Secular Superstitions

Why Unfalsifiable Narratives Are Harmful

Is diamond harder than steel? Does 2 + 2 = 4? Sure. But there are some statements that we can’t evaluate as either true or false. Some of them are obviously meaningless (for example, the present king of France is bald or colourless green ideas sleep furiously). But others may be experienced as meaningful even though, on closer analysis, they cannot be objectively evaluated as true or false. These include assertions about ethics (for example, rich people deserve their wealth) and obscurantisms (for example, Deepak Chopra’s pronouncement that attention and intention are the mechanics of manifestation). Some philosophers, most notably the logical positivists, referred to such statements as “meaningless,” “nonsense” or “pseudo-statements.” It is easy enough to see that it is meaningless to talk about colourless green ideas or the present king of a republic, but there are meaningless statements that look meaningful at first, and that require effort to be unmasked as meaningless.

Recognising Pseudo-Profound Bullshit

In recent years, some philosophers and psychologists have settled on a technical term to describe meaningless statements that are intended to sound meaningful: they simply call it bullshit. In a 2015 study, “On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound…