STAR TREK Logical Thinking - Psychologist's Fallacy - Cognitive Bias

[00:00:01][music] >> Lieutenant Madding, the occupant of cell B9 requires a specially coded message to be sent to the Oxon and Germany. Please set up a time to gather the contents of that message and expedite the transmission. I'll get right on it, sir.

[00:00:24]Thank you.

[00:00:28]Hedy, what were you arguing with M-3 Green about during this morning's exercise period in the bowling alley? He was again mocking me because he heard I had been arrested because a Berellian farmer easily recognized that the cargo I was selling was fake. That was on trading post Xanex 4, wasn't it? They specialize in agriculture products, if I recall. Yes, I was selling hexophosphoronitride micronutrients to the simple farmers there. I was explaining to that Berellian that my product was superior because it was produced without harmful isolytic infusions of calcio potassium ions. Hedy, was your product actually better? Of course not. Genuine micronutrients of this kind would easily cost 17 times as much as the trash I was hawking. However, the farmers shouldn't have known that it was fake. Who knows the difference between real and fake phosphoronitride? Tell me. I assumed he would be no more than expert in agrochemistry than I was.

[00:01:39]So, M-3 Green was laughing because Xanex 4 was originally founded 80 years ago by an agrochemical survey team led by experts in the composition of real micronutrients of the multi-phosphoronitride variety. Oh, I see. Yes.

[00:02:00]Apparently, most children on Xanex are more savvy in the subject of agrochemistry than even your average adult farmer elsewhere. That's too bad.

[00:02:11]>> [laughter] >> Sudenno, stop laughing. I insist.

[00:02:18]>> [laughter] >> Stop laughing.

[00:02:26]Mr. Mudd, Mr. Jones, I happened to overhear your remarks. Yes, Mr. Spock.

[00:02:32]The reasoning you were describing, Mr. Mudd, was not logical. In fact, it exhibits the psychologist's fallacy, a cognitive bias. I thought he was reasonable. That may be so, Mr. Jones, but his point of view was flawed. The psychologist's fallacy is an informal fallacy that often manifests when two individuals are interacting, one being the observer and the other the subject.

[00:02:54]The phenomenon is a specific form of the similar-to-me stereotype. What is unknown about another person is assumed, for simplicity, using things the observer knows about themself. Such a bias leads the observer to presuppose knowledge or skills [music] or lack of such possessed by another person. For example, I or everyone I know or most people I know don't know very much about warp field theory. Therefore, I can assume that this other person knows very little about warp field theory. This assumption may be true in any number of specific cases, [music] making inductive reasoning based on this assumption cogent, but is not applicable in the general case, since there are many people who are very [music] knowledgeable in the field of warp field theory, and therefore, deductive reasoning based on this assumption may very likely be invalid. Mr. Mudd, you committed this fallacy when you mistakenly assumed that your customers knew as much, or in your case, as little, about discerning real from fake agronutrient additives as you did, leading them to quickly detecting the false material you were selling. Yes, of course. Thank you, friend Spock. Indeed.

[00:04:02]I shall definitely endeavor to reword my statements in the future, my good sir.

[00:04:08]That would be best.

[00:04:24]Even if it seems that one is thinking rationally, one must always strive to avoid giving in to cognitive biases such as the psychologist's fallacy. These biases are systematic patterns of deviation from rationality in judgment, causing judgments to be made in an illogical fashion. Care must be taken [music] to mitigate these biases to ensure proper reasoning.

[00:04:44]It's only logical.

[00:04:46]>> [music]