Assingment #1 GNED 1512 by

Post #2 Red Flag: Ancient Wisdom

andrew_lowewylde — 2019-02-06 14:53:13 UTC

Definition
Ancient Wisdom is the use of previous techniques from the use of herbal items or "spiritual rituals" learned from past history that is said to provide effects to cure or heal people.

Connection
Ancient Wisdom has affected history greatly. From ancient times that dates back to Greek physicians up until roughly the late 18th century, one such case stands out. Such as the ideas stated by Brian Dunning in his video of "Here be Dragons" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=752V173e31o) he mentions the idea of bloodletting. Though medically and scientifically this can be beneficial towards the patient to lower blood pressure in the patients body in certain cases, the addition of taking blood out to remove the harmful bodily fluids called "humors" turned this into a pseudoscience. This then led to a map of the body showing the best places for this bloodletting technique that dates back to 1517. Sometimes this practice does work, though it does not show enough evidence towards the idea of these five humors existing in the body.

Post #3 Red Flag: Causation and Correlation

andrew_lowewylde — 2019-02-06 15:31:52 UTC

Definition
The supposed effect of one such action that must lead to another unrealistic option.

Connection
One of the biggest causation and correlation examples would be the use of Vaccinations causing Autism in younger children. Vaccinations are of key importance with protecting youth from harm such as Hepatitis B, Tetanus, and Polio are required for youth to even attend school. Meanwhile people correlate that when their kids get these shots, some are diagnosed with Autism. Yet according to Autism Speaks, a website dedicated to the research of Autism, (https://www.autismspeaks.org/blog/hunting-autisms-earliest-clues) and many others say that the average age kids are diagnosed is around 4 years of age. People use the red flag of correlation with these vaccines to create the idea of these shots to cause Autism. Yet this is not the case, as there is a reason for kids to take these shots to attend school so sickness does not spread. Ultimately these shots are provided by the government to protect the future of our lives. Yet not properly researching this causes people to create that causation and correlation.

Post #4 Red Flag: Mystical Energy

andrew_lowewylde — 2019-02-06 15:59:34 UTC

Definition
An unseen energy that surrounds some object or belief that causes certain effects.

Connection
Mystical Energies are overly complicated when it comes to their existence. Finding one such article (https://www.quora.com/How-can-one-harness-mystical-energy)explains how this type of mystical energy can be harnessed via "mana from heaven" or things such as "cleansing objects of evil influences". There is no actual proof that Mystical Energies do not exist, yet reading on from this the person to try to "practice effective magical defense" and ultimately defend against brain-drain. Along with adding in the tip of buying books of the occult. Such as the names of these books inspires some sort of skepticism, namely the Witches Bible. This book is said to cast and misspell circles, running a coven and a few more interesting topics. Ultimately, there is no evidence to help harness this unseen power, it shows how some of these claims of power are unrealistic.

Post #5 Red Flag: Appeal to Authority

andrew_lowewylde — 2019-02-07 18:05:42 UTC

Definition
The act of making an item seem more legitimate by incorporating the use of a higher up figure who claims to know what they are talking about.

Connection
The act of appealing to authority can be a difficult situation when dealing with pseudoscience issues. As a person is ultimately a person in the end, and bribes can be made so that doctor
shows how this item or this belief can relive ailments. Or using topics such as specific religions or faiths that use celebrity figures to showcase and spearhead their own purposes. One of the best examples for this would be Scientology. This religion has their figure head as Tom Cruise, and incredibly popular icon based off his movies. Using this figure, they were able to gain the mass attention of many civilians to accept and pay the ridiculous prices to join with this cult. A famous video with Leah Remini shows how she was able to debunk and show thousands about Scientology's scams.

Post #6 Red Flag: All Natural

andrew_lowewylde — 2019-02-08 00:14:43 UTC

Definition
Using natural ingredients to create a remedy designed for a specific purpose.

