Friday, January 24, 2014

Stephen Hawking says there are no black holes!

Ria Misra on io9 1/24/14 12:42pm 53 minutes ago

Stephen Hawking says there are no black holes

At least, not as we've defined them. In a new paper, Hawking says that one of the defining features of black holes — the complete inability of even light to escape — may not hold true.

"The absence of event horizons mean that there are no black holes — in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity," writes Hawking, in a new paper. In other words, the notion that black holes have an event horizon, which prevents anything from escaping ever, is wrong.

Hawking posted the paper, titled "Information Preservation and Weather Forecasting for Black Holes" up on arXiv, but it hasn't yet gone through peer review.

So what exactly does all this mean for theories about how black holes work? The New Scientist has a terrific look at some of the questions raised by the paper, and how to answer them:

It's yet another quantum versus relativity showdown!
Indeed. Firewalls mean that one of the two theories is wrong, so physicists have been scrambling to find a compromise that doesn't produce these flaming problems. Now Hawking has waded in and says the solution is to give up the very thing that makes black holes so intriguing – the event horizon.

Wait a minute… does that mean you could actually escape from a black hole?
Potentially, although you would probably need to be travelling at the speed of light. "The absence of event horizons means that there are no black holes – in the sense of regimes from which light can't escape to infinity," writes Hawking in his new paper, which he posted online earlier this week. Instead, black holes have "apparent horizons", surfaces which trap light but can also vary in shape due to quantum fluctuations, leaving the potential for light to escape.

Read more discussion over at New Scientist and read Hawking's paper here.

Image: NASA/JPL

The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You

January 21, 2014

Posted by Maria Konnikova

When Jonah Berger was a graduate student at Stanford, in the early aughts, he would make a habit of reading page A2 of the Wall Street Journal, which included a list of the five most-read and the five most-shared articles of the day. “I’d go down to the library and surreptitiously cut out that page,” he recalls. “I noticed that what was read and what was shared was often different, and I wondered why that would be.” What was it about a piece of content—an article, a picture, a video—that took it from simply interesting to interesting and shareable? What pushes someone not only to read a story but to pass it on?

The question predates Berger’s interest in it by centuries. In 350 B.C., Aristotle was already wondering what could make content—in his case, a speech—persuasive and memorable, so that its ideas would pass from person to person. The answer, he argued, was three principles: ethos, pathos, and logos. Content should have an ethical appeal, an emotional appeal, or a logical appeal. A rhetorician strong on all three was likely to leave behind a persuaded audience. Replace rhetorician with online content creator, and Aristotle’s insights seem entirely modern. Ethics, emotion, logic—it’s credible and worthy, it appeals to me, it makes sense. If you look at the last few links you shared on your Facebook page or Twitter stream, or the last article you e-mailed or recommended to a friend, chances are good that they’ll fit into those categories.

Aristotle’s diagnosis was broad, and tweets, of course, differ from Greek oratory. So Berger, who is now a professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, worked with another Penn professor, Katherine Milkman, to put his interest in content-sharing to an empirical test.
Together, they analyzed just under seven thousand articles that had appeared in the Times in 2008, between August 30th and November 30th, to try to determine what distinguished pieces that made the most-emailed list. After controlling for online and print placement, timing, author popularity, author gender, length, and complexity, Berger and Milkman found that two features predictably determined an article’s success: how positive its message was and how much it excited its reader. Articles that evoked some emotion did better than those that evoked none—an article with the headline “BABY POLAR BEAR’S FEEDER DIES” did better than “TEAMS PREPARE FOR THE COURTSHIP OF LEBRON JAMES.” But happy emotions (“WIDE-EYED NEW ARRIVALS FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE CITY”) outperformed sad ones (“WEB RUMORS TIED TO KOREAN ACTRESS’S SUICIDE”).

Just how arousing each emotion was also made a difference. If an article made readers extremely angry or highly anxious—stories about a political scandal or new risk factor for cancer, for example—they became just as likely to share it as they would a feel-good story about a cuddly panda. (In this particular study, certain pieces were coded as eliciting arousing emotions; in a follow-up, arousal was further measured physiologically.)

