Why bullshit is no laughing matter
屁话可不是闹着玩的
We live in the age of information, which means that we also live in the age of misinformation. Indeed, you have likely come across more bullshit so far this week than a normal person living 1,000 years ago would in their entire lifetime. If we were to add up every word in every scholarly piece of work published prior to the Enlightenment, this number would still pale in comparison with the number of words used to promulgate bullshit on the internet in the 21st century alone.
我们生活在信息的时代，而这也意味着我们也生活在错误信息的时代。的确，你这个星期到目前为止所遇到的屁话，可能比一位活在一千年前的人一生中所遇到的屁话来得更多。要是我们将启蒙时代之前所发表的每一个作品里头的字数统计起来的话，这个数字将会远远比不上单单在21世纪用来在互联网上传播屁话的字数。
If you find your head nodding, start shaking it. I’m bullshitting you.
How could I possibly know how much bullshit you have come across this week? What if you’re reading this on a Sunday? Who is a ‘normal’ person living 1,000 years ago? And how could I know how much bullshit they had to deal with?
如果你点了头的话，请开始摇头吧。我正是在对你说屁话。
我怎么可能知道你这一周遇到了多少屁话？要是你是在星期天阅读这篇文章呢？活在一千年前的“正常”人是怎样的呢？我又怎么可能知道他们需要处理多少屁话呢？
It was very easy to construct this bullshit. Once I set out to impress rather than inform, a burden was lifted from my shoulders and placed onto yours. My opening statements could very well be true, but we have no way of knowing. Their truth or falsity were irrelevant to me, the bullshitter.
构造以上的屁话，易如反掌。我一旦决定要人留下印象而非提供知识的时候，一个负担从我的肩膀上举起了，然后被加在你的肩膀上了。我的开场白也许是真实的，但我们没有办法确定。这些话是真是假，对我这个说屁话的人来说，都是毫不相干的。
According to the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, emeritus professor at Princeton University, bullshit is something that is constructed absent of any concern for the truth. This is quite different from lying, which implies a deep concern for the truth (namely, its subversion). Bullshit is particularly pernicious since the bullshitter adopts an epistemic stance that allows for a great deal of agility. For the bullshitter, it doesn’t really matter if he is right or wrong. What matters is that you’re paying attention.
根据普林斯顿大学名誉教授兼哲学家哈里·法兰克福（Harry Frankfurt），屁话是不顾及真相而构造的话。这跟说谎非常不同：说谎意味着真相的一种深层的关注（意即，它的颠覆）。说屁话的人所采取的认知立场，让他有了很大的灵活性，屁话因此尤其有害。对于说屁话的人来说，不管他是对是错，也无所谓。重要的是，你正在关注着他。
How might we go about investigating bullshit empirically? Let’s take the famed alternative medicine advocate and spiritualist Deepak Chopra as an example. Here are a couple of his tweets:
我们要怎么以实证的方式来研究屁话呢？我们就以著名的另类医学主张者兼唯心论者狄巴克·乔布拉（Deepak Chopra）为例。以下是他的两条推文：
Mechanics of Manifestation: Intention, detachment, centered in being allowing juxtaposition of possibilities to unfold #CosmicConsciousness
表现的结构：意向，超脱，以存在为中心，从而让各种可能性的并列展现开来 #宇宙意识
As beings of light we are local and non-local, time bound and timeless actuality and possibility #CosmicConsciousness
作为光的众生，我们既在又不在、既短暂又永恒、既真实又可能 #宇宙意识
Without knowing Chopra’s intentions, it’s somewhat difficult to determine whether these tweets are bullshit. The words that Chopra selected are unnecessarily complex, and the intended meanings are not obviously clear. Perhaps the tweets have been constructed to impress rather than inform. Chopra might have used vagueness as a tool to elicit profundity.
由于我们不知道乔布拉的意图，若要确定这些推文是否属屁话，将会有些困难。乔布拉选择使用的字眼不必要地复杂，而他想表达的意思不是非常清楚。也许这些推文的构造，是为了留下印象，而非提供知识。乔布拉可能是刻意模糊，从而创造深奥的效果。
Of course, this is all my opinion. There are certainly people who do find such proclamations profound. Who am I to say that they’re bullshit? Well, I have done empirical research on bullshit, and the results are clear. My collaborators and I recently published a paper investigating what we referred to as pseudo-profound bullshit. To understand how we investigated bullshit empirically, consider the following examples:
当然，这些只是我的意见。有些人的确会认为这样的宣言非常深奥，怎么由得我说它是屁话？其实，我已经进行了一些关于屁话的实证研究，而结果非常明显。我和我的合作者最近发表了一篇论文，研究了我们所谓的伪深奥的屁话。为了理解我们如何以实证的方式研究屁话，让我们看看这几个例子：
The invisible is beyond new timelessness.
