The Nonsense Math Effect

Last updated on: January 16, 2013 at 11:00 am by Joe Carter

The Nonsense Math Effect 2013-01-13T05:52:11+00:00 Joe Carter

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

A new study finds that even academic scholars perceived research to be of higher quality if there’s some math involved—even if the math makes no sense:

Mathematics is a fundamental tool of research. Although potentially applicable in every discipline, the amount of training in mathematics that students typically receive varies greatly between different disciplines. In those disciplines where most researchers do not master mathematics, the use of mathematics may be held in too much awe. To demonstrate this I conducted an online experiment with 200 participants, all of which had experience of reading research reports and a postgraduate degree (in any subject). Participants were presented with the abstracts from two published papers (one in evolutionary anthropology and one in sociology). Based on these abstracts, participants were asked to judge the quality of the research. Either one or the other of the two abstracts was manipulated through the inclusion of an extra sentence taken from a completely unrelated paper and presenting an equation that made no sense in the context. The abstract that included the meaningless mathematics tended to be judged of higher quality. However, this “nonsense math effect” was not found among participants with degrees in mathematics, science, technology or medicine.

(Via: Freakonomics)

Science

Previous Post

January 15, 2013

Almost Half of the World's Food is Thrown Away

Next Post

January 16, 2013 Guardian of the Golden Gate Bridge

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anecdotes Art Biblical Studies Bioethics Books Christianity Conservatism Economics Education Evangelicalism Family History Language Arts Military Misc. Moral Philosophy Movies Music Oddities Philosophy Poetry Politics Pop Culture Quotes Science Self-Improvement Shameless Self-Promotion Signs of the Times Technology Television Theology Thirty Three Things Videos Virtues Worldviews

Select a Month December 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which apostle did Jesus say, "Get thee behind me, Satan…"

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter James John Judas