Berger and Milkman went on to test their findings in a more controlled setting, presenting students with content and observing their propensity to pass it along. Here, too, they found the same patterns.
Amusing stories that had been chosen specifically because they were positive and arousing were shared more frequently than less amusing ones. Anger-inducing stories were shared more than moderate takes on the same events. When the researchers manipulated the framing of a story to be either negative (a person is injured) or positive (an injured person is “trying to be better again”), they found that the positive framing made a piece far more popular. The findings have since been replicated by several independent research teams, who have found that videos that shock or inspire are more likely to be shared on Facebook and more likely to gain viral traction.

Positivity and arousal go a long way toward explaining the success of Web sites like Upworthy, which started in 2012 and is known for using headlines designed to make you laugh, cry, or feel righteous anger (for example, on the site right now, “A Hilarious Stand-Up Routine About How Commercials for Black People Actually Sound” and “The Struggles of Being a Woman in a Male-Dominated Field Summed Up in a Short Comic”). Even the site’s tearjerker content has a positive message: “Watch a Teenager Bring His Class to Tears Just by Saying a Few Words,” reads one.
Despite launching less than two years ago, the site has steadily climbed the ranks of Internet popularity, ranking third in a December rating of Facebook shares, right behind BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post. Its posts are like the infamous cat videos on YouTube—funny, positive, and arousing—but taken to a new level. Still, as Berger points out, “There are lots of cat videos that don’t get shared”—and lots of would-be Upworthys that never quite make it. So what characterizes the ones that do?

Since his initial foray into the nature of sharing, Berger has gone on to research and test a variety of viral-promoting factors, which he details in his new book, “Contagious: Why Things Catch On.” Almost ten years in, he feels he’s discovered a formula of sorts: as sites like Upworthy or BuzzFeed would likely put it, The Six Things You Need to Know to Make Your Voice Heard. While emotion and arousal still top the list, a few additional factors seem to make a big difference. First, he told me, you need to create social currency—something that makes people feel that they’re not only smart but in the know. “Memes like LOLcats, I think, are a perfect example of social currency, an insider culture or handshake,” Berger told me. “Your ability to pass it on and riff on it shows that you understand. It’s the ultimate, subtle insider signal: I know without yelling that I know. When your mom sees an LOLcat, she has no idea what it is.” When Upworthy first started, not everyone knew what it was, and the videos seemed fresh. Now they are being derided as link bait and mocked. Other sites, including the Washington Post, are copying their formula.

The presence of a memory-inducing trigger is also important. We share what we’re thinking about—and we think about the things we can remember. This facet of sharing helps explain the appeal of list-type stories (which I wrote about in detail last month), as well as stories that stick in your mind because they are bizarre. Lists also get shared because of another feature that Berger often finds successful: the promise of practical value. “We see top-ten lists on Buzzfeed and the like all the time,” he notes. “It allows people to feel like there’s a nice packet of useful information that they can share with others.” We want to feel smart and for others to perceive us as smart and helpful, so we craft our online image accordingly.

A final predictor of success is the quality of the story itself. “People love stories. The more you see your story as part of a broader narrative, the better,” Berger says. Some cat lists are better than others, and some descriptions of crying teen-agers are more immediately poignant; the best underlying story, regardless of its trappings, will come out on top. That, in fact, is what the Upworthy editors have argued in response to their critics: the headlines may seem like link bait, but the stories, the curators promise, are worthwhile. “Coming up with catchy, curiosity-inducing headlines wasn’t the reason
Upworthy had those 87 million visitors,” they write. “It was because millions of members of the
Upworthy community watched the videos we curated and found them important, compelling, and worth sharing with their friends.”

