Why people believe weird things | Michael Shermer

Translator: Aleksander Fabijan Reviewer: Janja Sterle

I'm Michael Shermer, director of the Skeptics Society,

Sem Michael Shermer, direktor organizacije Skeptična družba

publisher of "Skeptic" magazine.

in založnik revije Skeptik.

We investigate claims of the paranormal,

Raziskujemo paranormalnost, psevdo-znanost,

pseudo-science, fringe groups and cults, and claims of all kinds between,

obrobne skupine in kulte ter take in drugačne trditve;

science and pseudo-science and non-science and junk science,

znanost in psevdo-znanost, ne-znanost, junk-znanost,

voodoo science, pathological science, bad science, non-science,

vudu-znanost, patološko znanost, slabo znanost

and plain old non-sense.

in preproste starodavne bedarije.

And unless you've been on Mars recently,

Razen če niste ravno prišli z Marsa,

you know there's a lot of that out there.

veste, da je veliko teh znanosti na svetu.

Some people call us debunkers, which is kind of a negative term.

Ljudje nam pravijo razbijalci bedarij, kar je negativen izraz.

But let's face it, there's a lot of bunk.

Soočimo se z resnico - obstaja veliko bedarij.

We are like the bunko squads of the police departments out there --

Mi smo kot policijski preiskovalci bedarij.

well, we're sort of like the Ralph Naders of bad ideas,

Mi smo kot Ralph Naders s slabimi idejami.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

trying to replace bad ideas with good ideas.

Poskušamo zamenjati slabe ideje z dobrimi.

I'll show you an example of a bad idea.

Pokazal vam bom primer slabe ideje.

I brought this with me,

To sem prinesel s sabo.

this was given to us by NBC Dateline to test.

To smo dobili za testiranje od NBC Dateline.

It's produced by the Quadro Corporation of West Virginia.

Izdelala ga je korporacija Quadro iz Zahodne Virginije.

It's called the Quadro 2000 Dowser Rod.

To je detektorska palica Quadro 2000.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

This was being sold to high-school administrators for $900 apiece.

Palice so prodali srednjim šolam za 900 dolarjev na kos.

It's a piece of plastic with a Radio Shack antenna attached to it.

To je kos plastike z anteno.

You could dowse for all sorts of things,

S palico bi lahko iskal karkoli, a ta palica

but this particular one was built to dowse for marijuana

je bila izdelana za odkrivanje marihuane v šolskih omaricah.

in students' lockers.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

So the way it works is you go down the hallway,

Deluje tako. S palico hodiš med omaricami,

and you see if it tilts toward a particular locker,

če se palica obrne proti določeni omarici, odpreš omarico.

and then you open the locker.

So it looks something like this.

To bi izgledalo tako.

I'll show you.

Pokazal vam bom.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

Well, it has kind of a right-leaning bias.

Malo se nagiba v desno...

To je znanost. Naredili bomo kontroliran preizkus.

Well, this is science, so we'll do a controlled experiment.

Gotovo se bo obrnila tja.

It'll go this way for sure.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

Sir, do you want to empty your pockets, please, sir?

Gospod, bi izpraznili žepe, prosim?

(Laughter)

(smeh)

So the question was, can it actually find marijuana in students' lockers?

Vprašanje je bilo, ali lahko res najde marihuano v omarici?

And the answer is, if you open enough of them, yes.

Odgovor je... Če odprete dovolj omaric, ja.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

(Applause)

(aplavz)

But in science, we have to keep track of the misses, not just the hits.

V znanosti moramo upoštevati zmote, ne le zadetke.

And that's probably the key lesson to my short talk here:

To je ključna lekcija mojega govora;

This is how psychics work, astrologers, tarot card readers and so on.

tako delajo jasnovidci, astrologi, vedeževalci s kart...

People remember the hits and forget the misses.

Ljudje si zapomnijo zadetke in pozabijo na zmote.

In science, we keep the whole database,

V znanosti moramo voditi vso podatkovno zbirko

and look to see if the number of hits somehow stands out

in ugotoviti, če število zadetkov izstopa

from the total number you'd expect by chance.

iz skupnega števila, ki je pričakovano po naključju.

