How Seductive is the Reductive Allure? Exploring the suggested bias for scientific explanations containing irrelevant reductive information
(2018) PSYK11 20172Department of Psychology
- Abstract
- Earlier studies have shown that when assessing explanations of psychological phenomena, there is a bias for explanations including references to neuroscience, even when these references contain logically irrelevant information (Fernandez-Duque, Evans, Christian & Hodges, 2015; M inahan & Siedlecki, 2016; Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson and Gray, 2008; Weisberg, Taylor & Hopkins, 2015). Recently, it was suggested that this bias applies to reductive explanations within many sciences, i.e., explanations reducing a phenomenon to more fundamental parts, regardless of explanation logic (Hopkins, Weisberg & Taylor, 2016). The current study expands upon these findings through a methodological improvement, investigating individual preferences for... (More)
- Earlier studies have shown that when assessing explanations of psychological phenomena, there is a bias for explanations including references to neuroscience, even when these references contain logically irrelevant information (Fernandez-Duque, Evans, Christian & Hodges, 2015; M inahan & Siedlecki, 2016; Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson and Gray, 2008; Weisberg, Taylor & Hopkins, 2015). Recently, it was suggested that this bias applies to reductive explanations within many sciences, i.e., explanations reducing a phenomenon to more fundamental parts, regardless of explanation logic (Hopkins, Weisberg & Taylor, 2016). The current study expands upon these findings through a methodological improvement, investigating individual preferences for reductive information within social science, psychology and neuroscience. The results did not indicate a bias towards reductive information. However, results and ratings were not consistent across the scientific fields. It was shown that participants were less able to separate a good explanation from a bad
explanation for neuroscientific phenomena. The implications of these findings are discussed. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8933160
- author
- Larsson, Klara LU and Särlöv, Philip LU
- supervisor
-
- Elia Psouni LU
- organization
- course
- PSYK11 20172
- year
- 2018
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- keywords
- seductive allure, reductive allure, explanations, cognitive bias, reasoning
- language
- English
- id
- 8933160
- date added to LUP
- 2018-01-24 14:39:23
- date last changed
- 2018-01-24 14:39:23
@misc{8933160,
abstract = {{Earlier studies have shown that when assessing explanations of psychological phenomena, there is a bias for explanations including references to neuroscience, even when these references contain logically irrelevant information (Fernandez-Duque, Evans, Christian & Hodges, 2015; M inahan & Siedlecki, 2016; Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson and Gray, 2008; Weisberg, Taylor & Hopkins, 2015). Recently, it was suggested that this bias applies to reductive explanations within many sciences, i.e., explanations reducing a phenomenon to more fundamental parts, regardless of explanation logic (Hopkins, Weisberg & Taylor, 2016). The current study expands upon these findings through a methodological improvement, investigating individual preferences for reductive information within social science, psychology and neuroscience. The results did not indicate a bias towards reductive information. However, results and ratings were not consistent across the scientific fields. It was shown that participants were less able to separate a good explanation from a bad
explanation for neuroscientific phenomena. The implications of these findings are discussed.}},
author = {{Larsson, Klara and Särlöv, Philip}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{How Seductive is the Reductive Allure? Exploring the suggested bias for scientific explanations containing irrelevant reductive information}},
year = {{2018}},
}