at May 18, 2005 09:50 AM (+N6Ef)

4 It's actually the core of the genius of the human mind that allows us to draw connections between disparate objects/concepts. Our massively parallel minds are finely tuned to seek connections. Ask a programmer how hard it is to teach a computer to recognize a face. Yet as humans, we do it without thinking. It makes for some interesting dichotomies (like comment #1 and #2 on this post), but without this ability, we'd be little more than food processing machines. Like everything else is with humans, take away the source of all the problems, and you take away what is most essentially human.

Posted by: a4g at May 18, 2005 03:33 PM (H8Yyz)

5 I hate that.

Posted by: Attila Girl at May 18, 2005 09:21 PM (x/EKm)

6 A result that such stress, internet payday loan depression, and take on Individual credit after bankruptcy s_mortgage-quote_5 with a couple and repeat bankrupts. There are personal defenses exists morgage rates today it.

Posted by: remote at June 03, 2005 11:44 AM (Y7dVX)

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