Some of these features, of course, are incompatible: a list, for the most part, isn’t going to tell much of a story, and a LOLcat video or other meme isn’t usually informative. But, taken together, especially with the underlying principles of arousal and positivity in mind, the guidelines can help. “I see it as a batting average,” Berger says. “No one is going to hit a home run every time, but if you understand the science of hitting your batting average goes up.”

The irony, of course, is that the more data we mine, and the closer we come to determining a precise calculus of sharing, the less likely it will be for what we know to remain true. If emotion and arousal are key, then, in a social application of the observer effect, we may be changing what will become popular even as we’re studying it. “If everyone is perfectly implementing the best headline to pass on, it’s not as effective any more,” Berger says. “What used to be emotionally arousing simply isn’t any longer.” Those in search of evidence for this should look no further than Viralnova.com, a site that was started just eight months ago and is already the seventh most popular site on the Web, at least as measured by Facebook shares. As I type, the lead story on its front page is “Her Little Boy Has No Idea His Mother Is About To Die. What She’s Doing About That Is Amazing.”
Illustration by Adrian Tomine

As a Reformed Creationist, I Hope Bill Nye Doesn't Underestimate Ken Ham

David MacMillan

Posted: 01/23/2014 9:57 am

It's rare to see a prominent scientist agree to a public debate with someone from the creation science movement. Giving equal time to both sides might be a foundational principle of American dialogue, but it paints the issue as more of a controversy than it actually is. That's why it surprised a lot of people when Bill Nye, scientist and TV personality, agreed to debate the president of Cincinnati's Creation Museum, Ken Ham.

Even so, it's not hard to see why Nye has chosen to engage creationism directly. The most recent polling shows one in three Americans still won't accept that all living things evolved from a common ancestor. Creationism may be pseudoscience, but its grip on the American public is hard for a science educator like Nye to ignore.

This debate is more than academic for me. I grew up steeped in creationism. I was homeschooled with creationist curriculum, my family took us to creationist conferences, and I was deeply proud that I knew the real story about evolution and the age of the earth. I was taught there was absolutely no way the universe could be explained without creationism. Evolution was a fairy tale based on faith; creation was good science. I was taught that Christianity wasn't consistent without creationism... that all "Bible-believing Christians" rejected evolution and long ages in favor of a six-day creation and a global flood.

My proudest teenage achievement was mowing lawns to earn $1,000 so I could help build the Creation Museum. My donation earned me lifetime free admission, a polo shirt, and my name engraved in the lobby. I wrote back and forth with many prominent creationists and hotly debated origins with anyone who dared argue in favor of evolution. On two occasions I even wrote featured articles for the Answers In Genesis website... a high honor for Teenage Me.

I'm writing all this because I don't know many people who were as far into the creation science movement as I was and came out of it. After graduating high school, I went on to college and got my Bachelor's degree in physics; I now work in energy regulation. Despite four years of physics, it still took me a long time before I actually came to understand evolution, geology, and cosmology. Now, I'm always learning, always finding out new information, always excited.

Because so much of what I'd been taught was flatly false, I had to re-learn practically everything about biology, geology, and the history of science. I'm amazed by the amount of evidence I systematically ignored or explained away, just because it didn't match creation science.
Bill Nye may not understand just how difficult it is for people who were raised like me to abandon creationism. Creationism isn't just one belief; it's a system of beliefs and theories that all support each other. We believed that unless we could maintain confidence in special creation, a young planet, a global flood, and the Tower of Babel, we'd be left without any basis for maintaining our faith.

This false dichotomy makes creationism strong. As long as people think the foundation of their religious faith depends on denial of science, it takes incredible energy to make them question the simple explanations given by the creationist movement. Ken Ham claims creation science keeps people from abandoning Christianity, but it usually works in the opposite direction.

Learning the history of creationism freed me to examine the evidence for evolution. I wouldn't claim to know everything about the Bible, but I do know Ken Ham's insistence on "biblical origins" is as phony as the rest of creation science. I had never known creationism was only invented a scant 50 years ago (six-day-young-earth creationism was never a fundamentalist dogma until the 1960s). I had never known that most Christians accepted the Bible's creation account as deliberate allegory many centuries before scientists even knew the earth revolved around the sun.

