Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
10
Cleverness and Credulity
Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by
it.
—Harry G. Frankfurt,
On Bullshit
, 2005
Clever Hans, a smart German draft horse at the turn of the twentieth century, drew crowds
with his amazing responses to numerical problems. He would paw the ground to enumerate
sums and differences. His owner, a math teacher with a white beard that flowed as munifi-
cently as his horse's tail, would ask him, “If the eighth day of the month comes on a Tuesday,
what is the date of the following Friday?”
“Der Kluge Hans” would tap his hoof, answering correctly, and the audience would burst
into amazed applause.
We know why Hans could do this, partly thanks to German psychologist Oskar Pfungst's
lengthy report in 1907: He was stomping his foot until he got a subtle, albeit often uncon-
scious, cue from his trainer or his audience. Pfungst's report went further, though. The folie à
