Library:The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit
| The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit | |
|---|---|
| Author | John V. Petrocelli |
| First published | 2021 |
| ISBN | 978-1-250-27162-4 unverified |
| Role | Analysis |
| Domains | Culture, Religion & Society Business, Finance & Scams |
| Tactics | Pseudoscience / Junk Science Propaganda Technique |
The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit is a 2021 book by John V. Petrocelli, an experimental social psychologist at Wake Forest University, published by St. Martin's Press.
Summary
Where Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit defined the subject philosophically, Petrocelli studies it in the laboratory. He treats bullshit as communication made with little or no regard for truth, genuine evidence or established knowledge, and argues that it is the foundation of contaminated thinking. Bad decisions about health, money, law and relationships, he contends, very often trace back to bullshit that was accepted without examination.
His central claim is that nobody is immune. Intelligence and education offer little protection, and credentials can make matters worse: claims delivered by authority figures and credentialed experts tend to be accepted as settled precisely because of who is speaking. Petrocelli is equally blunt that everyone produces bullshit, not only consumes it, often simply to fit in or to avoid admitting ignorance.
Why people bullshit
The book draws on Petrocelli's own experimental research into the conditions that produce bullshitting. Two stand out. The first is a felt obligation to have an opinion on a subject one knows little about. The second is the expectation of getting away with it, when the audience is unlikely to challenge the claim or check it. When people expect to be held to account for what they say, they bullshit less. The practical lesson is that bullshit is situational: it flourishes where speaking is expected and scrutiny is not.
Bullibility
Petrocelli coins the term "bullibility" for susceptibility to bullshit and examines what raises it: reliance on anecdote over evidence, emotionally loaded language, fashionable buzzwords, and deference to apparent authority. These are the red flags he teaches readers to notice, in others' claims and in their own.
Cases and costs
The chapters work through concrete examples of what bullshit costs: price markups justified by wine-tasting mystique, the enduring corporate popularity of Myers-Briggs personality typing despite weak supporting evidence, the polished certainty of popular TED-style talks, and the methods of well-known public bullshit artists. He also interviews professionals whose livelihoods depend on detecting it, in used-car sales, diamonds and real estate, to extract the habits experienced skeptics actually use.
Detection and disposal
His prescription is a discipline of critical thinking rather than a checklist of debunked claims. Ask what evidence supports a claim and how the speaker could know it; weigh alternatives; prefer data to anecdote; resist rhetorical sleight of hand; and be willing to say "I don't know." He frames the goal in three steps: better detection, better disposal and better decisions.
Relevance to Bullshitopedia
The book supplies the psychological mechanics behind many entries on this site: why claims spread when nobody expects to be checked, and why authority, emotion and jargon so easily substitute for evidence. Its finding that accountability suppresses bullshitting is close to Bullshitopedia's own operating premise. A durable, public, evidence-linked record raises the cost of saying things without regard for the truth.
Related entries
- See also: On Bullshit (Frankfurt), Calling Bullshit (Bergstrom & West), Duped (Levine), Why People Believe Weird Things (Shermer)