I really really want to talk about a
task, a test that basically everyone
fails. I have a hunch that you won't
fail this test, Hannah. Um
>> Not so sure. But we'll see. We'll see.
Let me give you some context first,
which I shouldn't normally do because in
in actual experiments where this task is
given, people are just there to get
their 10 bucks and go. And I think that
if you hype it up and you tell people,
"Oh, you got to really think about it.
Oh, it's so difficult. Oh, it's such a
tricky one." Then people will probably
spend more time and get it right. Okay?
We can talk about all of that later, but
let's just dive right into it. This is a
reasoning test, a very simple single
question that involves four cards that
was devised in 1966 by Peter Cathcart
Wason. And it is basically the test when
it comes to studying the psychology of
reason. All right? If you look into the
history of our scientific study of human
reasoning, you basically only find this
test. The test is called the Wason
selection task, and it was developed in
1966
by Peter Cathcart Wason. Now, today it
has been called the most intensely
researched single problem in the history
of reasoning.
And my two favorite philosophers,
researchers of reason, Mercier and
Sperber, they call it what they actually
don't know what to call it. This is what
they say. Is this selection task to
psychology of reasoning what the
microscope has been to biology?
Or is it rather as the Rubik's Cube has
been to biology? Just [snorts]
kind of baffling and fun. Hm. Not adding
anything really of of any merit. Hm. So
in Wason's original test, only 10% of
people got it right.
If you look across all the studies that
have replicated that since, you get a
number closer to 4%.
And that's that's not super surprising.
There are difficult questions out there.
But with some slight changes, we can
make everyone get it right. And that is
what is so strange. So let's begin with
the original.
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>> [music]
>> This isn't the most I'd say the most
famous version of it, but this is
exactly what Wason gave people back in
1966.
I'm going to show you four cards. Just
imagine they're like playing cards. Now,
on each, there is a letter on one side
and a number on the other side. Two of
the cards have their letter side up, and
two have their number side up. Now,
these are the cards that you see. You
see a card with the letter A as in
alpha,
G as in giraffe.
That famous phonetic dictionary, yeah?
Oh, it's going to get worse, Hannah.
The third card has a seven as in 724,
and the last card has an eight as in 81.
A G 7 8. Okay. Now,
what I need you to do is indicate for me
which of these cards you would need to
turn over
to judge whether the following rule is
true. If there is an A on one side,
there is a seven on the other.
To recap for those who are listening,
you have four cards in front of you,
letters on one side, numbers on the
other. Okay? That's true. But you can
only see one side of a card at a time.
And what you're seeing is A,
G, 7, 8. Which ones will you need to
turn over to judge whether this rule is
true? If there's an A on one side, there
is a seven on the other side. Okay.
>> [sighs]
>> That is what this episode is about. I
mean, I think let's just get into it.
Let's get into it. So So take take some
time. Also, actually, I want to know how
familiar you are with this, Hannah. Have
you seen this before? Okay. I have seen
a version of this test before. And what
I should tell you is that initially I
think I got it wrong.
Yeah, me too. I also
vaguely remember the trap that I fell
into, but not completely. And I haven't
seen this version. And so I'm going to
have to think it through incredibly
carefully. Okay, think it through. Okay.
So, right. You know that these four
cards, a letter on one side, a number on
the other. Sure.
Okay. Which means that there is a number
hiding behind the A, there's a number
hiding behind the G. That's right.
There's also a letter behind the seven,
and there's a letter behind the eight.
The the rule says, "If there is a" This
is what I'm trying to test. "If there is
an A on one side, there is a seven on
the other." Right. So, turning over the
eight doesn't tell me anything. I I
mean, I don't really care what's on the
other side of the eight because even if
it it's an A,
uh Oh, no way. That's not true. Mhm.
Oh, hold on. I've got it wrong already.
Yeah. What I was immediately thinking
was I want to turn over the A
to see if there's a seven on the other
side, right?
>> Okay. So Immediately, the first thing
you want to do is check whether there's
a seven on the on the reverse of the A.
Okay. All right. So, you're going to
turn over the A card. Any others? To see
if there's a seven. Turning over the G,
I don't think tells me anything because
I don't really care what's on the
reverse of the G. The rule doesn't
involve G's.
Okay. It says, "If there is an A on one
side," which there isn't, so I don't
care.
So I can ignore the G card.
The seven card, I'd be really tempted to
turn over to see if there was an A on
the other side because then that would
be another instance of the rule. Right.
>> But the way the rule is phrased is that
it says, "If there is an A on one side,
there is a seven on the other." It
doesn't say you can only have sevens
where A's exist. Correct.
>> So actually, you could have a J on the
other side of the seven, and it wouldn't
violate the rule. That'd be fine. That
would be fine. So even though my
temptation is to say turn over A and
seven, actually I think you need to turn
over A and eight.
Because if you turn over eight and it's
got an A on the other side,
that would violate the rule, right?
Correct. You aced it, Hannah. I mean, I
did, but I almost mucked up at the
beginning there. Let's be honest. Well,
it it's amazingly tough like that. Now,
imagine that you weren't a professor of
mathematics at Cambridge on a podcast
called The Puzzle Almost Everyone Gets
Wrong. Yeah. [laughter and gasps]
Yeah, and having seen it before. And
having seen it before.
>> [gasps]
>> Yeah. Wow. You're right.
>> So So I want to immediately jump to a
different version. Okay.
>> This is the exact same problem, except
this time instead of letters and
numbers, the cards are about people in a
bar. Okay.
>> Or a pub for those of you across the
Atlantic.
>> Thank you. You're welcome. I'm I'm sure
you all were going, "Oh, what's he
talking about?" A bar?
>> [laughter]
>> A bar?
All right. Look, the deal is that in
this case, the cards are about people in
a bar. And on one side of the card, you
have the person's age. And on the other
side, you have what it is they are
currently drinking.