In this case, we tested it.

To napravo smo testirali.

We had two opaque boxes:

Imeli smo dve neprosojni škatli.

one with government-approved THC marijuana, and one with nothing.

V eni je bila THC marihuana, v drugi pa nič.

And it got it 50 percent of the time --

Palica je zadela v 50% testov.

(Laughter)

To je pričakovana kvota pri metanju kovanca.

which is exactly what you'd expect with a coin-flip model.

So that's just a fun little example here of the sorts of things we do.

To je zabaven primer tega, kar delamo.

Skeptik izide vsake tri mesece.

"Skeptic" is the quarterly publication. Each one has a particular theme.

Vsak ima določeno temo. Ta je o prihodnosti inteligence.

This one is on the future of intelligence.

Are people getting smarter or dumber?

Postajajo ljudje pametnejši ali neumnejši?

I have an opinion of this myself because of the business I'm in,

O tem imam svoje mnenje zaradi dela, ki ga opravljam.

but in fact, people, it turns out, are getting smarter.

Izkazalo se je, da postajajo ljudje pametnejši.

Vsakih 10 let se IQ dvigne za tri točke.

Three IQ points per 10 years, going up.

Sort of an interesting thing.

Zanimiva zadeva.

With science, don't think of skepticism as a thing, or science as a thing.

Ne mislite, da je skepticizem stvar ali da je znanost stvar.

Are science and religion compatible?

Sta znanost in religija združljivi?

It's like, are science and plumbing compatible?

Sta znanost in vodovodarstvo združljiva?

They're just two different things.

To sta dve različni stvari.

Science is not a thing. It's a verb.

Znanost ni stvar. Znanost je glagol.

It's a way of thinking about things.

To je način razmišljanja o stvareh.

It's a way of looking for natural explanations for all phenomena.

Je način iskanja naravnih razlag za fenomene.

I mean, what's more likely:

Kaj je bolj verjetno -

that extraterrestrial intelligences or multi-dimensional beings

da izvenzemeljske inteligence ali večdimenzionalna bitja potujejo

travel across vast distances of interstellar space

skozi širjave medzvezdnega prostora in naredijo kroge

to leave a crop circle in Farmer Bob's field in Puckerbrush, Kansas

na žitnem polju kmeta Boba v Kansasu za promocijo naše strani skeptic.com?

to promote skeptic.com, our web page?

Or is it more likely that a reader of "Skeptic" did this with Photoshop?

Ali je bolj mogoče, da je bralec Skeptika to naredil s programom Photoshop?

And in all cases we have to ask --

V vseh primerih se moramo vprašati...

(Laughter)

(smeh)

What's the more likely explanation?

...katera razlaga je najbolj možna?

Before we say something is out of this world,

Preden rečemo, da je nekaj izven tega sveta,

we should first make sure that it's not in this world.

se moramo prepričati, da gotovo ni s tega sveta.

What's more likely:

Kaj je bolj mogoče...

that Arnold had extraterrestrial help in his run for the governorship,

da je imel Arnold izvenzemeljsko pomoč pri kandidiranju za guvernerja?

or that the "World Weekly News" makes stuff up?

Ali da si World Weekly News izmišlja novice?

(Laughter)

(smeh)

The same theme is expressed nicely here in this Sidney Harris cartoon.

Ista tema je lepo predstavljena

na tej sliki s Sidneyjem Harrisom.

For those of you in the back, it says here: "Then a miracle occurs.

Za tiste zadaj, tu piše: Nato se zgodi čudež.

I think you need to be more explicit here in step two."

V drugem koraku morate biti bolj eksplicitni.

This single slide completely dismantles the intelligent design arguments.

Ta posnetek poruši vse inteligentne oblikovne argumente v obliki slike.

There's nothing more to it than that.

Ničesar drugega ni več.

(Applause)

(aplavz)

You can say a miracle occurs,

Lahko rečete, da se je zgodil čudež.

it's just that it doesn't explain anything or offer anything.

A to ne razloži ničesar.

There's nothing to test.

