"People like laconic theories that contradict intuition"

Supporters and opponents of gay brothers at the demonstration. USA

Photo: Brian Cahn / Zuma / Global Look Press

The British Adam Kucharsky, the author of the book “The Rules of Infection” (has just been released at the Sinbad publishing house), successfully combines two professions at once. On the one hand, he is a well -known epidemiologist, professor of the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine. On the other hand, the no less well-known medical statistics, which in the first panic weeks of current pandemia began to build realistic forecast models of the spread of the Covid-19, for which he was called the Guardian newspaper “The voice of the mind in the world of coronaviral insanity”.

The professional versatility of Adam Kucharsky makes him an ideal author of the book, in the English name of which the duality of the topic has already been beaten (the word Contagion can mean not only “infection”, but also “contamination”): this is a book not only (and not so much) about infectious diseases as about the general principles of viral spread-whether it is about the epidemic, memes or fake-nuis.

Along the way, the author analyzes in detail some psychological illusions and distortions, in particular - the phenomenon of the “reverse effect”, or “the effect of the reverse result” (which is also the “bias of confirmation”, confirmation bias ): we all tend to give preference to the information that is already consistent with our already established point of view. And when we try to dissuade us - even with the help of indisputable arguments - we are only strengthened in our belief (“reverse effect”).

An excerpt from the head of the “Friendship Factor” , which we publish with the kind permission of the publishing house, talks about how difficult it is to resist this bias - and how easy it is to fake the necessary results of a sociological study.

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