Okay. Once again, you have four cards,
and you are a police officer, and it's
your job to make sure that no one is
drinking under age. On some of these
cards, you can only see their age.
You're going to have to turn them over
to see what they're drinking. On others,
you only see what they're drinking,
you'll have to turn them over to get
their age. This is what you see in front
of you, these four cards. The age 12,
Mhm. the age 35, the drink soda,
and the drink beer.
Okay. Which ones do you need to turn
over to determine whether or not the
rule is being obeyed that you cannot
drink under age? Okay. Well Well, now is
immediately obvious to me that the
the person who is 30, they can drink
whatever they like. I don't need I don't
care what they're drinking. Yeah. And
And likewise, the person who's drinking
soda, I mean, someone should speak to
their parents about them being in a bar.
But
>> [laughter]
>> I don't care I don't care what they're I
don't care what their age is. It's not
It's not relevant. Yes.
>> So immediately, it's like, well, what's
the 12-year-old drinking and who's
drinking the beer? That's That's
>> That's it, right? I mean, that's it.
It's It's the exact same answer as the
one before, the first and the last card,
except it's just so much faster to get
to the answer.
>> Yeah, what like the the original
formulation of that is genuinely
confusing, extremely difficult to
logically work your way through, and
even when you get there, you're I don't
know. I'm really like double-checking
myself, but that other one is
instinctive. It's It's automatic.
>> Yeah, no one needs an explanation for
why you need to check the 12-year-old
and the beer drinker. It's It's almost
just evident prima facie. Like, I get
it. Whereas, when we replace the ages
and the beverage with numbers and
letters, it becomes very abstract.
And, of course, we see this reflect in
people's performance. When it comes to
letters and numbers, like I said, four,
maybe 10% of people get it right, but
when it comes to the beer and the ages,
everyone gets it right. I mean, the
people who get it wrong are the people
who are like just trying to be
goof-offs. I mean, seriously, it's like
It's like this not It's not even really
a question. So,
why is it so much more difficult for us
to solve the problem when it's abstract
like this? Is that the key to explaining
why this is so difficult? Well, as you
can imagine, for the last, you know,
gosh, 50, 60 years, 60 years now,
actually, this year. Happy birthday,
Wason selection task.
Um You are old enough to drink.
Congratulations.
>> to drink, for sure. You're not quite old
enough to collect social security in
America, though.
No. But, when that day comes, uh we will
we will be here for you.
Researchers have spent decades creating
slightly different versions, uh
including the drinking in a bar version.
The question is, is this revealing
something about an individual's
abilities, or is it revealing something
even deeper just about humans in
general?
Because it doesn't necessarily seem to
separate the smarty-pants people from
the dum-dums. Even really smart people
tend to perform about as badly. You can
take, you know, a big Harvard graduating
class, and they'll struggle with it,
too.
The The things that we know help people
solve it is making the puzzle be about a
social rule,
or phrasing the question in a way that
makes it extremely clear that they need
to be looking for today's magic word,
counterexamples.
Right. So, can I can I ask some
questions? You can. The 4% of people who
do get it right, who who are they then?
In the original formulation of the test,
or or some some variant of? I haven't
actually found a lot of good breakdowns
on who those people are. Like, literally
in the literature, they're often called
exceptional people.
>> [laughter]
>> Oh, to be an exceptional person. I'll
I'll show you the papers. They're like,
if you get it right, you're either an
exceptional person or
uh a lucky guesser. There was one paper
that said like the best The most The
most
um strong correlation is whether you
have taken logic classes. Okay. So, it's
sort of mathematically minded people.
Exactly. It's people who go, "Aha, yes,
I am familiar with modus tollens and
denying the antecedent, and here we go."
>> Do you want to give us a quick quick run
down on
>> [laughter]
>> modus tollens? Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay.
So, I mean, look, the Wason selection
task presents us with what's called a
conditional statement, if then. We use
these all the time. Hey, if you don't
call me back, then I'm going to punch
you in the nose, right? If then. All
right? Now, logicians, people who study
the rules of reasoning, people who study
logic, they have all kinds of fancy
terminology and symbols for the parts of
a conditional statement. The if
part is called the antecedent. It comes
before the end, which is called the
consequent. An example would be,
"If it rains tomorrow, I will stay
indoors." Mhm.
"If it rains tomorrow" is the
antecedent.
"I will stay inside" is the consequent.
So, if this thing happens, the
consequence will be this. If it rains
tomorrow, I will stay indoors. Okay. So,
if you can you can take that single
state that that that single sentence,
"If it rains tomorrow, I'll stay
indoors," and sort of chop it in two,
and then it's almost like there's two
logical chunks there, right? Raining
tomorrow, which it can or or it can be
or not. It's either raining or it's not.
And then you've also got you staying
inside, which you could be or you could
not be. So, you could sort of imagine
like a little grid, right? So, it's like
whether it's raining or not is on one
side, and whether you're staying in or
not is on the other side, and you can
kind of go through and go true false,
true false, true false, true false,
right? For the different combinations.
Not six times, though, just four. Sorry.
Which is extremely important, though.
I'm glad
>> back around to the beginning. You were
so excited. Yeah, you you're living on
that Pac-Man universe again. You went
around. But, yeah, there's only four
combinations here, and how many cards
are there in the Wason selection task?
There's four.
Now, we don't need to make this like a
full-on, let's get into the weeds with
logic thing, but let's do it anyway,
because our viewers are special. And
I'll give you another little
>> They're that 4%. They're the exceptional
people.
>> They're They're the 4%. So, the
antecedent, I think maybe we could also
just call it P. If you read a lot of
logic papers, which I think we should.
I'll I'll send these to the producers.
We should put the the best papers about
this down in the description. P, the
letter P, is often used to represent the
antecedent.
>> The first bit, the if bit. The if bit.
If P, and you use a variable because now
it can mean anything. If it rains
tomorrow, or P could also mean, "I eat a
ham sandwich." If P, if I eat a ham
sandwich, then what? I will smile, okay?
