Psychological effect noted by psychologist Bertram R. Forer in 1948, under which any fairly large and diverse group of people may come to believe that a tenuously balanced personality reading (especially one which, for the purpose of the test, is copied and handed out for them to ponder individually) applies strongly to each of them as individuals. Later studies have shown that the effect tends to be strongest when the recipient is given to understand that the reading has supposedly been tailored to them as an individual, that the person making the propositions is an authority they feel they can trust, and/or that most or all of the personality traits listed are positive ones, in other words flattering. The Forer effect may be of import in understanding the popularity of such pseudosciences as fortune telling or astrology.
Personality reading used to illuminate the Forer effect (thanks to Wikipedia):
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
Now ... how does this apply to YOU?
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
Now ... how does this apply to YOU?
by Fearman March 11, 2008
Someone who refuses to bow to the alleged power of any alleged supernatural entity, however great that power is alleged to be. One of a group of people far wiser and more common than they are usually given credit for. Someone who thinks in terms of reason rather than fear. In particular, someone who refuses to let their perfectly natural fear of death overwhelm their reason. Someone who accepts that even if there were a god worth worshipping, which cannot be proved, the divinity would be worth worshipping precisely because it supports or represents such things as justice, truth, love and compassion, which are universal human ideals and are not, contrary to the propaganda, derived from any religion. Someone who accepts that, as guides to the good life, such ideals therefore come before all else. A humanist. Atheists are often accused, by religionists who have found support in postmodernist relativism, that atheism is a religion like any other. If anorexia could be considered a favourite food, these postmodernist types might have a point ... but I'm doubting it.
Someone once said there are no atheists in foxholes. Firstly, oh yes there are: and secondly, even if it were true, that would be more an argument against foxholes than against atheism.
by Fearman August 30, 2007
Someone who says we should stop watching so much TV and get out into the wilds, and talks of wind farms as the next big thing in Green, Earth-friendly energy generation, until those techie eggheads actually build wind farms, at which point the environmentalist starts talking about how all those whirling blades pose a threat to bird life and interfere with the energies in a little old lady's television. They used to do everyone a favour trying to save whales and reminding the public of the evils of pollution and tropical deforestation. Now they prefer to chow down on maize that has been so mutated it needs human farmers to help it reproduce, and milk from cows with huge swaying udders who wouldn't last a tap on the savannahs of Africa, often themselves dressed in wool stolen from similarly unnatural sheep, while getting everyone riled up about the alleged satanic evil of genetic engineering. Gimme the old days when Greenpeace were risking their lives before the harpoons of Russian and Japanese whalers, rather than risking the sanity of Western civilisation.
by Fearman August 02, 2007
by Fearman March 25, 2008
A whill he is. Green he is. Exiled on Dagobah in his twilight years he is. Strong in the Force he is. The best Muppet in a billion galaxies he is. Sounds like Fozzie Bear he does, not surprising which is voiced by Frank Oz he is because. More to say I need not, hmmmm?
by Fearman November 22, 2007
Someone who likes to fuck bulls who fear or hate people who like to make love to dead young burning spiders of the same sex.
by Fearman October 10, 2007
Dilution used on a homeopathic preparation called Occilococcinum, made from freeze-dried powdered duck liver diluted one hundredfold in solvent 200 times over and supposedly of use in curing cold and flu symptoms. This dilution, if accurately labelled, would represent one molecule of (allegedly) active ingredient in 1 followed by 400 zeroes other molecules, or in other words somewhere between the fourth and fifth exponential powers of the total number of atoms in the observable Universe.
by Fearman November 29, 2007