Ničesar ne ponudi. Ničesar ne moremo testirati.

It's the end of the conversation for intelligent design creationists.

To je konec pogovora za inteligentne ustvarjalce.

And it's true, scientists sometimes throw terms out as linguistic place fillers --

Kjerkoli že - in je res, znanstveniki uporabijo izraze, kot so

naslednji izrazi - temna energija ali temna snov ali kaj podobnega.

dark energy or dark matter, something like that --

until we figure out what it is, we'll call it this.

Dokler ne ugotovimo, kaj to je, naj bo ime takšno.

It's the beginning of the causal chain for science.

To je začetek tradicionalne verige za znanost.

Za inteligentne ustvarjalce je to konec verige.

For intelligent design creationists, it's the end of the chain.

Torej še enkrat se lahko vprašamo -- kaj je bolj verjetno --

So again, we can ask this: what's more likely?

Are UFOs alien spaceships, or perceptual cognitive mistakes, or even fakes?

so NLP-ji vesoljske ladje ali kognitivne napake, morda le ponaredki?

This is a UFO shot from my house in Altadena, California,

To je posnetek NLP-ja iz moje hiše v Altadeni v Kaliforniji.

looking down over Pasadena.

S pogledom proti Pasadeni.

And if it looks a lot like a Buick hubcap, it's because it is.

Če zgleda kot pokrov od avtomobilskega kolesa, je to zato, ker to je.

You don't even need Photoshop or high-tech equipment,

Ni potreben niti Photoshop niti vrhunska elektronska oprema,

you don't need computers.

niso potrebni računalniki.

This was shot with a throwaway Kodak Instamatic camera.

To je bilo posneto s Kodakovim fotoaparatom za enkratno uporabo.

You just have somebody off on the side with a hubcap ready to go.

Potrebuješ le nekoga, ki drži pokrov, in si pripravljen.

Camera's ready -- that's it.

Fotoaparat je pripravljen - to je to.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

So, although it's possible that most of these things are fake

Čeprav je mogoče, da je večina teh reči ponaredkov

or illusions or so on, and that some of them are real,

ali iluzij, ter da je nekaj od njih resničnih,

it's more likely that all of them are fake, like the crop circles.

je bolj verjetno, da so vsi ponaredki, kot žitni krogi.

On a more serious note, in all of science we're looking for a balance

Če se zresnimo, v celotni znanosti iščemo ravnovesje

between data and theory.

med podatki in teorijo.

In the case of Galileo, he had two problems

Na primer, Galilejo je imel dva problema,

when he turned his telescope to Saturn.

ko je usmeril teleskop proti Saturnu.

First of all, there was no theory of planetary rings.

Prvič, takrat ni bilo nobene teorije o planetarnih obročih.

Second of all, his data was grainy and fuzzy,

Drugič, njegovi posnetki so bili nejasni in nečisti,

and he couldn't quite make out what he was looking at.

zato ni mogel natančno ugotoviti, kaj gleda.

So he wrote that he had seen --

Napisal je torej, kar je videl:

"I have observed that the furthest planet has three bodies."

"Opazil sem, da ima najbolj oddaljeni planet tri telesa."

And this is what he ended up concluding that he saw.

In to je tisto, kar je na koncu trdil, da je videl.

So without a theory of planetary rings and with only grainy data,

Brez teorije o planetarnih obročih in samo z nejasnimi podatki

you can't have a good theory.

ni mogoče imeti dobre teorije.

It wasn't solved until 1655.

In vse do leta 1655 ni bilo rešeno.

This is Christiaan Huygens's book that catalogs all the mistakes

To je knjiga Cristiaana Huygensa, v kateri je zapisal vse napake,

people made trying to figure out what was going on with Saturn.

ki so jih naredili ljudje, ko so skušali ugotoviti, kaj se dogaja s Saturnom.

It wasn't till Huygens had two things:

Vse dokler ni imel Huygens dveh stvari.

