Leader in Technology and Analytics @ McKinsey | Mathematician, Statistician and Psychometrician | Digital and Analytics Leader | Author and Teacher | Coder, Engineer, Architect
I find it highly amusing and fascinating that - according to the abstract of this article - there is an actual academic definition of bulls**t. Full paper: https://lnkd.in/gWxYtqH4 #ai #analytics #datascience #python #rstats #peopleanalytics
I think you will also enjoy learning that there is in fact an area of research even looking at specific type of bullshit, called pseudo-profound bullshit https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/on-the-reception-and-detection-of-pseudoprofound-bullshit/0D3C87BCC238BCA38BC55E395BDC9999
It was not the paper that defined that first Keith McNulty but the authors of the paper attributed that to philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, who is the author of the book "On Bullshit", which considers a series of steps to consider something as "Bullshit" as, e.g.: "Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted." https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691122946/on-bullshit
I have a copy of Harry Frankfurt's book, and recommend it. It's brief, useful, and amusing.
There's a whole course on this at university of Washington. It's excellent: callingbullshit.org All the course readings and lectures are posted for free. It's a great foundation for anyone who has to work with or interpret data or academic/industry jargon.
"We draw a distinction between two sorts of bullshit, which we call ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ bullshit" Tried to read it... made it to this sentence and started laughing and decided I didn't need to read any more
I have my own definition for bullshit: "Smart sounding statement with no real actionable information.". Example: "We have to align our growth-vectors first.". You work in the software department, what would you do after receiving this in an email? Falsehoods said with confidence can be either "honestly being wrong without knowing" or lying. I think ChatGPT is the former.
Waw, wikipedia already cites this paper in bullshit definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#cite_note-16
It is also taught as a college class. I guess it is called junk, crap, rubbish or Mist depending on the country... An up-and-coming academic field... 😂 https://ctbergstrom.com/teaching.html
Senior Process Expert at Novo Nordisk
3wI have Frankfurts book on my bookshelf, highly recommended, and a fast read! His point is that both truth and lying fundamentally respects objective reality - BS doesn’t.