Evidence of... Intelligent life? On Earth?

All right, this is another train of thought thing. But it struck me as interesting. In trying to write that last post about the test translations, I had to find a page explaining what a "Somebody Else's Problem Field" was. And since from even back before the old days of Hypercard on the Macintosh SE, it was considered cool to connect ideas with little clickable buttons, most of the pages had connections to other related topics. Like Bystander Effect, the Milgram experiments, mimicry (both biological and social), the Stanford Prison Experiment and groupthink.

But one of them had a rather odd phrase which I had never heard before: “incestuous amplification.” It seems to refer to the part of group thinking in which most people in the group tend to acknowledge only that information which reinforces the mutually accepted positions or beliefs, then continue in supporting those positions/beliefs based on all the supporting information they've got.

But what struck me during my search for a definition was that it was used in a discussion on a blog written by a "liberal Quaker" and publisher. Since I really don't eat much oatmeal these days, Quakers really don't cross my mind so often. But this page had some surprisingly thoughtful posts, including a couple on dressing plainly.

Although I had some vague notions about why the Amish dressed that way, I was unaware that practicing Quakers had rules about dress. And the way some people were thinking about those rules was really surprising.

No, let me be honest. The very fact of that thought surprised me. It never occurred to me that Mormons on the road would question their outfits. Or that Catholics would have any serious discussions about coordinating the outfits. But here were a group of people putting serious thought and discussion into what was essentially a tenet of their faith. They were actually grappling with the issues, and not just claiming that prayer would solve it all and continuing to do whatever they felt like.

It came as a bit of a shock to me. I've long known that I had some preconceptions about practicing religious types. But now I'm going to either going to have to re-evaluate my prejudices, or else be more specific when I start in with the slurs and epithets, which could take some of the sting out of them.

"Man! That's exactly the sort of thoughtless dogma I'd expect from one of you!
... except for the theologically inquisitive Quakers, Orthodox Jews and Jesuit-trained scientists."