看不见的，超越了新的永恒。
As you self-actualise, you will enter into infinite empathy that transcends understanding.
当你自我实现的时候，你将会进入超越理解的无限同理心。
These statements are, definitively, bullshit. I can say this directly because they were generated using two websites: wisdomofchopra.com and the New Age Bullshit Generator. Both select buzzwords at random and use them to form sentences. They have no intended meaning and use vagueness to mask their vacuity. They are bullshit.
这些句子无疑是屁话。我能直接这么说，是因为它们是利用两个网页产生的：wisdomofchopra.com 和 New Age Bullshit Generator（“新时代屁话产生器”）。两者都会随机选择流行语，然后利用它们来造句子。这些句子没有任何意义，而且也利用模糊性来隐藏它们的空虚。它们就是屁话。
Across four studies and with more than 800 participants, we found that people consistently rate blatant bullshit such as this as at least somewhat profound. More importantly, this tendency – which we referred to as bullshit receptivity – was more common among people who performed worse on a variety of cognitive ability- and thinking-style tests, and who held religious and paranormal beliefs. Put differently, more logical, analytical and skeptical people were less likely to rate bullshit as profound, just as you might expect.
我们研究了涉及超过800名参与者的四项研究，发现人们会一贯地将这样明显是屁话的句子，评价为至少有些深奥的话。我们将这种倾向称为“屁话接受性”。更重要的是，那些在各种认知能力和思维风格测试中表现较差的人，以及持有宗教信念与超自然现象信念的人，会比较常有这种倾向。换言之，就如你可能所料到一样，更理性，分析力较强，以及怀疑态度较重的人，比较不会将屁话评价为深奥。
Importantly, we also included motivational quotations that were written in plain language and that had clear meaning (eg, ‘A river cuts through a rock, not because of its power but its persistence’). Surprisingly, more than 20 per cent of our participants rated the sentences that consist of random buzzwords as more profound than the sentences with clear meaning. These people had particularly faulty bullshit detectors. They also scored lower on our thinking-style test, indicating that they tend to be particularly intuitive and non-reflective decision-makers.
重要的是，我们也包括了语言浅白，意思明确的励志语录（例如，”一条河能切过岩石，不是因为它的力量，而是因为它的持续“）。令人惊奇的是，我们的参与者当中，有超过20%的人，认为那些包括随机的流行语的句子，会比那些意思明确的句子更为深奥。这些人的屁话检测器尤其有问题。他们也在我们的思维风格测试上面表现较差，而这说明，他们作决定的时候，有着直觉性而非反思性的倾向。
So what about Chopra? One of the websites we used (wisdomofchopra.com) actually takes words directly from his Twitter feed. It was a natural progression, then, for us to take Chopra’s actual tweets and present them to people along with the buzzwords, absent of any identification of Chopra. Of course, not everything that Chopra has ever said is bullshit, but these tweets certainly are. You can decide whether or not they’re representative.
那么，乔布拉呢？我们所使用的其中一个网站（wisdomofchopra.com）其实会直接使用他的推特账号上的字句。我们很自然地接着就拿乔布拉的实际推文，连同流行语，呈现给人们，只是没揭露它们是乔布拉的话。当然，乔布拉曾经说过的话，不全都是屁话，但是这些推文确实是屁话。你可决定它们是否具有代表性。
Although people typically rated Chopra’s tweets as modestly more profound than the random sentences, profundity ratings for the two types of items were very strongly correlated. On a scale from 0-1, with 0 indicating no correlation and 1 indicating a perfect correlation, they were correlated .88. Moreover, both types of items correlated with the same psychological factors. In other words, Chopra’s tweets were psychologically indistinguishable from bullshit.
虽然人们通常会将乔布拉的推文评分为比随机的句子稍微更深奥，但是这两种句子的深奥评分有着非常强烈的关联性。在一个从零到一的范围之间，零代表毫无关联，一代表完美关联，两种句子之间的关联性为0.88。况且，两种句子跟同样的心理因素都有关联。换句话说，从心理学的角度来说，乔布拉的推文跟屁话是无法区分的。
This represents the first empirical investigation of bullshit, as far as I know. However, this is only the tip of a very big iceberg. We come across scores of bullshit every day. Advertising, politics, tabloids, television – bullshit seems to pop up everywhere once you start looking for it. Our findings are amusing, but bullshit is no laughing matter. Chopra waxing poetic on Twitter might not be overly problematic, but the lack of regard for truth that characterises bullshit has serious consequences.
