Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads

[Ian David]

Code: b116HB
Price: $19.95

Sociologist Best dissects the dangerous hula hoops of business, medicine, science and education in this exposition on institutional fads.

According to Best, American attitudes toward progress (colored by optimism, competitiveness, a belief in positive change and a fear of being seen as old-fashioned) serve as kindling to the fire of the next big cure, technological revolution, business management secret or teaching method.

Best delineates stages of the fad life-cycle (“emerging,” “surging,” then finally “purging”) and identifies conditions and players essential to creating a successful fad (a problem needs a solution, which is then proposed by originators and pushed by promoters).

More:
https://www.skeptic.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?&Screen=PROD&Store_Code=SS&Product_Code=b116HB

[wtmusic]

1. Great cover

Can it tell us why torture is considered progress?

[Caution]

2. Reminds me of the 9/11 MIHOPers using the polls about 9/11 as proof

of their theories. 85% of Americans don't believe the government's official story on 9/11! Therefore WTC7 was a controlled demolition!

[JackRiddler]

4. Long as you're cluttering this thread with off-topic bullshit...

Until the 9/11 polls were held, supporters of the official conspiracy theory (OCT) of 9/11 were usually content with the canard that only a tiny fringe of lunatics* could ever think that 9/11 was the result of a US covert operation.

No argument is necessary, since "almost no one" thinks 9/11 was an inside job, ergo Osama dispatched 19 hijackers who evaded detection and successfully carried out the attacks. To argue would be to dignify repulsive ideas, etc.

Now this weapon of ridicule is no longer available, because several 9/11 polls from Zogby, Scripps, et al., dating back to 2004, all show that substantial proportions of Americans disbelieve the OCT, or believe in inside job.

Naturally, those who have always argued against the OCT are pleased.

And you resort to an act of projection, in which you pretend the very same faulty argument that was used for the OCT in the past (majority opinion = confirmation of my own factual claims), is now being used on behalf of 9/11 skepticism.

[radwriter0555]

3. It's simple marketing: People buy what they're TOLD to buy. Different

tactics are used to sell different products to different demographics and types. It's a reliable social science, this whole marketing thing...

And it's fucking brilliant.

[WinkyDink]

5. Is this news? People are herd animals, basically (I'm a misanthrope,

myself), and want to belong.

And the new will always trump the status quo, as the new seems to stave off death, or at least thinking about it.

Well, that, and that variety is the spice of life.

[madmusic]

6. The author is an expert on moral panic and has more:

More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues4 reviews
Joel Best

University of California Press

The Type of Book That Everyone Should Read
It's always refreshing to read a book in which the author strips away the wrapping around statistical figures to expose what those figures really could mean and how to question their credibility. In this book, as in its predecessor (Damned Lies and Statistics, 2001), the author warns against believing as facts the statistical figures that are always presented to us from various sources - both ...

Deviance: Career of a Concept
Joel Best

Wadsworth Publishing, 2003

One of America's foremost experts on deviance, Joel Best, explores the history of the study of deviance in this short, highly accessible supplementary text. Joel Best covers the emergence of anomie theory in the 1950s, the rise of labeling theory in the 1960s, and the shifts in the field as it came under criticism from other theoretical perspectives.

How Claims Spread: Cross-National Diffusion of Social Problems (Social Problems and Social Issues (Paper)) ...
Joel Best

Aldine Transaction, 2001

CROSS-NATIONAL DIFFUSION OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS Why do the same social problems emerge in different societies? Unlike traditional sociological explanations, which argue that the structural and cultural causes of social problems are to be found within different societies, the chapters in this collection examine the role played by external diffusion in the construction of social problems. Claims that appear in one country spread to other nations

Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims
Joel Best

University Of Chicago Press, 1993

Child abuse, incest, child molestation, Halloween sadism, child pornography: although clearly not new problems, they have attracted more attention than ever before. Threatened Children asks why. Joel Best analyzes the rhetorical tools used by child advocates when making claims aimed at raising public anxiety and examines the media's role in transmitting reformers' claims and the public's response to the frightening statistics, compelling ...

Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims
Joel Best

University of California Press, 1999

Random Violence is a deft and thought-provoking exploration of the ways we talk about--and why we worry about--new crimes and new forms of victimization. Focusing on so-called random crimes such as freeway shootings, gang violence, hate crimes, stalking, and wilding, Joel Best shows how new crime problems emerge and how some quickly fade from public attention while others spread and become enduring subjects of concern. Best's original and ...

EDIT: http://www.couol.com/books/author-Joel+Best

[mitchum]

7. "Smart people" are really just dogs with better hearing...

and the "hip" are the first ones at the food dish ready to devour this week's gruel.