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I think everyone should know of the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. To quote from Michael Crichton: > Media carries with it a credibility that is totally unde
by bdhe 11y ago
I think everyone should know of the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. To quote from Michael Crichton:
> Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
> That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I’d point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.
But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn’t. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.
Very intriguing when you think about it.
- walterbell 11y agoIs this affected by reader feedback, e.g. article comments on the publisher site, or off-site comments like blog posts or HN? If domain experts regularly critique journalists, will this influence future articles on the same topic?
- bdhe 11y agoI think this happens in reddit sometimes when people pick out nuances in the comments. It's also lead to the meme of "I come to the comments to see why the headline is wrong." So yes, this effect can be mitigated, but I doubt it affects the credibility of the publisher much at all.
- Nadya 11y agoIs every article written by the same author? Is that author known for having many wrong articles? Is the paper accurate in other topics that you have an understanding about? There's a bit more to it than "if one article was horribly wrong - they all are". Avoiding this problem (and it is a problem) is largely why I perform my own research across an aggregate of sources rather than rely on a single source for a topic I'm not already familiar with.
- yongjik 11y agoRather ironic, considering that Michael Chrichton thought Global Warming wasn't a big deal[1]: > At the end of the book, Crichton gives us an author’s message. In it, he re-iterates the main points of his thesis, that there are some who go too far to drum up support (and I have some sympathy with this), and that because we don’t know everything, we actually know nothing (here, I beg to differ). He also gives us his estimate, ~0.8 C for the global warming that will occur over the next century and claims that, since models differ by 400% in their estimates, his guess is as good as theirs. This is not true. (...) > Finally, in an appendix, Crichton uses a rather curious train of logic to compare global warming to the 19th Century eugenics movement. He argues, that since eugenics was studied in prestigious universities and supported by charitable foundations, and now, so is global warming, they must somehow be related. Presumably, the author doesn’t actually believe that foundation-supported academic research ipso facto is evil and mis-guided, but that is an impression that is left. Kind of makes me wonder how much I can trust Crichton on anything. :) [1] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michael-crichtons-state-of-confusion/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/michae...
- krapp 11y agoI suspect that what Michael Crichton actually objects to is when the media publishes things that contradict his personal and political biases. Obviously any paper that would do so is either entirely incompetent or outright deceitful.
- guscost 11y agoI don't see how this criticism has anything to do with his point. But if you must, and if you would like anyone else to take your criticism seriously, I suggest citing Crichton's work and addressing it directly. Here's a lecture that touches on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCCvOv3qZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDCCvOv3qZY http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=111 http://www.independent.org/events/transcript.asp?id=111 It contains one of my favorite observations: "...most people make the assumption of linearity in a world that is largely non-linear."
- 11y ago