If you’re going to use science, then please, really use the science… don’t act like something is science when its not…
The problem with being an amateur scientist is precisely the reason that marketers relish the opportunity to sell to us, the amateurs: we make stupid decisions, easily manipulated by those who might choose to do the manipulation (on their behalf or on ours).
The news here is not that people are irrational, giving too much credence to the dramatic and the local and the short-term (that’s not news), but that people have added a veneer of scientific rationality to their irrational decisions. Armed with Zagats or internet data or some rumor off Snopes, we act as though now we’re supremely rational choicemakers.
Unfortunately, very true.