The consequent is often
uh symbolized with the letter Q. Mhm.
So, now we can start talking about like
conditional statements like they're math
equations, if P then Q, if P then not Q,
blah blah blah blah blah, and we can
talk about all the different ways we can
work with this statement. So, there are
two valid ways you can use that
statement to to
to what, draw a conclusion? Could you
though, these cards, could you think of
these cards then to give your example of
"If it rains tomorrow, Michael will stay
indoors"?
Instead of this being A G
7 8, could it be Michael's indoors,
Michael's outdoors, it's raining, it's
not raining?
Exactly. That is exactly what each of
the cards in this selection task do.
They've got P, not P, Q, not Q.
And so, in order to answer this
correctly, you need to show that you
understand or have an innate ability to
use a conditional statement in the two
valid ways that an argument can be
formed, and that's where we get to modus
tollens and modus ponens. I'm probably
not pronouncing those right, but look,
this is about logic, not pronunciation.
>> [laughter]
>> So, modus ponens is the really easy one,
where we say, "Here's a rule. If it
rains tomorrow, Michael will stay
indoors. It is now tomorrow, and it is
raining. Where is Michael?" And they go,
"Well, he's indoors." That's I can
conclude that. Yes, that's valid.
>> The other example would be you're
overage and you're drinking an alcoholic
drink, right? That That would be the
other It's true, it's true. It depends
what the rule is about drinking. Okay,
the rule is everyone over 21 No,
everyone drinking must be over 21. I
think so, yeah.
>> If you're drinking, you must be over 21.
Right. Or or 18 or whatever. I didn't I
didn't give a year, I just said
>> You smartly did that, but I've
>> chose 12 and 35, so that
>> [laughter]
>> Look at that. I've anchored us to the
wrong side of the Atlantic. I know, look
at that. And I did all the work to use
the word pub.
>> [laughter]
>> I know. I really should have repaid you
better. I apologize. Okay. So, so the
the modus ponens then is if you're
drinking, you're over 21, so it's the
person with the beer, say,
who turns out to be the correct age.
Yeah.
Yeah. You know what? I think the the
sentence would be, "If a person is
drinking alcohol, they must be over like
21 or over."
>> Yeah. Yeah. Therefore, modus ponens
would be, "Hey, they're drinking
alcohol. Therefore, they must be over
21."
>> I understand. Yeah.
So, so modus ponens is about affirming
the antecedent. We know that the first
the if part is true, therefore we
conclude the consequent, the the Q part.
Now, it is invalid It is invalid
to have the antecedent denied and then
conclude something about the consequent.
>> Okay, you're going to have to do that
one again for me. What?
>> Okay. Modus ponens is when you affirm
the antecedent. You say, "Hey, the if
part is true. Therefore, the then part
must be true."
If, however, you are able to deny the
antecedent, for example, in our raining
example, you say, "Well, hey, it's not
raining." You cannot conclude
that I'm not indoors, because the rule
doesn't say anything about other reasons
I might stay indoors tomorrow. Now,
let's talk about the consequent. A valid
way to operate with what you know about
the state of the consequent is that if
it's denied, in our original case,
Michael is not indoors, then you can
conclude that it's not raining. All
right, let's do this with the drinking
example, cuz this is the one that I that
like strangely I find most I can
understand most instinctively. Okay. So,
so so to make it to make it really easy,
let's say that in this bar, it is true,
the law is being followed, everyone
who's drinking beer is over 21. If
you're drinking alcohol, you are over
21, and that's true. If you're drinking
alcohol, you are over the the drinking
age. So, if you get someone who is not
over the drinking age,
then you can conclude that they can't be
drinking alcohol.
Correct. That is modus tollens.
>> Right. However, Uh-huh. if you affirm
the consequent, you cannot conclude
anything validly. Meaning, if you run
into a person there at the bar and they
are over the drinking age, then you have
no idea what they're drinking. It
doesn't mean anything. You cannot
conclude that they are drinking alcohol,
because they might not be. Got you.
And that So, then So, then what's that?
That's not modus tollens or modus
ponens?
>> No, that's called affirming the
consequent, and it is invalid. Okay.
>> if if all of this sounds really
confusing or boring, just rewind, listen
again over and over again. We can get
some really cool boosts for the
algorithm.
>> [laughter]
>> Just Just remember that you're here to
learn, not to be entertained, okay?
>> That's right. That's right. I'm not
going to just do a dance for you. I'm
going to sit here and mispronounce Latin
words for an hour. This is a very
special episode of the podcast, where at
the end we give you a test, and if you
are in the 96% who failed, you're not
allowed to listen again.
You're Oh my goodness, I didn't know
that rule. Speaking of conditional
statements, if you don't understand,
then you will not listen again. The
point of all of this is to say that the
difficulty of the Wason selection task
is that the human brain must just not
have an innate
modus tollens ability.
Like, we have since our evolution into
modern humans developed and discovered
all this stuff about logic, but we just
aren't born with a logical table in our
brain.
But that can't be true, because the
because the bar example is so
instinctive. It's so instinctive.
>> Yeah.
>> The words that we're using here, the
language that we're using to describe
this, I mean, it does sound super duper
complicated. It sounds extremely
mind-boggling, even if the original
sentence is quite simple. But then, as
soon as you put it in the bar example,
it's like, "Well, I don't even have to
think about it." And that is so strange.
That is weird.
>> It's And it's got to be significant,
right? So, in the late '80s, two
researchers, Leda Cosmides and John
Tooby, famously said, "Guys, this whole
task and the fact that the social ones
are so much easier is clearly evidence
that our reasoning ability evolved for
social reasons,
not for truth-finding reasons.
So, when it comes to creating different
versions of of the Wason selection task,
the versions that involve really
abstract stuff and facts are called
descriptive. Okay? It's just the way it
is. If there's an A on one side, there's
a seven on the other. Now, if it instead
involves a rule, an obligation, a duty,
something that humans made up, it's
called deontic.
