The Dr Fox Lecture

In 1970 three American researchers, John E. Ware, Donald H. Naftulin and Frank A. Donnelly, designed an experiment to find out whether a brilliant delivery technique of a talk could so completely bamboozle a group of experts that they overlooked the fact that the content was nonsense. The result was the hilarious Dr Fox Lecture and the answer was: yes! The experts didn't notice a thing. Read the full story here: http://www.weirdexperiments.com. More bizarre stories about unusual experiments in "Mad Science" by Reto U. Schneider (http://www.weirdexperiments.com/thebook.htm).

Follow me at https://twitter.com/retouschneider

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• psychology
• experiment

[billygutter01]

I might even suggest that this could be called "The Fox News Effect".

[dookiecheez]

People seem to think I sound intelligent and knowledgeable on a number of topics which I know very little. But damn, this was a whole 'nother echelon of bsing.

[BeepimajeepBeep]

this is why liberal arts, psychology, humanities, history etc.... is pointless for a college degree. Why go to college, when you can read a book at your library.

[TotaIIy]

i dunno. the audience members were probably just being polite.

[ApplebyHumphrey]

You might try Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk about "Eat, Pray, Love."

[scotthenry111]

Fox News's talking heads don't even have to try to sound like they know what they're talking about.

[jjacksonRIAB]

Flipping back between video and text is distracting and ill-timed, but otherwise a good video.

[sheff89]

can you please provide some examples of  TED talks devoid of content?

[rg0057]

This video should be shown to all TED conference attendees and website visitors. I've seen TED talks that are entirely devoid of content, and yet they are praised highly on the TED website and (when it's possible to tell) by the audience in the recording.

[Bellezassss]

He looks like KassemG at times