Speaking of Bullshit…

Image by Bhutan-360 via Flickr

Scott Adams clearly watched it last night…

Last night, Penn & Teller did an episode on astrology and how bogus “personality profiles,” which are so general as to be meaningless, take us in; Adams, in turn, has duped (some of) his readers into believing he analyzed their personalities based on an analysis of his Web traffic.

Here’s Adams’s “profile” of his readership:

You are unusually curious about how things work. You value function over form. You like solving problems, even if they are not your own problems, and other people don’t always appreciate that about you. You can be argumentative. You like pets.

At least one of your parents is a bit of an intellectual. You place a high value on education. You think people control their own success over time, although luck plays a huge role in any given moment.

Your generosity has gotten you in trouble in the past. You don’t trust the media. You think you’re smarter than most of the people in your life.

You like finding ways to save time and money. Your relationships have been bumpy. You get angry a lot but you think it is usually justified. You wish you were funnier and more creative than you are.

You have imperfect vision. You don’t exercise as much as you think you should. You wonder what it would be like if you were more attractive. You value science over superstition. Learning makes you feel good.

How’d I do?

Well, he did just great. I’m a reader of his blog. I’m curious about how things work. I like solving problems. I’m argumentative (I blog, for God’s sake). I place a high value on education. I like finding ways to save time and money. I get angry, but always think I’m right. I don’t exercise enough. I value science over superstition. Etcetera.

Of course, I’m an Internet-y person who likes Scott Adams. Obviously most of these things are true about me! Adams has made a lot of these specific to Internet culture, but you can do this with universal human traits as well. My favorite from his list is this: “You think people control their own success over time, although luck plays a huge role in any given moment.” Totally true! I do think people control their success over time, except when luck intervenes!

The real trick, however, is that all of these traits don’t have to be perfectly universal. The flip side is that we filter out the results that don’t match. Now, I watched “Bullshit” last night, so I knew exactly what Adams was up to. But if I hadn’t, I would have thought the “profile” was unnervingly accurate; I would have skipped right over the fact that my relationships haven’t been particularly bumpy, that I don’t particularly wish I were funnier, and that I really, really, really hate pets. Ours brains tend to shut those contradictions right out, focusing instead on the stuff we recognize and that gives us that little, pleasurable jolt of recognition.

Now, for the most part, astrology is harmless fun. You might object that people make actual life decisions based on it, which is crazy; but I suspect those people are just looking for justification of decisions they’ve already made (even if they’re not consciously aware that they have). For the people who might actually consider giving money to an astrologer… err, don’t? But if you’re even considering it, you may already be unreachable.