I hope Bill Nye doesn't underestimate creationists. Between their strident religious confidence and the way they painstakingly dumb-down and oversimplify evidence to fit into 6,000 years, people like Ken Ham can be tough nuts to crack. We were raised with false ideas about biology, geology, and history itself. Relearning all these things from the ground up is a tall order to begin with; the influence of religious dogma only make it that much more difficult. In a debate like this one, demonstrating even the most elementary facts about evolution and the age of the universe would be a great success.

Creationism has spread an incredible amount of misinformation over the past half-century. I hope Nye can cut through the accumulated falsehoods and teach about the actual evidence. I want people to be free to learn, free to understand, free to explore the fantastic mysteries of the universe without being tied down to phony dogma that wasn't even part of Christianity until the last fifty years. I want children to learn how to trust the scientific method... and, even more importantly, how to use the scientific method so their creativity and imagination won't be wasted trying to defend pseudoscience.
The universe has so much more to offer than could ever fit into a few thousand years.

Ernst’s Law

By Edzard Ernst

Originally Published Saturday 23 November 2013

Some time ago, Andy Lewis formulated a notion which he called ‘Ernst’s law’. Initially, I felt this was a bit o.t.t., then it made me chuckle, and eventually it got me thinking: could there be some truth in it, and if so, why?

The ‘law’ stipulates that, if a scientist investigating alternative medicine is much liked by the majority of enthusiasts in this field, the scientist is not doing his/her job properly. In any other area of healthcare, such a ‘law’ would be absurd. Why then does it seem to make sense, at least to some degree, in alternative medicine? The differences between any area of conventional and alternative medicine are diverse and profound.

Take neurology, for instance: here we have an organ-system, anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, etiology and nosology all related more or less specifically to this field and all based on facts, rigorous science and substantial evidence. None of this knowledge, science and evidence is static, but each has evolved and can be predicted to do so in future. What we knew about neurology 50 years ago, for example, was dramatically different from what we know today. Scientific discovery discoveries in neurology link up with the knowledge gathered in other areas of medicine to generate a (more or less) complete bigger picture.

In alternative medicine or any single branch thereof, we have no specific organ-system, anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, etiology or nosology to speak of. We also have few notions that are transferable from one branch of alternative medicine to another – on the contrary, the assumptions of homeopathy, for example, are in overt contradiction to those of acupuncture which, in turn, are out of sync with those of reflexology, aromatherapy and Reiki.

Instead, each branch of alternative medicine has its own axioms that are largely detached from reality or, indeed, from the axioms of other branches of alternative medicine. In acupuncture, for instance, we have concepts such as yin and yang, qi, meridians and acupuncture points, and there is hardly any development of these concepts. This renders them akin to dogmas, and there is no chance in hell that the combination of all the branches of alternative medicine would add up to provide a sensible ‘bigger picture’.

If a scientist were to instill scientific, critical, progressive thought in a field like neurology, thus overthrowing current concepts and assumptions, they would be greeted with open arms among many like-minded researchers who all pursue the aim of advancing their field and contributing to the knowledge base by overturning wrong assumptions and discovering new truths. If researchers were to spend their time trying to analyse the concepts or treatments of alternative medicine, thus overthrowing current concepts and assumptions, they would not only not be appreciated by the majority of the experts working in this field, they would be castigated for their actions.

If a scientist dedicated decades of hard work to the rigorous assessment of alternative medicine, that person would become a thorn in the flesh of believers. Instead of welcoming him with open arms, some disappointed enthusiasts of alternative treatments might even pay for defaming them.

On the other hand, if a researcher merely misused the tools of science to confirm the implausible assumptions of alternative medicine, he would quickly become the celebrated ‘heroes’ of this field.

This is the bizarre phenomenon that ‘Ernst’s law’ seems to capture quite well – and this is why I believe the ‘law’ is worth more than a laugh and a chuckle. In fact, ‘Ernst’s law’ might even describe the depressing reality of retrograde thinking in alternative medicine more accurately than most of us care to admit.