Okay? This is I love these words,
because they're they're both like called
rules or laws, and yet one you you is
about can and the other's about may. I
don't travel at the speed of light,
not because I'm not allowed to, but
because I can't.
Okay? And so, that that kind of a
restriction is called a a descriptive
restriction.
But when it comes to are people breaking
the rule, we need to make sure people
are complying with the rules, that's
called a deontic rule. Where did that
word come from? I don't know. I mean,
deon- deontic etymology, cuz where What
other words use it? Uh it means being
needed or necessary from ancient Greek,
pertaining to necessity, duty, or
obligation. So, Cosmides and Tooby
famously are like, "Guys, this is just
human nature. We evolved to focus on
duties and obligations that we invented
ourselves, and not on universal,
timeless laws of impossibility. We care
more about may I do this than can I do
this." I also sort of wonder a little
bit about that that that point about
truth-finding. Because the the example
of people in a bar, it's partly about
social rules and social norms. But isn't
it also a little bit about
truth-finding? Isn't it also a little
bit about who should you be suspicious
of? Yes.
Yes, it is. But it's just it's a truth
that is human-focused.
It's a truth in the domain of deontic
principles, obligations, duties, and
rules, and obedience, as opposed to one
of an abstract
wall. If it has an A, it must have a
seven. Yeah, of course.
Here's the typical responses people give
to the selection task. 46% of people
pick
A and seven. Okay. Okay?
So, almost half of people do that. Uh a
third, 33%, choose just A. Right.
7% of people choose A, seven, and eight.
So, almost everybody is picking A.
Yes. Mhm. And then, only 4% of people
choose the correct cards, A and eight.
The other 10% of people choose other
combinations. Some people choose all of
them. Some I mean, at that point, um
I think it's kind of believed that they
just either didn't understand or didn't
care.
>> Or just want to want to finish. They
They're either the anarchists or
>> [laughter]
>> or they're like, "Get me out of here."
Or maybe they understand something we
don't. I mean, I'm not going to dismiss
them.
Maybe they're the ones with
modus tollens in their own heads. Yeah.
The thing that makes me feel a tiny bit
uncomfortable about this this idea that
humans are not innately good at
truth-finding, even though I'm sure that
these researchers have thought about
this much more extensively than I ever
have, is that science really is
based on the hunt for truth. And okay,
admittedly, we have come up with really
strict
methods, like hypothesis testing, in
order to do that.
But does that sort of mean that I don't
know.
Science isn't in innate? I'm not sure.
You That's a really good question. And
and I'm starting to feel like it's not
that innate, that we
from tests like this, we found that we
are focused more on our own social lives
and ourselves, and not on what is the
best way to test a hypothesis. Now, the
Wason selection task makes it pretty
clear that we're bad at finding
counterexamples or even being motivated
to find them.
Like, pretty much everyone chooses the
first card A. They're like, "I need to
see if this is an example of a thing
that follows the rule." But very few
people go, "But I should also look for a
case where the the rule is is not true."
Is broken. Even though you find a
counterexample, you're done.
If the rule is that there's if there's
an A, there's a seven on the back, and
you can find an A that doesn't have a
seven on the back, you're done. You can
walk away and say the rule's not true.
I've proved it wrong.
Now, there's a great study. I I I was
actually cracking up last night reading
about this. I don't think it's going to
seem that funny today when I tell it.
But there was a study that was done by
Johnson-Laird and Wason in 1970, where
they had two boxes of shapes. In one
box, all the shapes were painted black,
and in the other box, they were all
painted white. And they told people the
people couldn't look in the boxes, okay?
The researcher sat there with these two
these two uh
masked boxes and was like, "Okay, here's
this rule, and I want you to test
whether it's true, whether this
hypothesis is true.
All the triangles are white."
Now, tell me what to do and I'll do it
for you. And people would say, "Oh, the
first thing almost everyone says is,
okay, I'd like to see a white shape."
So, he reaches in there and he pulls out
a shape, and it's a white triangle, lo
and behold, because literally the only
thing in the white bin are white
triangles. He pulls it out. And people
tend to just keep asking for white
shapes over and over again, all right?
And they keep getting a white triangle,
and they're like, "I don't know, it's
feeling like it's pretty proven." And
then, after a while, they start to go,
"Maybe I should see a black one." Cuz
they start to realize, "Oh, shoot, all
it takes is one black triangle to blow
the whole thing to smithereens."
But basically, no one starts with the
black shapes. That is so fascinating.
That is so fascinating. I think you've
you know, you've seen this in science as
well, right? I just wrote this um I
wrote actually this chapter of the book
that I'm doing at the moment.
I wrote this whole thing about Popper,
about Karl Popper, um and about how he
said that the the the key point about
science is essentially trying to find
things that break your own theorem. You
should be hunting for the
counterexamples, not for the evidence
that supports it. There's a
The thing is is that it's like
it it was really really hard for people
to do this. Uh it's not instinctive at
all. For almost all of scientific
history, people were just like, "Let's
gather more evidence. Let's gather more
evidence." And actually, Einstein, you
know, one of the reasons why Einstein is
considered so phenomenal, is that when
he came up with his theory of general
relativity, uh as part of his theory, he
said, "Here is the way you can prove me
wrong. This is my idea. This is what I
think it is. There's going to be a solar
eclipse in a couple of years, and if I
am right, the light will bend around the
sun in this way. You'll be able to see
the stars that are normally blinded by
the sun's glare. Off you go. Here is how
to find the counterexample. And that was
a really bold, brave, unusual, crazy
thing for him to do. It's the same as
your black shapes, right? People do not
go hunting for the black shapes, but
Einstein was was someone who knew that
you had to. He did. And I think, back to
your your original question, I think
that that meant he was a little bit less
human than most of us.
He was willing to look for
counterexamples and was not just looking
for confirmation of the one kind of
thing he believed in and wanted to find
more of, and finding more of them would
make him feel more and more confident.