Connection
The term "all natural" is a widely used term that seems to sell medicinal items much frequently as that title suggests that no foreign ingredients have been added into it. Yet this is not the true case, as stated by Brian Dunning (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=752V173e31o) that even poison ivy can be considered an all natural ingredient. Socrates, a philosopher was given hemlock, a poison common back in his time would be considered an all natural item. So using this theory, stating that dandelion leaves and maple tree roots is quite literally all natural.

Post #7Belief: Patternicity

apourkeivan1997 — 2019-02-09 02:00:15 UTC

Definition
The human tendency to find meaningful patterns from meaningless noise.

Connection
The human mind is one of the most complex things to decipher. Why it does what it does is a hard problem to solve. For example, why we see faces in nature, interpret window stains as humans, or hear voices in random sounds generated by electronic devices or even find conspiracies in daily news. The reason for this being, humans are pattern-seeking primates. This is known as Association Learning. There are two types of patterning errors. Type I errors is perceiving something is real when it is not there. Type II errors is believing something is real when its not. In the TED talk segment of patternicity, the example used for each is; Type 1 error is believing that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is just the wind, so now you're more cautious, but a type II error is believing that the rustle in the grass is just the wind when it is a dangerous predator (https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception/up-next#t-258776). Patternicity (P) will occur whenever the cost (c) of making a Type I error (TI) is less than the cost of making a Type II (TII). Type one error is at a low cost whereas Type II error is a high cost. P=c_{TI <}c_TII

Post #10 Critical Analysis

ryan_viola1997 — 2019-02-10 19:44:11 UTC

Problem
Causation and Correlation is a big issue today because too many people assume correlations without proof.

Source
In this article (https://amplitude.com/blog/2017/01/19/causation-correlation), they explain germ theory of disease and how it describes how causation does not mean there is a correlation. This germ theory says that in the 19th century, scientists believed that bad odor caused disease. In 1880, it was discovered that while bad odor and disease often came together, it was caused by a third party we call germs.

Evidence
This source is credible because there was another observation done where the New York City subway fairs rose and fell at the same rate as the pizza prices and even though the price changes were the same, the causation did not have correlation. subway fairs don't rely on pizza prices to know how much to charge. This is not just theory, this was first observed in 1980.

Assumptions
There are a lot of people who get obstinate because of thinking a certain way their whole life and are not open for their opinion to be changed. This could even result in physical violence if the obstinate people get emotional about you trying to persuade them otherwise.

Post #8 Belief: Emotional Connections

apourkeivan1997 — 2019-02-11 01:17:59 UTC

Definition
A bundle of feelings that form to create a bond between two things

Connection
All humans and animals experience feelings, whether it is towards another animal or another human or whether it is towards and object. Love, fear, hate, nausea, etc are all feelings. For example, when two people have feelings for each other they have the emotional connection of love. When you have established this initial connection, you also experience other connections that fall into place, for example you experience anger towards that person, sadness when they hurt your feelings, etc.You can express these emotions using your body language, and your facial expressions.

Post #9 Belief: Perception and Observation

apourkeivan1997 — 2019-02-11 02:09:43 UTC

Definition
How our senses input information.

Connection
The 5 human senses are our way of of perceiving information. Touch, vision, hearing, smell, and taste. Humans touch to get a feeling of how something feels. Sexual intercourse is also using the sensory perception of touch. Vision is the humans perception of being able to visualize how something looks. Although our eyes may deceive us sometimes but its how we experience life. Smell is how we can perceive how a food smells whether something smells good or bad. Taste is how we can tell how something tastes like by using our taste buds, how food tastes is a main use of our taste buds. Hearing is another way that we perceive information, we can hear what other people say when they are talking to you, we can also hear loud noises and soft sounds.

apourkeivan1997 — 2019-02-27 23:53:23 UTC

By: Andrew Lowe-Wylde, Arya Pourkeivan, Ryan Viola, Aayush Patel