Up & Coming Geoscientists - a sample of our AIG Honours Bursary Recipients

“
The bell curve
indicates that 9 out of 10
geologists, if asked the
question of what fold they
are imagining, will answer
antiform in preference to
synform.”
In fact, the results between the geologists
and non-geologists are so different they
can be considered two completely different
Figure 5.
I haven’t had the opportunity to conduct a
similarly large-scale control experiment using
a large number of non-geologists.)
What I have found from experience is that
what ought to be a 0.5 probability outcome, is
a 0.9 to 0.95 probability in favour of antiforms
The Fold Experiment - Geologists Bias
populations.
For the larger crowds I have not used the
if you ask the fold question of a geologist.
The overlap of the probability curves is
worksheet from Figure 3, but instead have
Several people have told me that they
so minimal that we are likely to get a biased
asked the participants to imagine a “profile of
conducted their own experiments in their work
result from geologists, no matter how many
a fold.” I then asked them to raise their hand
environments and, predictably, the results
geologists we ask.
if they imagined a synform, and followed with
were the same as mine.
The bell curve indicates that 9 out of 10
asking for a show of hands if they imagined
Try it now on an unsuspecting geologist
geologists, if asked the question of what fold
an antiform. Figure 6 shows a typical result in
colleague who shares your office, or phone a
they are imagining, will answer antiform in
a classroom setting Figure 6.
geologist and ask the question. Repeat this
preference to synform.
During a 3D modelling course at University
ten times and see whether you get the same
of Tasmania, 21 MSc geology students
9/10 result that I got every time.
Testing on a larger population
were asked to participate in the fold test.
In his bestselling book The Signal and the
These results were so striking that I wanted
10 students did not vote, but out of the
Noise, Nate Silver discusses how professional
to repeat this experiment at a much larger
11 students that did vote, 11 imagined an
gamblers take advantage of the very small
gathering of geologists. I finally got around
antiform. No one imagined a synform.
percentages in their favour to make a living
to doing this at two large geoscience
conferences more than a decade after
my original experiment. The conferences
were the 2011 AusIMM Mining Geology
conference (Queenstown), and the 2012 AIG
Structural Geology and Resources conference
(Kalgoorlie). At both conferences, about
300 people were in each of the auditoriums
when I asked the fold question. In each case
about 15 people put up their hands in favour
of synform, while the majority of the crowd
favoured antiform, thus providing proof
and confidence that the results of my 1998
experiment can be scaled. (Unfortunately
AIG NEWS Issue 123 · February 2016 45