What do readers feel? Their comments following this blog may well confirm or refute my theory.
_________________________________________________________________________________________

Edzard Ernst MD, PhD, FMedSci, FSB, FRCP, FRCPEd

Emeritus Professor, Exeter University

Dr. Ernst qualified as a physician in Germany in 1978 where he also completed his MD and PhD theses. He received hands-on training in acupuncture, autogenic training, herbalism, homoeopathy, massage therapy and spinal manipulation.

Later, he became Professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) at Hannover Medical School and Head of the PMR Department at the University of Vienna. In 1993, he moved to the UK and became Chair in Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter. He is founder/Editor-in-Chief of two medical journals (Perfusion and Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies).

He has published 48 books and more than 1000 articles in the peer-reviewed medical literature. His work has been awarded with 14 scientific prizes. In 1999, he took British nationality.

His research focussed on the critical evaluation of all aspects of alternative medicine. Unlike most of his colleagues, he does not aim to promote a particular therapy. His goal is to provide objective evidence and reliable information. It is fair to say that this ambition did not endear him to many quasi-religious believers in alternative medicine.

Healthy Skepticism is republishing selections from Dr. Ernst’s blog with permission. Please visit his website at http://edzardernst.com

You Will Be Assimilated. | Neurotic Physiology

Jan 24 2014 Published by scicurious under Academia, Uncategorized

Blame Bashir for this one.

In a previous post, I talked about how I wasn't yet free of academia. How it's still got hooks in me, in the form of papers that need to be published, and that won't get published until I get them out. Bashir noted that it was like Borg.

Borg, for those not familiar, are characters in the Star Trek universe. The most quoted phrase is 'resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.' Borg are partially cybernetic and act as part of a "hive" controlled by a queen. Like metallic, slightly slimy looking bees. But smarter (though I have always wondered why they have to look slimy). If you get assimilated into the Borg, it's very hard to leave, they give you all these cybernetic implants that influence your thoughts and dampen your feelings. Freeing someone from the Borg is a difficult experience, with lots of surgeries to remove the implants (for example your organs have to relearn how to function on their own). Often it's lifelong, and you are never truly free.

In particular, consider the character Seven of Nine, from Star Trek: Voyager. She was integrated into the Borg when she was 6. Grew up and lived her whole life as Borg. She then ends up on the Voyager, and they begin taking away her cybernetic implants. She begins to function on her own and build a life for herself. But some of the implants, esp the cortical node, can't really be removed well. She always has difficulty with some things, especially emotions. But she has some advantages as well, she can always sense Borg activity, for example.

(Seven of Nine. Pity her, she had emotional issues and had to wear a LOT of catsuits. Source)

De-assimilating from the Borg does, in a way, remind me of academia.

Obviously academia does not give you cybernetic implants in grad school (though if they are, they'd BETTER come with the health plan and a decent increase in stipend). But leaving academia and its culture behind can be jarring. I had been in it, in some way, my whole life. I believed that it was the best place. It is, in many ways, great. But it's also very much its own world. Some other careers may be similar, but I've only experienced this one.

There are so many things about academia that I have assimilated, and that, via slow and sometimes painful surgeries, I have to get rid of. Instead of cybernetic implants, maybe I shed them in a different way. Shreds of lab coat here, a nitrile glove there. A few examples:

1. I'm learning the outside way of behaving professionally. Emails in academia could get very passive aggressive or just out and out aggressive. Thankfully, it's a minority of people who do it, but in academia, that kind of behavior (along with other kinds of bad behavior) is often allowed to perpetuate, as long as the science is good. I know you don't do that on the outside. I know people who feel physically sick checking their email sometimes. I still catch myself questioning many emails I receive. Was it meant to be snarky? Is there another way to interpret that? What did I do? At the same time, though, I know I shouldn't need to be handled with kid gloves.
I also don't seem to know how to communicate casually, yet professionally. I alternate between hyper-formal, ultra passive prose, and one-liners. I know there's a happy medium in there somehow, but I'm still learning where it is.