He had a good theory of planetary rings and how the solar system operated,

Dobre teorije o planetarnih obročih in delovanju sončnega sistema.

and he had better telescopic, more fine-grain data

Imel je tudi boljši teleskop in natančnejše podatke,

in which he could figure out that as the Earth is going around faster --

iz katerih je lahko ugotovil, da Zemlja kroži hitreje

according to Kepler's Laws -- than Saturn, then we catch up with it.

- po Keplerjevih zakonih - kot Saturn, kasneje ga mi dohitimo.

And we see the angles of the rings at different angles, there.

Tudi obroči so vidni pod različnimi koti.

And that, in fact, turns out to be true.

In to se je izkazalo za resnično.

The problem with having a theory is that it may be loaded with cognitive biases.

Problem s teorijo je ta,

da je morda v njej veliko dvoumnosti.

So one of the problems of explaining why people believe weird things

Zato je eden od problemov, zakaj ljudje verjamejo v čudne stvari

is that we have things, on a simple level,

ta, da gledamo na stvari na osnovni ravni.

and then I'll go to more serious ones.

Potem bom pokazal zapletenejše primere.

Like, we have a tendency to see faces.

Na primer, ljudje pogosto vidimo obraze.

This is the face on Mars.

To je obraz na Marsu, ki je bil

In 1976, where there was a whole movement to get NASA to photograph that area

slikan leta 1976, med NASINIM raziskovanjem

in slikanjem tistega območja, ker so ljudje mislili

because people thought this was monumental architecture made by Martians.

da je to arhitektura, ki so jo naredili Marsovci.

Here's the close-up of it from 2001.

No, izkaže se - tu je bližnji posnetek iz leta 2001.

If you squint, you can still see the face.

Če nekoliko zaškilimo, vidimo obraz.

And when you're squinting,

In ko škilimo v bistvu

you're turning that from fine-grain to coarse-grain,

spreminjamo kvaliteto iz dobre v slabo.

so you're reducing the quality of your data.

Torej zmanjšujemo kvaliteto podatkov.

And if I didn't tell you what to look for, you'd still see the face,

Tudi če vam ne bi povedal, kaj morate videti,bi še vedno videli obraz,

because we're programmed by evolution to see faces.

ker smo ljudje z evolucijo programirani, da vidimo obraze.

Faces are important for us socially.

Obrazi so za nas družbeno pomembni.

And of course, happy faces, faces of all kinds are easy to see.

In seveda - srečni obrazi.

Enostavno je videti različne obraze.

You see the happy face on Mars, there.

(smeh)

Lahko opazite nasmejan obraz na Marsu.

(Laughter)

If astronomers were frogs, perhaps they'd see Kermit the Frog.

Če bi bili astronavti žabe, bi morda videli Kermita.

Do you see him there? Little froggy legs.

Ali ga vidite?

Or if geologists were elephants?

Majhne žabje nogice.

Ali pa če bi bili geologi sloni?

Religious iconography.

Verska ikona.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

Discovered by a Tennessee baker in 1996.

Odkril jo je pekar iz Tennesseeja leta 1996.

He charged five bucks a head to come see the nun bun

Računal je 5$ na osebo, ki je hotela videti nuno,

till he got a cease-and-desist from Mother Teresa's lawyer.

vse dokler ni dobil prepovedi odvetnika Matere Tereze.

Here's Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Watsonville, just down the street,

Tukaj je Naša Dama iz Guadalupe in Naša Dama iz Watsonvilla, dol po cesti.

or is it up the street from here?

Ali morda navzgor po cesti?

Tree bark is particularly good because it's nice and grainy, branchy,

Vzorec na drevesu je še posebej dober, ker je grob,

black-and-white splotchy and you can get the pattern-seeking --

črnobel in nepravilen. Kot nalašč za iskanje vzorcev --

humans are pattern-seeking animals.

ljudje smo iskalci vzorcev.

Here's the Virgin Mary on the side of a glass window in Sao Paulo.

Tukaj je Devica Marija na zunanjem delu steklenega okna v Sao Paulu.

Here's when the Virgin Mary made her appearance on a cheese sandwich --

In tukaj je Devica Marija na sendviču -

ki sem ga držal lasvegaškem kazinoju,

which I got to actually hold in a Las Vegas casino --

of course, this being America.

seveda - v Ameriki.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

This casino paid $28,500 on eBay for the cheese sandwich.