He was willing to say, "Guys, we got to
find a counterexample. We've got to find
something that shows that I'm wrong.
Here's one way we could do it. Here's
another way." The creator of the Wason
selection task became obsessed with our
terrible
terrible laziness when it came to
finding counterexamples. Hannah, I want
to show you an even earlier game that
Wason came up with that brings us to, I
think, the same surprising conclusion
about humanity. Imagine if he was your
dad. He'd constantly be tricking you,
wouldn't he? I know, but like dads are
always tricky, but this dad is tricking
you
>> trickiest trick trick
>> for science.
I got your nose.
Why do you think I got your nose? Have
you not developed body permanence yet?
Dad, leave me alone. Yeah. [laughter]
Yeah. Hey, what's that on your shirt?
Oh, got you. What's wrong with your
perceptual apparatus? Let's try that
again. And you're like, "Dad, just prank
me to embarrass me, not to learn."
All right, here we go. I'm going to give
you some numbers. Again, because of who
you are, Hannah, you might do really
well at this. But what I'm going to do
is
>> on me. That puts more pressure on me. Go
on.
Uh good. Good. I want this to be
uncomfortable. Look, what I'm going to
do is I'm going to name uh triples of
numbers. I'm going to name three numbers
Yeah. that uh fit my rule. It's a secret
rule I have up here. And then I I'm
going to just give you one example, and
then I want you to start naming triples,
and I will tell you yes or no whether it
fits the rule. Eventually, I want you to
be able to tell me what you think the
rule is. Okay, cool. Okay. So, here is a
triple that fits my rule. 2 4 6.
Okay. All right. Now, I want you to
start producing triples, and I will tell
you if they fit the rule or not until
you can guess the rule. All right.
6 8 10.
Correct. That fits. Okay.
7 8 10. That fits.
6 6 6. Nope.
6 7 8.
Yes.
I think I've got it. What do you think
it is?
>> I think Hang on, let me try the Let me
try one. Okay. 7 6 5. No.
It doesn't fit. 7 7 8 6.
No. Is it just you going up? It's just
going up.
Hannah, you're brilliant. That's
the first time this game was played on
me, I never I mean, I'm still playing
that game, by the way. I just walked
away. And it wasn't until last night
when I read about the history of Wason
that I was like, "Oh, that's it. The
answer is that they just have to go up."
No. I To be fair, though, you primed me
because I cuz you said find
counterexamples.
>> I Yeah, I did. Okay, shoot. Well, how
about this? Editors edit this around so
it looks like that's the very first
thing we did. The point is, all right,
yeah, I'm still I'm still a bit
impressed. You did a good job of of at
least making it look like you didn't
know exactly what to do. The
counterexamples you asked for is what
unlocks the whole thing. Of course. They
give you there's so much more
information contained within a
counterexample than there is in
something that confirms it.
>> That's right. Whereas, if you play this
If you're listening, please go try this
with your friends and family today. They
will thank you. It's so fun. Um but
[laughter] you'll find that what they
tend to do is they People tend to think
of what the rule might be, and then they
think of other things that might fit
that rule, and they ask them Yeah. again
and again and again. And they rarely go,
"I think the rule is this, so let me
think of something that wouldn't fit
that rule and test it."
Now, why don't we do this so much?
Obviously, we don't know, right? This is
It's all very speculative, but I think
that Comedies is really onto something
with this idea that reasoning didn't
evolve to help us solve mathematical
puzzles. It originally evolved to help
us work together and explain ourselves
to each other because humans are just
too weak. We we need each other. We need
to cooperate, and that's the only way
we're going to be able to build and
collect and hunt. So, we have to be able
to communicate what's going on in our
heads. We don't have to do it well. We
just have to make sure that people trust
us and feel like we're playing the game.
Okay?
So
So, on that topic, I would highly
recommend Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber,
The Enigma of Reason. This goes really
deep into their social theory of
reasoning, which is that, "Look, we we
don't use reasons to come to
conclusions. We use conclusions to come
to reasons. We just intuitively feel and
want to do things, and then when we're
asked to defend it, we confabulate in
our own heads all the reasons we had for
it, and we believe them." I I think I
think what I'm I like is is calling to
mind about this is that actually, when
there are situations where people do see
counterexamples,
where which puncture their theories,
it's not like we innately very happily
get on board and just like go along with
it, you know? We we look for reasons why
the counterexample doesn't exist. I
mean, I'm thinking here about, I don't
know, um
uh biology in the sort of 17 1800s,
where they they spent absolutely years
like merrily shooting things and pinning
butterflies to boards and putting birds
in sacks and stuff, and deciding that um
that, you know, birds are one branch of
the of the tree of life, and mammals are
another. And they had it all perfectly
neatly categorized these rules. And then
someone comes along with a platypus um
platypus body, and they have no idea
what to do. And rather than saying, "Oh,
okay, hang on. Actually, this is a
really clear counterexample of of of the
ways in which our rule is wrong," they
they cut it up looking for stitches.
They thought it was a fake. You know,
they spent They spent [laughter] nearly
100 years being like, "Well, this is
just it can't can't be possible," rather
than rather than it
>> saying that platypuses are real? I
thought they were Frankensteined
together by some pranksters like
jackalope. I mean, that's what they
thought, too. I've never seen one in the
wild, have you? I've never seen one in
the wild.
>> Basically, I'm taking someone's word for
it. So, you know. Uh no, that's that's
exactly it. Um and and when a whole
group of people refuse to accept
counterexamples, that's when things can
get pretty dangerous because the the
conclusion that I think all of this is
pointing at, and this is my opinion, is
that um
we we truly reason, that is, we give
reasons for things and and and we
extract knowledge from knowledge we
already have, which is what reasoning
is,
to get along and be social. And I think
that that if you really meditate on the
consequences of that,
suddenly a lot of stuff makes sense,
like confirmation bias, which is what
we've been talking about this whole
time. The the pursuit of finding things
that that prove your hypothesis correct
and and ignoring or avoiding a search
for things that might prove it wrong.
