The Science of Misdirection
And the misdirection of science
Posted on 29 Mar 25
by John RidgwayIn Uncategorized
Who doesn’t love a good magician? Yes, they can be a bit cheesy at times, but a good one can make you believe that they actually do have magical powers. Of course, the truth is far more mundane. Despite appearances, these folk are not supernatural, they are just masters of misdirection. If you want to get all sciency about it, the trickery relies upon the fact that we don’t notice what we aren’t paying attention to, and so the magician makes sure that we are paying attention to the wrong thing. A good magician can do this so subtly that we are not aware that our focus of attention is being manipulated. It’s not so much that they are being dishonest with their audience, they are just taking advantage of our inability to process all of the information in real time. It’s an inability for which we must blame evolution, since natural selection has favoured those with an ability to focus their attention.
But you don’t have to buy tickets for a cabaret act in order to experience the wonders of misdirection. It surrounds you everywhere you go. Just ask the behavioural scientists and they will tell you just how easy it is to influence the decisions of we poor, intuitive thinkers with our cognitive biases. What is far less appreciated, however, is that even within the realm of scientific research, where analytical thinking is the eel’s eyebrows, much can still be achieved in terms of public misdirection, and it doesn’t require scientific malpractice or outright deception. But whilst this has always been appreciated by your average climate sceptic, it has taken until now for a pair of philosophy professors to draw the rest of the world’s attention to this important phenomenon.
Earlier this year, a paper appeared in Philosophy of Science (the ‘Official Journal of the Philosophy of Science Association’) highlighting the problem. The abstract reads:
https://cliscep.com/2025/03/29/the-science-of-misdirection/
