Within the two pages of
the book, Scientific Perspectives on
Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, I immediately thought of a lecture I was
given in Elizabeth Shobe’s Intro to Psychology course last term. During that
lecture, Liz explained the significance of advertising and persuasion; she emphasized
that most advertisements shown on TV are an exaggeration, sometimes even entirely unreliable. When the product
that is being advertised receives reviews throughout the commercial, each
person who speaks is a stranger to the audience. Liz stated, and I quote, “For all
we know, those people proclaiming their dire need for the new ShamWOW! could be family of the inventor.”
After reflecting on this lecture, I have realized she was right. We don’t know
those people who are reviewing the product, and we certainly don’t know if they
have any relation or ties to the people selling
the product. On Pg. 4 of Scientific
Perspectives on Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, it reads, “Notice that
the pseudoscientific approach did not involve systematic empiricism; in other
words, the pseudoscientist did not conduct a study that was carefully planned
to rule out alternative explanations for the improvement in patients’ symptoms.
We do not know for sure whether the people who tried the herbal remedy were
clinically depressed before taking the remedy…” This particular excerpt is
referring to a pseudoscientist who delivered an herbal remedy spoken to relieve
the symptoms of depression. The author, Timothy Lawson, has a very good point
in relation to Liz’s lecture. Not only
are we unfamiliar with the reliability of a testimonial, but we also
cannot prove how that testimonial came to be. Was the product actually helpful, or was the sudden improvement
just an act of subconscious will power from an ineffective placebo?
Refer to the book: Page
4, Chapter 1.
Posts
I completely agree with where you are coming from on this post. I have always been skeptical about paid programming and advertisements because of the testimonials. For too many commercials, it needs to be specified that the person giving the testimonial is "not an actor." That is such a vague statement to make! So what if they aren't an actor? Just because they say this does not automatically make them an "average" person with no tie to the product. It also doesn't rule out if they actually suffered from the problem the product is supposed to fix. After reading this book, I have started to notice more and more pseudoscientific practices in advertising.
ReplyDelete