Ta kazino je plačal 28,500$ na eBay-u za dva sirova sendviča.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

But who does it really look like? The Virgin Mary?

Ampak komu je zares podobna, Devici Mariji?

(Laughter)

(smeh)

It has that sort of puckered lips, 1940s-era look.

Ima lička iz 1940-ih let.

Virgin Mary in Clearwater, Florida.

Devica Marija v Clearwathu na Floridi.

I actually went to see this one.

Slednjo sem dejansko šel pogledat.

There was a lot of people there.

Veliko ljudi je bilo tam, vernikov

The faithful come in their wheelchairs and crutches, and so on.

v invalidskih vozičkih, z berglami in tako naprej.

We went down and investigated.

Zadevo smo raziskali.

Just to give you a size, that's Dawkins, me and The Amazing Randi,

Samo da dobite predstavo o velikosti - Dawkins, jaz in neverjetni Randi,

next to this two, two and a half story-sized image.

nasproti teh dveh pa dva in pol nadstropja velika slika.

All these candles, thousands of candles people had lit in tribute to this.

Vse te sveče so prižgali verniki.

So we walked around the backside, to see what was going on.

Odšli smo na zadnjo stran, da bi videli, kaj se dogaja tam.

It turns out wherever there's a sprinkler head and a palm tree,

Izkazalo se je, da kjerkoli imamo škropilnico in palmino drevo,

you get the effect.

dobimo ta efekt.

Here's the Virgin Mary on the backside, which they started to wipe off.

Tu je Devica Marija na zadnji strani, katero so začeli brisati.

I guess you can only have one miracle per building.

Ugibam, da imaš lahko le en čudež na zgradbo.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

So is it really a miracle of Mary, or is it a miracle of Marge?

Ampak, ali je res Marijin čudež ali je to Marge?

(Laughter)

(smeh)

And now I'm going to finish up with another example of this,

Zaključil bom še z enim primerom.

with auditory illusions.

Z glasbo - glasbeno iluzijo.

There's this film, "White Noise," with Michael Keaton,

Obstaja film "Bel Šum",

z Michaelom Kaeatonom, govori o mrtvih, ki govorijo z nami.

about the dead talking back to us.

By the way, the whole business of talking to the dead is not that big a deal.

Mimogrede, ves ta posel govorjenja mrtvim sploh ni tako težaven.

Vsakdo lahko to naredi.

Anybody can do it, turns out.

It's getting the dead to talk back that's the really hard part.

Težje je narediti, da mrtvi odgovori.

(smeh)

(Laughter)

V tem primeru so sporočila skrita v elektronskem zapisu.

In this case, supposedly, these messages are hidden in electronic phenomena.

There's a ReverseSpeech.com web page where I downloaded this stuff.

S spletne strani ReverseSpeech.com sem prenesel te stvari.

This is the most famous one of all of these.

Tukaj je normalen posnetek - najbolj znan od vseh tovrstnih posnetkov.

Here's the forward version of the very famous song.

To je normalen posnetek ene najbolj znanih pesmi.

(Music with lyrics)

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow don't be alarmed now.

It's just a spring clean for the May Queen.

Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run,

There's still time to change the road you're on.

(Music ends)

Couldn't you just listen to that all day?

Ne bi to lahko poslušali cel dan?

(smeh)

All right, here it is backwards,

In zdaj posnetek nazaj,

and see if you can hear the hidden messages that are supposedly in there.

poskusite, če boste slišali sporočilo, ki je baje zakrinkano.

(Music with unintelligible lyrics)

(Lyrics) Satan!

(Unintelligible lyrics continue)

What did you get? Audience: Satan!

Kaj ste ujeli?

Satan. OK, at least we got "Satan".

(Občinstvo: Satan.)

Now, I'll prime the auditory part of your brain

Satan? Vsaj to smo ujeli.

to tell you what you're supposed to hear, and then hear it again.

Sedaj bom prepričal glasbeni del vaših možganov,

kaj morate slišati in vam posnetek zopet predvajal.

