An Interest In:
Web News this Week
- April 19, 2024
- April 18, 2024
- April 17, 2024
- April 16, 2024
- April 15, 2024
- April 14, 2024
- April 13, 2024
April 26, 2016 10:12 am PDT
Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/znpQ9l3aQNA/pareidolia-discovered-on-mars.html
Pareidolia discovered on Mars
People are stunned to have discovered numerous examples of pareidolia on the red planet. Lizards! Rats! Bigfoot! Pyramids! Frogs! Hovering alien spheres! Tharks!
Michael Shermer writes about our "tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise":
The cost of believing that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is just the wind is relatively low compared with the opposite. Thus, there would have been a beneficial selection for believing that most patterns are real. Through a series of complex formulas that include additional stimuli (wind in the trees) and prior events (past experience with predators and wind) the authors conclude that the inability of individuals human or otherwise to assign causal probabilities to all sets of events that occur around them will often force them to lump causal associations with non-causal ones. From here, the evolutionary rationale for superstition is clear: natural selection will favour strategies that make many incorrect causal associations in order to establish those that are essential for survival and reproduction.
[via]
Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/znpQ9l3aQNA/pareidolia-discovered-on-mars.html
Share this article:
Tweet
View Full Article