RomanDavis comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (1742)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: CronoDAS 06 September 2012 02:40:09AM 2 points [-]

Yeah, you definitely have to beware of WEIRD psychological samples, too.

For example, there's a culture in which people don't experience the Müller-Lyer illusion - which has even been observed in people who have been blind from birth.

Comment author: RomanDavis 06 September 2012 02:56:47AM 0 points [-]

Which culture?

Comment author: J_Taylor 06 September 2012 03:01:51AM 2 points [-]
Comment author: CronoDAS 06 September 2012 04:17:15AM *  3 points [-]

According to the PDF about the WEIRD psychological samples, the San foragers of the Kalahari desert.

Another "interesting" bit of trivia: the ability to look at something very far away and understand that it only looks small is a learned skill, not an innate one.

The anthropologist Colin Turnbull described what happened in the former Congo in the 1950s when a BaMbuti pygmy, used in living in the dense Ituri forest (which had only small clearings), went with him to the plains:

And then he saw the buffalo, still grazing lazily several miles away, far down below. He turned to me and said, 'What insects are those?'

At first I hardly understood, then I realized that in the forest vision is so limited that there is no great need to make an automatic allowance for distance when judging size. Out here in the plains, Kenge was looking for the first time over apparently unending miles of unfamiliar grasslands, with not a tree worth the name to give him any basis for comparison...

When I told Kenge that the insects were buffalo, he roared with laughter and told me not to tell such stupid lies. (Turnbull 1963, 217)

Because Kenge had no experience of seeing distant objects he saw them simply as small.

Original source

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 07 September 2012 04:50:24AM 1 point [-]

the ability to look at something very far away and understand that it only looks small is a learned skill, not an innate one.

Taboo "learned/innate skill". Is everything except what feral children do a learned skill? If not what do you mean?