Confirmation bias, I think, works really
well when you consider the fact that
we're supposed to all be working
together.
As a group activity, it actually saves
time if each of us goes off and finds
evidence for our own pet theory, and
then we come and combine them. If
instead we didn't do that, if we didn't
have a confirmation bias, and we all
went off and we did all the research and
found everything and read all these
different count It'd be too much work
for all of us to do. Let's each
split the task up. Many hands make light
work. All go and find evidence for what
I believe, you find evidence for what
you believe, and then we'll come
together. And you've already done a
bunch of work on topic A, I did topic B,
and we combine them. That seems to
explain confirmation bias and so many of
our other biases so well. It all I also
love that it kind of pushes us to this
conclusion that humans need to work
together.
We need to listen to people even if we
really do not agree with them. I I'm
also
um thinking here about, I don't know, I
have like a few
A few years ago, I was I was doing quite
a lot of work on vaccine skepticism. Oh,
yeah. I'm working with people who were
hesitant about the COVID vaccine. Now, I
have to be a tiny bit careful about what
I say about this because um what I will
say is they are a vocal community.
>> [laughter]
>> Mhm. They are.
Not afraid to tell you what what they
think. Yeah.
>> Um
>> [snorts]
>> I'm just going to tread del- delicately
and carefully. I I also was uh made lots
of mistakes in the way that that the
whole thing was approached.
But but the thing that I noticed is
well, twofold, actually. One is that
people
the only way that people make decisions
is in an emotional way.
It may be that you and I, who are
scientifically minded, believe that we
make decisions based on statistics, but
ultimately, for us, that is still an
emotional story. We have an emotional
relationship to to data and mathematics
and science in a whole story of our
lives that kind of builds up to to that
moment. And it's [snorts] still an
emotional decision. It's just a slightly
different one. I think I think people
are not persuaded by data and numbers. I
think it is is always um fundamentally
about the social aspect, exactly as you
described,
>> [snorts]
>> Because if it was about data, then you
could show somebody the right piece of
data. You could show somebody the right
combination of words and it would change
their mind. And people do not work like
that. That's not how it works at all.
>> works. And the second thing that's
called to mind here in what you're
describing is there's something which is
called the uh deficit model of public
communication, Ah, I haven't heard about
this. Okay, so um when you're working in
an academic institution, there's a lot
of talk about how do you get your how do
you get the scientific ideas out to the
public, right? How do you talk to people
about this? Especially when you look at
situations where people are making
choices that are maybe counter to their
health or maybe counter to public health
more generally. How do we How do we uh
get the information out there so that
that people make better choices, make
make choices that align more carefully
with what's right for them and what's
what's right you know overall?
And for a long time, people thought that
what you all you needed to do was just
give them information, you know? That if
you educated people to the correct
level, that if you put information out
there, then that would be enough. But
the problem with that idea is that it's
called the deficit model because it's
essentially saying that the only problem
is that the public have a deficit of
knowledge, right? They just need the
facts.
>> They just need the facts. And it is the
most arrogant, insulting way to I think
belittle people and to basically imagine
that the only reason why somebody is not
making the same decisions as you are is
nothing to do with their worldview, is
nothing to do with their own their own
version of reasoning, the things that
are important to them. It's just because
they don't know as much as you do,
right?
>> Right. And not only is it incredibly
insulting, it also demonstratively does
not work. You cannot argue or maths your
way into
uh changing people's minds or persuading
them. It just doesn't work. And I think
that
the the way that you've described all of
this stuff, the way that people's
logical brains are not not geared for
statistics and data and and abstract
descriptions, and the way that our
brains are geared towards the social
aspect of aligning with other people and
collaborating. I mean, it just looking
at the sort of anti-vax movement against
that perspective, it just really really
really resonates with me.
Yeah. You know, it it's it's kind of
frustrating, but it's almost a relief to
realize, "Oh my gosh, you're right. It's
It's not that with the right
facts and reasons, we'll all agree on
something because that's not what
happens. My My favorite demonstration of
this was something we did on Mind Field
where we had a magician come in and act
like he was doing a study on appearance.
And he showed people two photographs at
a time and said, "Which of these two
people would you rather work with in an
office?" And he would put the people the
the people that were chosen on in one
stack and the people that were uh not
chosen in another stack. And he did this
over and over again. And then he said,
"Okay, now I want to go through everyone
that you chose to work with and I want
you to tell me why you picked them."
But he was a magician. So he used slight
of hand to actually slip in a bunch of
the people that they had dismissed as I
don't want to work with a person who
looks like that. And he would then show
them the cards and they gave reasons.
And whenever every time, without
exception, he would show a face that the
person had rejected, they'd go, "Oh
yeah, so I picked this person cuz I
really like the way their eyes kind of
look like they might they might have
like good inside jokes." Point is that
we use reasons to explain ourselves and
express who we are at a deep level. We
don't use them because of anything
logical and timelessly true.
It's It It was so awkward to watch
people defend and explain why they chose
a person that did not choose. It was
embarrassing for them, but yet it was it
was uh enlightening for our species.
Yeah. Oh, we're all We're just a mess,
Michael. We're all just a a big sloshy
mess with our squirty water computers.
That is true and the only way to rise
above that is for us to stay a big
sloshy mess because the average of all
of us winds up being better than one
individual's opinion on their own. Yeah.
I mean, this is the wisdom of the crowd
stuff, right? That's right. And this is
something that's really important to me.
I really believe in it. I did an episode
about lotocracy and how I would really
love a government run by random people.
Like rather than electing people, let's
literally just be like, "Look, there's a
lottery every 4 years and uh you'll just
get asked to come and be a member of
Congress or Parliament or whatever, the
House of Lords, randomly. You'll do your
term, you'll get paid, there's housing
for you." And I think that
it would be
amazing what would happen if you like
took such a variety of views and had
them all kind of average each other out
as opposed to what we have now, which is
like, "Hey, we're all kind of in this
political class. Let's be leaders. We
all kind of already feel the same way.
