True, but there are false ideas that seem to lend themselves to independent reinvention many times over.
One of my favorites is the "Marching Morons"/Idiocracy fear, which was also a major justification for eugenic policies in the 20th century: "oh no, high intelligence is reproductively selected against, so we're getting dumber!" It always keeps coming back no matter how little evidence supports it, and I think part of the reason is that unpopular, smart teenagers come up with it independently. The interesting thing about it is that it selectively infects highly educated people.
For a wrong idea to really catch on, there has to be either some kind of motive for spreading it, or a self-reinforcing aspect (the kind of thing Dawkins riffed on) or some misleading data in the world that give it the illusion of being true. Often the wrong idea is a simpler interpretation of some data than the correct one, so Ockham-like heuristics will make it appealing.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-12-28 04:26 am (UTC)One of my favorites is the "Marching Morons"/Idiocracy fear, which was also a major justification for eugenic policies in the 20th century: "oh no, high intelligence is reproductively selected against, so we're getting dumber!" It always keeps coming back no matter how little evidence supports it, and I think part of the reason is that unpopular, smart teenagers come up with it independently. The interesting thing about it is that it selectively infects highly educated people.
For a wrong idea to really catch on, there has to be either some kind of motive for spreading it, or a self-reinforcing aspect (the kind of thing Dawkins riffed on) or some misleading data in the world that give it the illusion of being true. Often the wrong idea is a simpler interpretation of some data than the correct one, so Ockham-like heuristics will make it appealing.