2. I don't know when to quit. If you don't have every spare minute in academia filled (and by spare, I mean til at least 1am every night, a family can count as a hobby), you are not doing enough. Find more things to do. More projects, more grants, more papers. Outside, well, don't overload yourself! Because if you do, you do everything worse. Better to do less, and do it well. This is still a major, major shock to my system. My gut is always telling me to do more and more and more.

3. I don't know how to take criticism. Or rather, I know how I SHOULD take criticism. I know I do not take it well. This is odd, because I remember a time when I took criticism well. I did a lot of theater and music, it was something you HAD to take well. I took it, I improved, worked harder, fixed things, and did better. Sometime during grad school, however, criticism began to paralyze me. Every critique felt like a critique of me, as a scientist. Since a scientist was what I WAS, all criticism began to feel like criticism of me, as a person. Sometimes it was indeed phrased that way. You are careless. You are not smart enough, why don't you get this?! You are not focused.
I remember once, my aunt asked me what peer review was. I explained, and to show what I meant, handed her a review of one of my manuscripts. When she handed it back, she was on the verge of tears. She asked how they could be so mean to me. It was an accept with minor revisions. But it was full of things like "the authors do not grasp...", "the authors fail to state...", "the authors smell..." (ok, no). And I remembered when I first read that review. How my heart sank and my stomach hurt and my PI had to TELL me is was accepted. Because it surely did not say that anywhere on there.
Before academia, I would have taken criticism and said "I can be more careful, I will work on focus. Intelligence will just have to deal." But after academia...criticism still makes me work harder, but I first spend a period completely paralyzed by panic. Panic, gnawing self doubt, and shame. Why couldn't I do better? What's wrong with me? Why am I such a terrible person? Why am I not smart enough? Isn't there a way to make myself more careful, more smart? Outside of academia, I am relearning to take criticism. It is a long process.

4. When the professional is often personal. Not that there weren't professional standards in academia of course. But when all your colleagues are all your friends (and often your only friends) and are often also your significant others, well, things get mixed up. There were colleagues you couldn't work with because your friend had divorced them and it got ugly. And of course, you're all talking about work outside of work. Often, you feel like you don't know HOW to talk anything else but shop. Academia was my life. Soon you just become wrapped up in it, and everything else begins to lose importance. Outside, I've been relearning perspective.

5. You can be positive. So much of academia is based in criticism. It's important criticism. Science would not advance if we just said things looked nice and sent it along. You have to probe, you have to say "that's unacceptable with an n=3," you have to say "that explanation isn't adequate." It's incredibly important. But it also, over time, can make people really negative. Things you screw up become "how could you!?" and things you did right...well they were what you should be doing and deserve no praise. I've observed before that only academia could turn successes into mere not-failures. If you DIDN'T see something wrong with that talk you were just at, well obviously you don't know anything about the field! Too gullible! Cynicism makes you look smart.
This isn't the case outside. I love that I can be enthusiastic about my ideas...and that's ok! Other people are too! We work with ideas and refine them, rather than ripping them apart before building them again. The net result may end up the same. But the process is so much sunnier. Even when people don't like your idea, they say "well, I don't think we're interested in that," as opposed to "how could you attempt something so stupid." People are congratulated on their achievements...and you feel they HAVE done something good. Sure, it's your job, it's what you are supposed to be doing, but you're good at it, and that deserves praise. This, above everything else, has made me happy to be where I am.

I'm sure there are others, pieces of academia that I will shed over time. But I hope I keep the positive things. Seven of Nine could sense Borg. She could also act without panic in a crisis. I hope I will keep my academic remnants, my training, my questioning, my background and my ability to do research. I hope I will keep some of my cynicism, so I remember to look for the flaws and stick to careful interpretations. There are advantages to assimilation, after all.

