Friday, July 25, 2008
Pareidola and "the God illusion"
As the bottom of this blog page states, I'm an exponent of the thesis that humans are not, despite what one might prima facie think, particularly smart organisms. The following pictures are cases of pareidolia: Random textural "patterns" in various quotidian objects (mis)interpreted, like a Rorschach inkblot image, as significant (e.g., as Jesus, the Virgin Mary, etc.).
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I used this effect to good effect in dissecting bias in a letter to the editor a year back. I'm assuming you are familiar with the standard false-positives-are-less-risky-than-false-negatives analysis of this effect in evolutionary perceptual psychology, but are you familiar with Norbert Schwarz's work on metacognitive strategies?
I like this work because it begins to explain why politics and policy can be so dire and heated.
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