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Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

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Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#41

Post by usrn »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #28
lotophage wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, but there somehow seems different quality to them. The myths of old seemed to be little factoids that were not easy to verify and were taken at face value, then just spread until they became "common knowledge". The new ones seem to have an almost religious quality to them. Flat-earthers for example, if someone told me 25 years ago that this would be a thing I would have just laughed.

> if someone told me 25 years ago that this would be a thing I would have just laughed. Wikipedia says In the modern era, the pseudoscientific belief in a flat Earth originated with the English writer Samuel Rowbotham with the 1849 pamphlet Zetetic Astronomy. In 1956, Samuel Shenton set up the International Flat Earth Research Society (IFERS), better known as the "Flat Earth Society" from Dover, England, as a direct…

Alex Jones isn't real and the man who plays him is part of a massive conspiracy inside the deep state.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#43

Post by TillE »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #39

This reminds me of the first "scientific myth" I witnessed. It was in the 80's in France where we had a photocopied page with "the most dangerous additives". The worst was E330. 40 years later, I still remember it. My parents had a copy from sime friends and these well educated people (dad is an engineer and mom a lawyer) checked everything against the list. Just because it was "from the Villejuif hospital". It was a…

I don't remember the exact context at this point, but I've definitely encountered someone complaining about "ascorbic acid" as an additive, which is of course vitamin C.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#44

Post by pohl »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #35
riebschlager wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of post-internet myths that are humming along just fine. :D It's a crazy phenomenon to watch play out.

Pre-internet, it was harder to debunk myths but also harder to spread them. Nowadays, it’s easier to debunk myths but also much easier to spread them. These do not necessarily cancel out; as they say, “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it.” As an extreme example, pre-internet, a conspiracy theory-inclined person might randomly run across a handful of full-b…

Moreover, now it's now easy for adherents to some myths to find each other on the internet. IMO this is not a good tradeoff.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#45

Post by nibbleshifter »

Retric wrote: post #38
sorenjan wrote: post #36

Another similar myth is the one Malcom Gladwell made up about how it takes 10 000 hours of doing something to become an expert at that thing. It was based on research that used 10 000 as an average for 20 year old violinists. The original researcher, Anders Ericsson, focuses much more on deliberate practice than sheer quantity. https://www.6seconds.org/2022/06/20/10000-hour-rule/ Related Freakonomics episode with And…

10,000 is a round number representing a large fraction of a young person’s life, ~20 hours a week for 10 years. It seems significant because we assume talented young people can be experts if they spend a lot of time on something, but it really just reflects the criteria chosen for defining experts and time on a subject. A prerequisite of becoming a Doctor for example is learning how to read, but that’s not considered…

Similarly, 10,000 being a round number is how it was chosen arbitrarily by the Japanese for the 10,000 steps thing that has since caught on globally.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#46

Post by TillE »

sorenjan wrote: post #36

Another similar myth is the one Malcom Gladwell made up about how it takes 10 000 hours of doing something to become an expert at that thing. It was based on research that used 10 000 as an average for 20 year old violinists. The original researcher, Anders Ericsson, focuses much more on deliberate practice than sheer quantity. https://www.6seconds.org/2022/06/20/10000-hour-rule/ Related Freakonomics episode with And…

I don't think Gladwell is a particularly insightful guy, but as someone who has actually read a couple of his books, I feel like the "10,000 hours" thing is frequently misrepresented.

The claim isn't "put in 10k hours and you'll magically become an expert". It's "if you want to become an expert, you have to put in 10k hours". Necessary but not sufficient.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#47

Post by throwawayffffas »

I am just going to plug my favorite podcast here. It's usually about conspiracy theories but they are currently doing a special about how bad ideas occasionally flow from the top with disastrous effect, unfortunately the special is pay-walled. But the conspiracy - Q stuff is pretty good too.

https://www.patreon.com/qanonanonymous/posts

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#48

Post by FridayoLeary »

“Insofar as she recognized at all that she was dreaming, she realized that she must be exploring her subconscious mind. She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was really clear what the other nine tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.”

― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#49

Post by knicholes »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #28
lotophage wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, but there somehow seems different quality to them. The myths of old seemed to be little factoids that were not easy to verify and were taken at face value, then just spread until they became "common knowledge". The new ones seem to have an almost religious quality to them. Flat-earthers for example, if someone told me 25 years ago that this would be a thing I would have just laughed.

> if someone told me 25 years ago that this would be a thing I would have just laughed. Wikipedia says In the modern era, the pseudoscientific belief in a flat Earth originated with the English writer Samuel Rowbotham with the 1849 pamphlet Zetetic Astronomy. In 1956, Samuel Shenton set up the International Flat Earth Research Society (IFERS), better known as the "Flat Earth Society" from Dover, England, as a direct…

Oh my gosh, there are tons of them. My mother-in-law ensures I hear about them all, passionately, each time she visits.

Bill and Melinda Gates are cyborgs whose bodies have been replaced. They're trying to track everyone with vaccine microchips. (There were variations on this theme including 5G)

Michelle Obama is a man.

9/11 buildings were vaporized by a high-powered, government laser.

Chemtrails are full of heavy metal and are being used to control our minds.

Putting hydrogen peroxide in your ear can cure all sorts of things, including cancer and cystic fibrosis.

"The Jews" are disproportionately represented in the government and media and are behind the whole woke movement to punish white people.

Any number of things about George Soros and ANTIFA.

The moon landing was faked.

The list goes on and on. Every time it's something even more crazy than the last.

Re: Ten Percent of the Brain Myth

#50

Post by ugjka »

nibbleshifter wrote: post #45
Retric wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10,000 is a round number representing a large fraction of a young person’s life, ~20 hours a week for 10 years. It seems significant because we assume talented young people can be experts if they spend a lot of time on something, but it really just reflects the criteria chosen for defining experts and time on a subject. A prerequisite of becoming a Doctor for example is learning how to read, but that’s not considered…

Similarly, 10,000 being a round number is how it was chosen arbitrarily by the Japanese for the 10,000 steps thing that has since caught on globally.

And 10,000 things
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