(Music with lyrics)

(Music ends)

(Laughter)

(smeh)

(Applause)

(Aplavz)

You can't miss it when I tell you what's there.

Ne morete zgrešiti, ko vam povem, kaj je tam.

(Laughter)

(smeh)

I'm going to just end with a positive, nice little story.

Končal bom z lepo pozitivno zgodbo

o - the Skeptics je neprofitna izobraževalna organizacija.

The Skeptics is a nonprofit educational organization.

We're always looking for little good things that people do.

Vedno iščemo male, dobre stvari, ki jih ustvarijo ljudje.

And in England, there's a pop singer.

V Angliji je priljubljena pop pevka.

One of the top popular singers in England today, Katie Melua.

Zelo priljubljena - na vrhu lestvic priljubljenosti v Angliji danes, Katie Melua.

And she wrote a beautiful song.

Napisala je prečudovito pesem.

It was in the top five in 2005, called, "Nine Million Bicycles in Beijing."

Leta 2005 je bila med prvimi petimi na svetu s pesmijo "Nine Milion Bicycles in Beijing".

It's a love story -- she's sort of the Norah Jones of the UK --

Je ljubezenska zgodba - ona je kot Norah Jones Velike Britanije -

about how she much loves her guy,

o tem, kako močno ljubi svojega fanta

and compared to nine million bicycles, and so forth.

v primerjavi z devetimi milijoni koles in tako naprej.

And she has this one passage here.

V pesmi je ta odlomek.

(Music)

(Lyrics) We are 12 billion light-years from the edge

♫Smo 12 miljardd svetlobnih let od roba♫©

♫To je ugibanje♫

That's a guess,

No one can ever say it's true,

♫Nihče ne more potrditi, da je res♫

But I know that I will always be with you.

♫Vendar vem, da vedno s tabo bom♫

No, to je prijetno.

Michael Shermer: Well, that's nice. At least she got it close.

Navsezadnje je bila blizu.

In America it'd be, "We're 6,000 light years from the edge."

V Ameriki bi bilo, "Smo 6000 svetlobnih let od roba"

(Laughter)

(smeh)

But my friend, Simon Singh, the particle physicist now turned science educator,

Toda moj prijatelj Simon Singh, fizik, sedaj znanstvenik,

who wrote the book "The Big Bang," and so on,

je napisal knjigo Veliki Pok.

uses every chance he gets to promote good science.

Vsako priložnost izkoristi za promoviranje dobre znanosti.

And so he wrote an op-ed piece in "The Guardian" about Katie's song,

Zato je v časopisu Guardian napisal članek o pesmi,

in which he said, well, we know exactly how far from the edge.

v katerem je zatrdil, da vemo natančno, kako stari, kako daleč od roba smo.

You know, it's 13.7 billion light years, and it's not a guess.

Smo 12, 13.7 milijard let stari in to ni ugibanje.

We know within precise error bars how close it is.

Natančno vemo, kako blizu smo.

So we can say, although not absolutely true, it's pretty close to being true.

In tako lahko rečemo, da ne absolutno resnično, a zelo blizu resničnemu.

And, to his credit, Katie called him up after this op-ed piece came out, and said,

Po objavi članka ga je Katie poklicala.

Ogovorila ga je: "Zelo me je sram".

"I'm so embarrassed. I was in the astronomy club.

Bila sem članka astronomskega krožka in lahko bi vedela bolj natančno.

I should've known better."

And she re-cut the song.

Tako je popravila pesem.

So I will end with the new version.

Končal bo z novo verzijo.

(Music with lyrics)

♫Smo 13.7 miljarde svetlobnih let♫

We are 13.7 billion light years

from the edge of the observable universe.

♫od roba opazovanega vesolja♫

♫To je dober približek z dobro natančnostjo napake♫

That's a good estimate with well-defined error bars.

♫In z dosegljivi informacijami♫

And with the available information,

♫predvideva, da s tabo vedno bom♫

I predict that I will always be with you.

(Laughter)

(aplavz)

How cool is that?

Kako kul je to?

(Applause)

(aplavz)