Communication | Foolishness | Intellectuals | Knowledge | Speech | Understanding | Wisdom

INTELLECTUAL NONSENSE
J. S. Armstrong has developed the “Dr. Fox Hypothesis” for both written and spoken communication: “an unintelligible communication from a legitimate source in the recipients’ area of expertise will increase the recipients’ rating of the author’s competence.” An actor posed as Dr. Myron R. Fox and delivered a lecture of double talk with material from Scientific American, non sequiturs, contradictions and the like interspersed with jokes and meaningless references to unrelated topics. The audience of professionals in anonymous ratings later reported that “they found the lecture clear and stimulating.”