>> ALEX: You don’t know how toilets work.
This thing you use every single day, hopefully, you know almost nothing about even though
you may think you do.
I guarantee it.
Well, actually, I don’t guarantee it, maybe a plumber is watching, or maybe you just really
know how a toilet works, but chances are that you think you know how a toilet works, but
you actually don’t.
Let’s talk to some people, and, I recommend you too answer my questions as we go.
Hey guys, I’m here interviewing some people, let’s get technical.
So, on a scale of 1-10, 1 being you have no knowledge whatsoever, 10 being you're an expert
in this, rate how well you understand how a toilet works.
>> PARTICIPANT: 3
>> ALEX: A 3? That's a good answer.
>> PARTICIPANT: A 9 or 8 I think
That is a 3 for me
3, 4 maybe
I'd go with maybe a 2
3.5
I give it a 4.5 out of 10
Maybe 3
3
5
>> ALEX: That's good, solid answer.
So, can you explain to me, step by step, how a toilet works.
>> PARTICIPANT: Well, so there's a handle, and you flush it, and it goes through some machinery,
There's little lever inside the little box that's behind what you sit on, and then it...
I just know there's just kinda pipes, and I don't really know.
The water washes down into the pipes, okay?
There's like pipes going into the top thing, and then you press the flusher thing, and then the water goes all around and it flushes the gross stuff out.
>> ALEX: How does it actually, like, *flush* it out?
>> PARTICIPANT: It goes down a pipe? I don't know.
Water comes out into the bowl, and pushes the stuff down.
>> ALEX: Can you elaborate on that? Like, the pushing?
>> PARTICIPANT: Um, I'm not sure.
>> ALEX: How does the water actually go down?
>> PARTICIPANT: Um, can't wait for the next Technicality video for that one!
>> ALEX: Cool! So, now after you explained it, can you reevaluate yourself? On a scale of 1-10, rate how well you know how toilets work.
>> PARTICIPANT: 2
A 6 or a 7.
Like, 2 or 3.
Like a 2.
I think 2 was maybe pretty accurate, although I might want to decrease to a 1.
I'd put myself on a 1.5.
I don't know, I think I'm still a 3.
Uhh, like an 7. I did better than I thought I would.
I'm gonna say 2-3.
Oh, like 1. *both laugh*
This is known as the illusion of explanatory depth, the keyword there being explanatory,
but we’ll get to that later.
The Illusion of Explanatory Depth is when people inaccurately overestimate their knowledge in a certain thing.
You can see this illusion everywhere, because there’s so much stuff we use all the time
and people know almost nothing about, but they think they do.
You could just swap toilets from the previous example and replace them with refrigerators
or zippers or locks or bikes or can openers or a lot of other things!
THERE’S SO MANY THINGS!
Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil, both Yale psychologists, coined the term back in 2002
with this study: The misunderstood limits of folk science: an illusion of explanatory depth.
Hey, quick post-production note. You may notice I didn’t put in a picture of Mr. Rozenblit, and that’s because no picture of him comes up when you Google his name, but John Green’s there for some reason, soooo.
Among other things, like doing many, many, many tests to prove that this is actually
a thing, they outline four factors that contribute to this illusion of explanatory depth.
One!
Change blindness.
Or, more specifically, change blindness blindness.
Let me explain.
This is a bike.
You probably know that, but, now, close your eyes, can you picture a bike?
Maybe it looks something like this, or maybe this, or maybe even this.
Yea, none of those designs would actually work as a bike.
This is Phil Fernbach.
He has a doctorate in cognitive science and is the co-author of The Knowledge Illusion:
Why We Never Think Alone.
>> PHIL FERNBACH: A psychologist studied this question, he wanted to see if people know how a bike works.
He brought people into the lab. He gave them a simple test, he said, "just draw in where the pedals go, draw in where the chain goes and draw in where the frame goes.
I'm gonna show you a couple examples of what people came up with.
Here's one. Bikes haven't looked like this since the 1920s
Here's another one. If you have teeny-tiny legs, this might be the bike for you.
>> BABY LEGS: Baby legs, here we go!! TTTttttt (I don't know how to put that sound into words)
>> ALEX: That was a clip from his TED talk on the subject.
Except for that Rick and Morty clip, I added that myself.
>> PHIL FERNBACH: I didn't cherrypick these examples, these are good representations of the average level of knowledge of bicycles, despite the fact that we all ride them every single day.
>> ALEX: We, as humans, rely very heavily on information that is right in front of us.
“When people succeed at solving problems with devices they may underestimate how much
of their understanding lies in relations that are apparent in the object as opposed to being
mentally represented.”
When the bike is in front of me, of course it’s a bike, but when we change that, we
become both blind to the makeup of the bike and blind to the fact that we are blind to
the makeup of the bike.
Change blindness blindness
Two!
Confusion with layers of explanation.
What is this?
Ok, so let’s take my phone, for example.
How would you explain my cell phone?
Well, among other things, you might mention that there’s a touch screen, a battery,
a speaker, emojis, and a camera.
Ok, so if you’re then asked what’s a camera, you might mention, well, there’s a lens,
a flash, an aperture, et cetera.
Did you just see what we did there?
We just delved into 2 different layers of analysis when it comes to my phone.
The first layer is the stuff that makes up my phone, the second layer is the stuff that
makes up that stuff, and so on and so on if we were to continue.
A problem arises when we gain a surface layer understanding of something, but then think
we know all the layers, creating the illusion of explanatory depth.
