Talk:Communal reinforcement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shouldn't this page be merged with groupthink Andries 20:23, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A lot of personal opinion

  • Ghosts
  • Hypnosis
  • Race (human classification to subspecies according to morphological features)
  • God
  • The devil
  • Demons
  • Angels
  • Hell
  • Heaven
  • Infalibility of the Pope
  • transubstantiation
  • reincarnation
  • the soul
  • destiny and predestination
  • kharma
  • auras
  • synchronicity
  • out-of-body experiences
  • psychic abilities
  • past-life regression
  • astrology and horoscopes
  • communicating with the dead
  • tarot cards
  • witchcraft and spells
  • divination
  • psychic mediums
  • augurs
  • virgin births
  • psychic surgery
  • faith healing
  • tea leaf reading
  • palm reading
  • crystal ball gazing
  • stigmata

Whoever put this together is apparently giving their own personal opinion, that all the bullet points above have no basis in reality. People merely keep telling each other that these things are true.

Well, the contributor might be correct, but our readers aren't interested in opinions -- unless they are attribute to specific sources. No fair saying "considered to be..." --Uncle Ed 18:57, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I have moved the other two links also. This is all personal opinion. This is in the nature of the definition.(UFOs,Alien abductions) mydogategodshat 05:05, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)

    I introduced the expression "communal reinforcement" for The Skeptic's Dictionary. I've added a note about this entry to my entry on this term. Here it is for your perusal:

There are no references for this entry because I coined this expression to describe a common phenomenon. I'm sure sociologists have a better term for it and I'm not sure that my use of this term is not an example of cryptomnesia. Google lists 4,380 English pages for "communal reinforcement." The Wikipedia article expands my use of the term. I had no concern for the way cultures pass on claims that are likely to be accurate, such as arithmetic or physics. And I had no concern for lumping every source of error affecting large numbers of people as being due to communal reinforcement. The Wikipedia article makes an unsubstantiated claim that Wikipedia has been "criticized as a place which can strengthen misconceptions, through communal reinforcement." Wikipedia is full of errors and misconceptions but it does not pass them all on by communal reinforcement. Also, Wikipedia has expanded my use of the term when it notes that ideas that are communally reinforced can be for the social good or bad. The way I use the term ideas become accepted because they are repeated. This is always a social evil because it encourages belief without thought, reflection, or concern for the evidence.

Skepdic 14:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)Bob Carroll