People Trust Nonsense More if They Think a Scientist Said It

Discontinuity is the antithesis of inspiration. The complexity of
the present time seems to demand an unveiling of our hopes if
we are going to survive (https://bit.ly/34XAs1y). This life is
nothing short of a blossoming osmosis of mythic understanding.
Sounds like bullshit? That's because it is. 
These statements were generated using the New Age Bullshit
Generator (https://bit.ly/3uS3iLF), an algorithm that combines
new-age buzzwords and seemingly intellectual wording to create
phrases that sound profound. 
An international team of researchers recently presented people with
some 'pseudo-profound bullshit' created by the generator to see if
they found the statements more credible if they came from a scientist
or a spiritual guru. 
In total, 10,195 participants from 24 countries answered questions
relating to the supposed credibility of the statements; they were
also asked about their own degrees of religiosity. 
The results suggest that people generally find statements more
credible if they come from a scientist when compared to a spiritual
guru, with 76 percent of participants rating the 'scientist's'
balderdash at or above the midpoint of the credibility scale,
compared with 55 percent for the 'guru'. 
Additionally, individuals who scored high for religiosity still
showed a preference for the statement from the scientist compared
to the spiritual guru; however, it was relatively weaker than the
general sample. Religious individuals also gave higher credibility
judgments to gurus compared to the general sample but were still
lower than the scientist.  
The authors think their results could be down to what's been
previously called the 'Einstein effect', where trusted sources of
information are given the benefit of the doubt because of the social
credibility they possess. 
"From an evolutionary perspective, deference to credible authorities
such as teachers, doctors, and scientists is an adaptive strategy that
enables effective cultural learning and knowledge transmission
(https://bit.ly/34CIlKj). Indeed, if the source is considered a
trusted expert, people are willing to believe claims from that source
without fully understanding them," state
(https://go.nature.com/3rQ3BoD) the researchers. 
In other words, the concepts that Einstein could comprehend were
outside the intellectual paygrade of most people, and so a certain
level of trust that he knows what he is talking about has to be
granted.
However, in some cases, the team suggests that incomprehensible
statements from credible sources may be appreciated not just in spite
of, but because of their incomprehensibility, demonstrated in the
speech of some spiritual leaders – we can call this the 'Guru effect'.
A slightly different interpretation of the findings argues that the
credibility of what someone is saying and who they are depends on
individual and cultural factors, such as the perceiver's political
ideology and worldview. 
"In the absence of the means to rationally evaluate a claim and
reliable source information, people probably infer credibility based
on beliefs about the group to which the source belongs (for example,
'conservatives', 'scientists'). In this process, similarities between
one's own worldview and that of the source's group may serve
as a proxy for being a benevolent and reliable source," note the
authors (https://go.nature.com/3GQndwY).