据我所知，这代表了屁话的首次实证调查。不过，这只是一个大冰山的一角。我们每天都会遇到许许多多的屁话。广告、政治、小报、电视——当你开始寻找屁话的时候，屁话似乎就会到处冒出来。我们的发现固然滑稽，但是屁话可不是闹着玩的。乔布拉在推特上面滔滔不绝地发文，虽然不会有太大的问题，但是屁话不顾及真相的这个特色，导致它有着严重的后果。
Consider the role of bullshit in highly complicated areas such as health. Dr Mehmet Oz, the cardiothoracic surgeon and US television presenter, has used his credentials to push ‘quack treatments… for personal financial gain’. Research in The BMJ found that fewer than half the recommendations on The Dr Oz Show are based on reliable evidence. When confronted about his claims that largely untested remedies are ‘miracle cures’ by a Senate subcommittee in 2014, Oz responded by saying ‘my job, I feel, on the show is to be a cheerleader for the audience’. By his own admission, his show contains bullshit. The motivations of his viewership is more important than providing reliable information. Nonetheless, his viewers take him seriously and want to improve their health. When wellbeing is at stake, truth should be the principal concern.
我们来看看屁话在某些极其复杂的领域（如健康）中的角色。心胸外科医生兼美国电视节目主持人穆罕默德·奥兹医生（Dr Mehmet Oz）曾经利用他的资历来推销“庸医治疗……以得到个人的经济利益”。《英国医学杂志》（The BMJ）中的研究发现，《奥兹医生秀》（The Dr. Oz Show）里头的建议当中，有少过一半是以可靠的证据为基础的。他因为声称一些大致上未经测试的疗法是“奇迹疗法”而在在2014年被参议院小组委员会质问，而他的回应是：“我感觉到，我在节目上的工作，就是充当观众的拉拉队长”。他自己承认自己的节目包含了屁话。他将收视率的动机视为比提供可靠的信息更为重要。尽管如此，他的观众认真地看待他，也想要改善他们的健康。一旦涉及自身健康的时候，真相应该是首要的顾虑。
It is now very common for proponents of alternative medicine to emphasise ‘open-mindedness’. Unfortunately, this can entail disregarding empirical evidence. For example, many anti-vaxxers do not appear to care that Andrew Wakefield’s infamous article in the Lancet in 1998 drawing a link between the MMR vaccine and autism has long been discredited and retracted. Indeed, straight-up explanations of this fact do little to dissuade those who have fallen prey to anti-vaxxer bullshit. Diseases such as measles and mumps are making a comeback in the US and, according to at least one website, there have been more than 9,000 preventable deaths due to failures to vaccinate in the US since 2007. Bullshit is indeed no laughing matter.
如今，另类医学主张者强调“思想开放”，已经非常常见。然而，这可能会涉及无视经验证据。比方说，安德鲁·韦克菲尔德（Andrew Wakefield）1988年在《柳叶刀》（The Lancet）发表了一篇文章，将麻腮风三联疫苗和自闭症挂钩在一起。这篇臭名昭著的文章早就已被质疑，并且早就遭到撤销，但是许多反疫苗的人似乎不理会这一点。的确，这个事实的直接解释，劝阻不了那些被反疫苗屁话所影响的人。类似麻疹和腮腺炎的疾病已经开始在美国卷土重来；另外，根据至少一个网站，人们未接受疫苗，导致美国自2007年以来发生了超过9000起可预防性死亡的案例。屁话真的不是闹着玩的。
In his book, On Bullshit (2005), Frankfurt noted that ‘most people are rather confident of their ability to recognise bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it’. However, more than 98 per cent of our participants rated at least one item in our bullshit receptivity scales to be at least somewhat profound. We are not nearly as good at detecting bullshit as we think.
法兰克福在他的著作《论屁话》（On Bullshit，2005年）中指出：“大多数人对自己辨认屁话、避免自己受骗的能力感到非常自信”。不过，我们的参与者当中，有超过98%的人将我们的屁话接受性量表中的至少一个句子，评分为至少有些深奥。我们没有自己想象中那么善于检测屁话。
So, how might you – the reader – vaccinate yourself against it? For a non-spiritualist, it might be relatively easy to recognise when Chopra or Oz are concerned less with the truth than selling books or entertaining viewers. But think back to my opening paragraph. Bullshit is much harder to detect when we want to agree with it. The first and most important step is to recognise the limits of our own cognition. We must be humble about our ability to justify our own beliefs. These are the keys to adopting a critical mindset – which is our only hope in a world so full of bullshit.
那么，作为读者的你，该如何帮助自己防范屁话呢？对于一个非唯心论者来说，要辨认出乔布拉和奥兹什么时候专注于卖书或娱乐观众多过于真相，可能比较容易。但是，请回想起我的开头段。当我们想要认同屁话的时候，屁话就更难检测出来。第一个步骤，也是最重要的步骤，就是要意识到我们认知的限度。我们对自己辩解自己信念的能力要谦虚。这就是采取批判性思维的关键——在一个那么充满屁话的世界当中，这就是我们唯一的希望。
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