The psychology of political parties: Why conservatives fall in line and liberals don’t

Thursday, Jan 23, 2014 08:15 AM EST

Research suggests liberals suffer from a sense of false uniqueness -- and they strive to maintain their difference

Sarah Estes and Jesse Graham, Scientific American

(Credit: istockphoto \ Iqoncept)

This article was originally published by Scientific American.

When he was President, Bill Clinton famously (and perhaps apocryphally) complained that getting Democrats to agree on a course of action was like herding cats, while the Republicans didn’t seem to have this problem. All political parties are large coalitions of people with varied interests and beliefs, but is it possible that ideological differences between the parties could play a decisive role here?

A new paper by researchers at New York University, in press at Psychological Science, suggests that the answer is yes. A large body of psychological research has shown that people tend to overestimate how much others share their beliefs, feelings, and practices. But this new research suggests that this is not the case for those on the left end of the political spectrum – in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Conservatives and moderates overestimated the degree to which other conservatives and moderates were like them, while liberals assumed they were more unique among party peers than they actually were. This “liberal uniqueness” perceptive bias could help to explain why it’s harder to get Democrats to fall in line than it is for Republicans.

Led by Chadly Stern, the scientists begin by contrasting the conservative Tea Party movement, which has successfully organized its own congressional caucus, with the liberal Occupy Wall Street movement, which was hobbled by its inability to reach consensus on issues both large (what’s our agenda?) and small (how should we respond to the NYPD’s request to take down signs?). While group member similarities (in goals, beliefs, preferences, and personalities) are crucial for organizational success, the authors wondered whether perceptions of in-group similarities were just as important. In other words, maybe if group members only thought they were the same, the group would function better.

In the first study, hundreds of people online answered forty questions about preferences and beliefs, half of them political (“America should strive to strengthen its military”) and half non-political (“I like poetry”). They then estimated what percentage of study participants who share their political beliefs (political in-group members) would agree with them on each item – in other words, if you’re a conservative, and you indicated that you liked poetry, you then estimated what percentage of other conservatives in the study liked poetry as well. Stern and colleagues then compared those estimateswith the actual figues to determine whether each participant overestimated their similarity to their political in-group (false consensus) or underestimated it (false uniqueness).

Conservatives overestimated how similar their preferences were to those of other conservatives (false consensus), while liberals underestimated how similar their preferences were to those of other liberals (false uniqueness). Political moderates also overestimated their similarity to other moderates, in line with previous findings that people in general overestimate how much other people share their preferences and beliefs. This was the case for both political (e.g., military spending) and non-political (e.g., poetry) preferences.

The second study replicated the design of the first, with one twist: everyone also filled out the Need for Uniqueness scale, with questions like “If I must die let it be an unusual death rather than an ordinary death in bed.” Again, conservatives and moderates overestimated how similar they were to their political in-group, while liberals underestimated their similarity to their political in-group.
Further, these ideological differences were in part accounted for by people’s need for uniqueness – the more you expressed the desire to be different from those around you, the more you underestimated how similar you were. This suggests that liberals think they’re unique among liberals in part because they want to be unique.

Anyone who’s ever been part of a liberal counter-cultural clique will recognize this pressure to be unique, which can easily turn into an arms race. You’ve got a tattoo? Well, my skin is nothing but tattoos. You make artisanal pickles? Well, I make artisanal horseradish. You have a pet ferret? Well, I have a pet camel. And so on. But it’s this motivation to be unique – even among other liberals – that makes liberals alike. It’s a bit like the scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian where a crowd of hundreds chants in unison: “Yes, we are all individuals! Yes, we are all different!”

While the findings make sense in light of ideological stereotypes like the gotta-be-different liberal hipster, or the conformist conservative soldier, they might not apply as well to contemporary American politics. These days you’re more likely to hear the “herding cats” phrase in reference to John Boehner’s attempts to reconcile the Tea Party faction with the rest of the Republicans in the House. It remains to be seen whether the conservative false consensus effect can lead to any real consensus in the GOP.