Going back to our toilet example, yes, you know that when you press the flushy thing,
the water in the tanky thing empties, and pours out into the bowly thing.
But wait, how does the water actually get from the tank to the bowl?
Where does all that water in the bowl go?
How does the tank know when to stop refilling?
And what other parts play a role?
These are deeper level questions that you may not be able to answer, but because you
know the first layer, your brain thinks “Yea, I know how that works.”
And this contradiction is a big
factor in the illusion of explanatory depth.
Three!
Murkiness of Knowledge.
This one kinda builds on the previous point.
Remember when I said that the key word in the illusion of explanatory depth is explanatory?
That’s because this illusion really only works with explanatory knowledge, not with
facts or processes or other kinds of knowledge.
It’s really easy to know if you know a fact or a process.
Do you know how old I am?
It’s a question in the comments that is very very very very very very very very very
very very very very hey we done yet?
No?
Not even close?
Cool cool.
Very very very
>> SPONGEBOB NARRATOR: 2,000 years later.
>> ALEX: Very very very very very common.
It’s a fact, and it’s pretty easy to tell if you know it or not.
A...
A lot of people don’t, apparently.
You just ask yourself, how old is Alex?
And if your answer is I don’t know, then you don’t know, and if your answer is the
15, then you know it.
Same reasoning for processes.
For example, do you know how to turn on post notification for Technicality?
*weird wink thing*
If your answer is I don’t know, then you don’t know, and if your answer is, well,
just click the little bell right beneath the video, check “Send me all notifications
for this channel,” and click save, then you know it.
So do that--.
However, with explanatory knowledge, that ease simply isn’t there because of those
layers of explanation we talked about earlier.
With processes, you have a clear beginning and end, and with facts, it’s clear if you
either know them or if you don’t.
None of that is true when it comes to explanatory knowledge.
Explanations usually, if not always, have no clear ending because there are so many
layers of explanation you can go into, and, thus, it’s not clear if know it or not.
And finally, four!
The rarity of explanations.
Think about the last time you said a fact or told someone about a process.
It probably wasn’t too long ago.
However, explanations are much more rare.
You don’t often explain how toilets or bikes or refrigerators work, and that’s because
you don’t really need too.
Thus, we have less familiarity with explanations, making us more susceptible to overestimating
our knowledge.
Quote from the Rozenblit and Keil study, “Although each of these four features may be present
to some extent with other kinds of knowledge, such as facts or procedures, we claim they
converge most strongly with explanations, producing a powerful illusion of knowing.”
One of the most important takeaways of the illusion of explanatory depth is that recognition
does not equal understanding.
You know THIS is a computer, but that doesn’t mean you know how it works.
And that’s ok, if my computer ever breaks, well, I know a guy who can hook me up and
fix it, right?
*long, awkward pause* The Division of Cognitive Labour.
Many many years ago, when we switched from a hunting and gathering society to an agriculture
society, we also switched to specialization.
This means that people who are the most helpful to society are really good at one thing, because,
if we’re all really good at one thing, we can all work together to combine those talents.
No one needs to know everything, but if they know a lot of other people, and, collectively,
those other people know almost everything, then we’re all set.
This is the Division of Cognitive Labour.
That’s why we see kids start suffer from the illusion of explanatory depth at the same
age they learn about which professionals know what, around 3-5 years old.
At those ages, kids learn stuff like how a doctor will know how to make you not sick
and farmer will know how to make you not hungry.
That’s why we can get away with the illusion of explanatory depth.
Because we’ve evolved so that we can rely on others, it doesn’t hurt us to not be
able to explain something.
Or does it?
See, it’s not gonna hurt me to not know how zipper zips stuff, but can the illusion
of explanatory depth actually have a pretty big impact?
Turns out, yea.
Remember Phil Fernbach from earlier?
Well, in that TED Talk, he talks about a study he did where he brought in participants and
polled them on certain topical political issues.
Stuff that’s fairly controversial, like a single-payer healthcare system, and emissions
trading, and GMOs.
Participants were asked to explain how each of those things work, and what Phil and his
team found was that people, even if they have extreme, passionate views on a certain issue,
don’t always know how that issue works.
>> PHIL FERNBACH: They think they know how these policies work, when, in fact, they don't. And the attempt to try to explain leads to drastic reduction in the feeling that they get these things.
>> ALEX: Moreover, in another study, they brought in a bunch who people who had all different opinions
on GMOs, ranging from they’re great and everyone should eat them to they’re terrible
and no one should eat them, and asked participants to answer this question: true or false: a
gene inserted into a food can migrate into the genetic code of humans who consume that
food.
Now, if you’re curious, this is false, but what’s interesting is what Phil found.
>> PHIL FERNBACH: The people who are most passionate, most vociferously opposed to this, are the ones who most strongly hold this false belief.
Now, I'm not trying to imply that everyone opposed to GMOs hold this false belief.
What I implore you to do, though, is think about it. Do you know enough to hold the position that you do as strongly as you do?
>> ALEX: Woah.
So the next time you're advocating for a certain view, make sure you ask yourself to explain
the topic before you vote or tell the world.
You should, quite literally, check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Oh, and if you’re still curious about how the standard toilet works: the water level
is usually low enough so it doesn’t go up and then down this pipe, called the trap,
but when you press the handle, the piece covering the hole at the bottom of the tank is lifted,
allowing the water to go into the main bowl, forcing the water currently in the toilet
to go up, in, and down this pipe.
That’s why you can “flush” a toilet by just pouring water in it.
*Maybe a clip of interviews*
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Thanks for watching, DFTBA, and explore on.
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