Summary of Stuart Ritchie's Science Fictions

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 The world learned that undergraduate students have psychic powers. A paper published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal by a top professor found that some unconscious, evolved psychic desire nudged students towards the erotic picture.

#2 A paper published in a top psychology journal found that some unconscious, evolved psychic desire nudged students towards the erotic picture. But when three psychologists re-ran the experiment with different undergraduate students, they found nothing.

#3 The world learned that some undergraduate students have psychic powers. But when three psychologists re-ran the experiment with different undergraduate students, they found nothing.

#4 In 2018, a paper was published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal that found that some unconscious, evolved psychic desire nudged students towards the erotic picture. But when three psychologists re-ran the experiment with different undergraduate students, they found nothing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Oct 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9798350033113

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

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Insights on Stuart Ritchie's Science Fictions

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The world found out on January 31, 2011 that undergraduate students have psychic powers. A new scientific paper had found evidence for psychic precognition, the ability to see into the future using extrasensory perception.

#2

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which published Bem’s study, had a policy of never publishing studies that repeat a previous experiment, whether or not those studies find the same results as the original.

#3

The problem with Stapel’s case was that none of it was real. He would sit alone in his office or at his kitchen table late into the night, typing the numbers he required for his imaginary results into a spreadsheet.

#4

The scientific community has been shown to be content to take the dramatic claims made by studies at face value, without checking how durable the results are. And if there are no double-checks on the replicability of results, how do we know they aren’t just flukes or fakes.

#5

Science is a social thing, and it’s inherently a human thing. To enable scientists to convince one another while trying to transcend the inherent limitations of human nature, science has evolved a system of checks and balances that sorts the scientific wheat from the chaff. But this process can’t be trusted to be unbiased.

#6

The first step in fixing our broken scientific system is to learn to spot and correct the mistakes that can lead it astray. We must have more science, and meta-science represents that process aimed inwards.

#7

The positive thought to hold onto is that science still has the potential to be the robust and reliable system of knowledge that it needs to be. However, there is a mess waiting to be cleaned up.

#8

Science is a social construct. It is not enough for scientists to