Great. Great. Great. Great." Yeah,
there's a superiority that comes with
that. I think I remember reading
something about this in Rory Stewart's
book. Uh Rory Stewart, of course, of
Fresh Eyes Politics fame, the the lesser
known Go Hang a Llama podcast.
>> [laughter]
>> But he is extremely keen on the idea of
town halls, but also of um civilian
panels, civilian assemblies.
Because I mean,
>> Deliberation days.
>> Yeah, deliberation Exactly, why not? I
mean, this is what we do in the judicial
system. I mean, it's it's not perfect by
any stretch of the imagination, but I
but I but I also think that it's the
best that we've got. And and it does
exactly what you're describing. It stops
pretending that reason is some
mathematically pure thing that we can
march towards and instead accepts the
messiness of human nature and that we
are social creatures and social beings
and we are totally, perfectly tuned
through an astonishing evolution to
really prioritize that. Right. Yeah, we
evolved to be a group and work together.
And so collectively, like all voting
together, I just It's hard for me to
find
a solution that's better than that.
That's
It's better than asking any particular
person or type of people to make all the
decisions. We've got to all come in. And
there are people who are have terrible
ideas.
And And sometimes people have terrible
ideas that that are opposite of each
other and they cancel each other out.
And that's like our only hope is to hope
that things cancel out and what we're
left with is the wisest way to go. What
does your What does your t-shirt say
today, Michael? I sort of feel like
somehow rather we've been Oh, it's very
reflective of kind of the mood that
we've created here.
>> [laughter]
>> Everything is terrible.
With an atomic bomb going off in the
background. It's not actually the I'm
not saying that I feel everything is
terrible. This is a a troop of
performers who collect found media
footage and they do shows where they
show it off. And they call themselves
everything is terrible. Uh they're kind
of like they really love this like
terrible, forgotten media. They're a
great group. I don't actually haven't
checked in on them in a while, but uh
Basically, what we solved human nature
today, is that right? I think we
probably did.
>> it. We finally cracked it. When it comes
to things that we do that are social,
there's there's another really funny
example that I I've been wanting to do a
longer video about. And it's the classic
situation where you are at a restaurant
and the waiter brings your food out and
says, "All right, enjoy your meal." And
you go, "Oh, you too." I mean, thank
you.
Or, you know, you're at you're you're
you're dropping off your bag at the
airport and the gate attendant says,
"All right, have a nice flight." And you
go, "You too." Oh shoot, no, I mean,
thanks. Why do we do that? Well, there's
a name for those kinds of exchanges,
those kinds of words we say to each
other. Back in the '30s, a researcher
named Bronisław Malinowski called these
kinds of exchanges
phatic communion. Okay.
Like you're you're breaking the bread
together. That's right. It's communion.
It's breaking bread together. It's
showing that I'm here. I acknowledge
you. We're both humans.
But it's communion done through phatic
means, which means pertaining to
language. So when we say things to each
other like, "Oh hey, how's it going?"
I'm not literally asking, "Tell me how
things are going." In fact, a common
response to, "Hey, what's up?" or "Hey,
how's it going?" is, "Oh hey, man."
You're literally not answering at all.
You're You're literally ignoring their
question. An alien would find that
really weird, but we understand that I
wasn't actually asking you, "What is
up?" or "How's it going?" I'm just
saying I acknowledge that you're here.
We're two social beings who can
communicate and we just need to say hi
to each other. We just need to give each
other a bit of a nod. That's it. A
little bit of communion. A little bit of
communion. And that's what the waiter
does when they say, "Hey, have a great
meal." You are you're are you're
automatically ready to to to exchange
these things without conscious thought.
And that's why we absentmindedly respond
with you, too. I um I have heard uh
>> [laughter]
>> from an American who moved to London. He
found it extremely confusing when when
he first got here and people were like,
"You all right?"
"You all right?" He was like, "What do
you mean, am I all right? Am I all
right?" And was it me that told you
that? Because this was my one of my
biggest struggles when I first moved to
the UK. Every time I entered a room,
people would be like, "You're all
right?"
And I'd be like, "What's wrong? Why do
you think something's wrong with me? Am
I acting weird?"
Maybe it was you. All right.
>> [laughter]
>> But for them Just phatic communion.
>> phatic. It was just It was just a like,
"Beep beep, I am human, too."
acknowledged, right? That's all they
meant by it. Absolutely.
>> And you see this between generations
because what what is and is not phatic
changes over time. And so for for like
younger people,
um saying things like, "Oh, no problem."
is very phatic, right? If someone says,
"Hey, thanks." and I I'll just say, "No
problem." But to to people in an older
generation, they don't realize that it's
phatic. They take it literally. They
listen to those words and they go, "No
problem." Well, I didn't say it was a
problem. Why would it be a problem? Do
you think I'm acting like this was a
problem?" And so I I thoroughly believe
that by the time I'm an old man, I'll be
at the grocery store, they'll bag up my
groceries, I'll say, "Hey, thanks a
lot." and they'll go, "Well, don't freak
out about it."
And I'll be like, "I wasn't. I'm so I'm
why why can't you just say no problem?"
And they'll be like, "Well, no, dude, I
didn't I didn't say you were freaking
out. I just said, 'Don't freak out.' and
you didn't, so right?" There is one.
There is one, okay, that young Londoners
say to each other.
>> What do they do? They go, "Say less."
Say less. Yes.
>> Say less. It's like, "But I
>> [laughter]
>> I can't take my words back?" The first
couple of times I heard it, I was like,
"I don't think I was saying a lot,
actually." I know. That's a great
example of how phatic things are
changing. Mhm. I wonder what they were
in really old times, though. I wonder
what the phatic communication of of sort
of 1865 was. Just a bunch of belching.
>> [laughter]
>> I don't know. I don't know how Why did I
just say something derogatory of 1860s
people? They didn't deserve it.
