Nick Tarleton:

I'm a little worried that calling (a/i)rrational persuasive techniques "Dark Arts", even in seemingly indefensible (though, it must be said, minor) cases like this, biases us against them and will make people averse to using them even when doing so is ethical and beneficial. What do others think? Am I overreacting?

Here is a provocative thought. In my opinion, scientists nowadays command the trust and confidence of the general public largely thanks to the "dark arts."

Nobody except the scientists themselves and a tiny number of hobbyist enthusiasts who have invested the large effort to study the relevant material has the necessary competence to judge whether the work in any particular field is true and sound or just bullshit. (To be precise, in some applied areas, people can be reasonably confident because they constantly see useful new technologies coming out of the research efforts, but that's not the case for most fields.) Now, when scientists make outreach to the general public and try to popularize science -- thus reinforcing their status and authority -- it's absolutely impossible for them to argue things in a way that would be both: (1) correct and logically rigorous, and (2) comprehensible even to exceptionally intelligent and informed readers and listeners, let alone average ones.

Because of this, we get popular science materials that are, from an intellectually rigorous point of view, basically a pile of bullshit arguments for conclusions that are likely true, but for altogether different reasons -- reasons which the intended audience is utterly incapable of comprehending. Even the conclusions themselves are often so complicated and remote from everyday experience that they get presented in a way that is perhaps technically true, but virtually guaranteed to cause misunderstanding and puzzlement in most of the audience. Sure, some fields allow for decent popular presentations, like e.g. people studying the migration patterns of animals. But the stuff found in most pop-science treatments of, say, physics or evolution is just awful, and the silly and naive beliefs that masses of people form by reading them are even worse.

Therefore, for many areas of science, the bulk of the general public has no reason to believe that scientists are right except raw appeals to authority and the "dark arts" pop-science bullshit they've been served. Yet, our political system involves a significant democratic component, and scientists must maintain their intellectual authority in front of wide masses of people lest they lose government and philanthropic support. This might well be impossible to do without serving them a steady diet of "dark arts" pop-science that, on its own merits, has barely any more logical validity than all sorts of superstition and charlatanism that scientists are competing with for authority and public prominence.

This is really too long for a comment, but I couldn't resist:

Tom Marvolo Riddle, who had lately taken to calling himself Lord Voldemort, shut his eyes. When he opened them again, the envelope was lying on his bed, just as he had hoped. He studied the papers inside with barely concealed glee. Over several pages was a very long string of incomprehensible letters and numbers. Almost shaking, he typed it into the computer, where it said "ENTER RANDOM SEED", and pressed enter. The screen filled with - could it be? - pages of comprehensible text. He had to restrain himself from giving a very un-Dark-Lordly whoop of triumph.

This was outstandingly clever even for him. The Time-Turner, the computer generating random text blocks that - with the right seed - would be coherent hypotheses, the dungeon of prisoners to serve as subjects in hastily conducted impromptu experiments. And the only stable time loop being the one where he ended up with the secrets of human behavior.

He hit PRINT, then called in Dolohov, the trustworthy one. "Take these psychology hypotheses and test them on the prisoners downstairs. If you get p < .05, no, make it .01, and if you can think of ways they'd be useful in manipulating people, take these pages of letters and numbers, copy them, stick the copy in this envelope, and put it on my desk. Otherwise, increase the ASCII value of the last character in the random seed by one, and put that on my desk. No questions, just do it. And do it in the next twenty-four hours."

That would take care of the Time-Turner. He was glad his model lacked the length limitations of the standard version: six hours wouldn't have been enough time for Dolohov to finish the tests. Those idiots at the Ministry had no idea how easy it was to extend the gas mileage of one of those things. Or maybe they did and were too squeamish to go around obtaining the secret ingredient. He smiled lovingly at the jar of kitten hearts on his desk. Those things were like the duct tape of evil magic - you could use them for anything.

Now it only remained to make sure no one else ever copied his trick. The Ministry he'd already dealt with - Merlin bless that fool Minister Bagnold and her "it's inconceivable anyone could break through our wards" policy. He'd apparated into the Ministry, put a curse on their whole stockpile of Time-Turners, and gotten out with no one the wiser. The artifacts would still function for little things like attending extra classes, but try to use them for anything...clever...and they'd do their best to scare the user into submission. Cryptic warnings not to mess with time, that kind of thing.

But his own Death Eaters were more of a problem. They'd notice if their master suddenly and inexplicably learned all the secrets of the human mind. Some of the brighter ones might start asking where he'd learned them. Some of the really bright ones might try figuring out exactly what those secrets were and how to use them themselves. He needed a distraction. Something that would turn their minds away from the Dark Lord's late nights in his study tinkering with Time Turners and computers, something that would make the secrets of the mind not even worth obtaining.

Suddenly he broke out into a grin. Make something a secret, and of course people would look for it. Make it mundane, better yet make it low status, and people wouldn't give it a second thought - that was the lesson of Muggle science. Was that on the paper he'd given Dolohov? It must be. He'd tell everyone he learned the secrets from the Muggles. Everyone knew they came up with a bright idea every so often, but the ancient and noble bloodlines who populated the Death Eaters would sooner die than go rooting around in Muggle books like Mudbloods trying to find them.

He'd fake an identity as a Muggle scientist - maybe even two, now that he'd mastered duplication with the Time-Turner, and get the secrets published in a Muggle journal. If anyone asked, he'd been reading Muggle journals, and there was nothing unusual about his possessing the secrets of the human mind at all.

His Quirrell alias was already a professor, but he was saving that for a rainy day. And Voldemort and Tom Riddle were right out. That meant someone new. He took out his sketchpad. He did so love anagrams. That TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE == I AM LORD VOLDEMORT one still sent chills up his spine. He'd want something at least that good if he was going to be a Muggle researcher or two. After a few abortive attempts, he finally found something he liked.

DOR DANIEL KM & DOR AMOS TVERSKY, IL == YIKES, I'M DARK LORD VOLDEMORT-SAN

Right, then. Dr. Daniel Kahneman and Dr. Amos Tversky, Israel. And while he was in the area, he could pick up the Spear of Destiny. Kill two birds with one stone.

He'd just need a few supplies, and he'd be ready to go. He picked up his miniature scapel and put in a call to the local animal shelter, whistling merrily to himself.

I think the tops of the cubes in the 3D picture look brighter because of the "shadow". Your visual system is imagining a light source coming from the upper right. There's no such effect in the 2D picture.

I mean, wow, when you draw a line from the "blue" to "yellow" tiles the same color as both tiles, the line looks like it's changing color, even though it can't be!

Cool idea, here's what it looks like.

Yeah, I don't think this illusion (which I posted in the colour constancy discussion you mention) is an appropriate example to use as an introduction to the Predictably Irrational story. Your brain is not being 'fooled' here - it is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, which is solving the inverse rendering problem and not identifying RGB values. The anchoring effect with the prices of subscriptions is not really the same kind of thing at all.

Ariely then went so far as to recommend in his book that for best effect, you should go to bars and clubs with a wingman who is similar to you but less attractive.

It's commonly observed that many girls use this exact tactic when going to bars and clubs.