Thus Explaining Why, Last Time Lunar Weight Was Dumped, We Got Really Into Tangrams

Pattern-forming behaviors are a response to perceived lack of control, according to a study in the new issue of Science. One could argue that pattern-forming behavior as a consequence of lack of control causes pattern-forming behavior in scientists, but one might run the risk of appearing pedantic. Or worse, of being meta, a label which doubtless will get applied to poor LW by the legions of schemers and manipulators that work towards our downfall.

That wasn't exaggeration for the sake of topical humor. We really are that fucking paranoid monomaniacal. We blame the meds, and also the enormous burden of being such transcendent examples of a human animal.

But back to the matter at hand. According to the press release, "researchers showed that individuals who lacked control were more likely to see images that did not exist, perceive conspiracies, and develop superstitions."

The research, performed on bunnies bunny-like undergrads, employed six different tests to see how perceptions changed in response to lack of control—generally speaking, a carefully planned activity meant to frustrate (though, in the universal case of undergrads, the researchers coulda just searched students' bags before the kids left the dining hall). The frustrated subjects were more likely to see identifiable objects in pictures of static, ascribe success or failure to supernatural or ritual causes, and assume that there are things going on behind their back.

In other words, a bunch of Psych 100 students were fried by a damp preteen, but not before they posted some crap about having a secret crush to their MySpace and told everyone to pass it on or no one would ever have sex again and kitten Jesus would cry and then finished with their woman 'cause she couldn't help them with their mind.

And how was news of this finding reported? With, naturally, endlessly referring to the economy.

Except the Chicago Tribune, which naturally referenced baseball, proving once and for all LW's hypothesis that Harry Caray is L. Ron Hubbard.

(for further details, check out the .PDF transcript of an interview with the study's lead author, Jennifer Whitson, from Science's homepage. It's great reading, except for the crap bit where she talks about "pitchers and batters being very superstitious ... . But you didn't see outfielders being that superstitious." Jenny, love, if you were told in Little League that you were an outfielder but not a batter, it was a grievous insult.)

{from the Type A's at ScienceNOW}