>> We know that they were belching all over
the place.
>> They were just like, "Yo, hey, bro."
Did you find anything? I did. I did.
I've got a couple. Okay, tell me.
I hope I see you well. I hope I see you
well. Yeah. What say you on such day as
this? Mhm. On a day such as this, sorry.
How does all at home?
>> [snorts]
>> That one That one I I wouldn't be too
tripped up by. I'd be like, "Ah, it's
fine." I hope I see you well.
>> respond? Did they say fine? Actually,
how do you do? How do you do? That I
feel like I've
you know, I sort of feel like the memory
of that one has lingered. Yes. Yes. I
would not be confused. If someone said,
"How do you do?" I wouldn't go, "How do
I do what?" The 1600s
is the exact century when the the
passing blessing, "God be with ye."
was said so rapidly and often as a
phatic communion that it permanently
mashed together into "God be with ye."
and eventually, "Goodbye." Goodbye.
>> [gasps]
>> I like that. You said the 1600s?
Apparently.
Wow, hello. Goodbye. Speaking of
reasons, um I think it's pretty
interesting as I was flushing out what I
wanted to talk about today, I was like,
"Wow, there's kind of three types of
things we've talked about." We've talked
about difficult questions. I think the
Wason selection task is is surprisingly
difficult. But there are also questions
that we don't answer. Phatic questions.
"Hey, what's up?" I don't actually look
up and tell you. I don't really Well,
you can't cuz you've got top shelf
vertigo. I can't. Exactly. Uh just like
everyone, when I'm asked, "What's up?" I
go, "Oh, not much." or "I'm doing well."
But there are also answers we don't
question. And I think we've kind of like
been talking about this already. It's a
a lot of the conclusions and things we
believe, we just kind of don't want to
question them. We don't feel motivated
to find counterexamples and falsify
them.
>> Are you Are you talking about like
social norms, like social rules here?
That's right. I'm talking about social
rules and taboos. And I know that you
are familiar with these because we've
both read this book, Jonathan Haidt's
The Righteous Mind. It's so good. Which
way did it there? It's so good.
It's spicy.
>> It's spicy.
>> It's spicy. It's spicy. And we're not
going to discuss it today, but we are
going to put a little worm in your
brain. You've got to be careful now,
then, Michael, because if this section
that you're If you're going to the very
first example, if you If this gets
clipped up
and does the rounds on the internet, you
could uh
your reputation could be really in
trouble. I know. Look, I'm picking I'm
picking the safest one. I'm picking the
the least spicy one. And I again, I
think that Hannah, we should just bring
this up and then in a later episode,
we'll talk about moral reasoning.
>> Good idea.
>> Which is not much different than
reasoning about obligations or abstract
mathematical things. It all kind of
points in the same direction, but this
is one where
you really you really wind up realizing
that you had a conclusion before you had
any reasons. We should We should say
actually just in general this book um
this book really interrogates in an
extremely careful and logical way a lot
of the the the moral rules that we fully
accept as a society. Think things that
we find abhorrent, things that we find
disgusting, it really tries to
understand what is it about that that we
have decided is unacceptable. That's
exactly right. And it really looks into
why we don't agree on what is acceptable
and disgusting and good or bad. How
complex
our reasons are. It's the called The
Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. That's
right. And I think it's it's it's a very
insightful book that's perfect for the
way the world is today. But here's an
example of a
a question and I want you to I'm just
going to read from chapter one. I'm just
going to read from chapter
>> Great idea. Great idea.
I'm going to tell you a brief story.
Pause after you read it and decide
whether the people in the story did
anything morally wrong.
A family's dog was killed by a car in
front of their house. They had heard
that dog meat was delicious.
So, they cut up the dog's body and
cooked it and ate it for dinner.
Nobody saw them do this.
Okay. So, no one saw them do it. The
father, let's say, was a professional
butcher and none of them got sick. Yep.
The dog passed away due to an accident.
Was already dead? Already dead. And you
know what? Afterwards, the family was
really glad they did it. They felt that
it was respectful and it made them feel
closer to the dog. So, did anyone do
anything morally wrong? That's our
question to you. Let us know in the
comments below.
And
I don't know when we'll talk about this.
There's a lot that I want to learn and
that we both should talk about before we
do it. We'll look into moral reasoning
someday.
>> I think that's a really good idea. We
can read you more examples from that
book as long as you promise, audience,
not to clip it up and share it around as
though it's things we actually think cuz
I mean, yeah, it tests the bounds. But
that is a really great example. A really
great example of it definitely feels
wrong, but it's quite hard to say why.
Exactly. These are Jonathan Haidt's
What did What did he call them? He
called them harmless taboo violations
where he knows that there's there's a
taboo and he believes that it's like
this almost intuitive thing where we
believe it and we provide reasons after
the fact. So, he constructed these
questions where all the typical harms
and reasons people give for the taboo
have been canceled. They've been
clipped. That's not not in this case.
Not in this case. What They didn't kill
their dog. They just ate it after it
accidentally died. Nope, no one got
sick. No one saw them do it. Blah blah
blah blah blah blah blah and you're left
going, "But I still think it's wrong."
But he's taken all the reasons away
because you never needed the reasons in
the first place to believe what you
believe. You were using the reasons in
order to justify your instinctive
reaction.
>> That's right. But we're saying too much.
We're going to leave it there. If you
guys have any questions for us, any
despicable, disgusting, perverted moral
quandaries, email them right over to us
at therestiscience@golhanger.com.
Absolutely. And in the meantime, you can
check out our newsletter, which I really
should have learned by now, but I think
it's therestis.com/science.
And we will see you on our episode Field
Notes that's coming up later in the
week. And yeah, send us in anything you
like. Put in the comments also whether
you actually got the puzzle right at the
very beginning. And all of those of you
say that you didn't, I was joking. You
can carry on listening.
>> [snorts and laughter]
>> All right. Take care, everybody.
Bye-bye.