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Gell-Mann Amnesia effect

Gell-Mann Amnesia effect noun: the phenomenon of a person trusting newspapers for topics which that person is not knowledgeable about, despite recognizing the newspaper as being extremely inaccurate on certain topics which that person is knowledgeable about.

Noun

Gell-Mann Amnesia effect (plural Gell-Mann Amnesia effects)

  1. The phenomenon of a person trusting newspapers for topics which that person is not knowledgeable about, despite recognizing the newspaper as being extremely inaccurate on certain topics which that person is knowledgeable about.
    • Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often...2002 April 26, Michael Crichton, “Why Speculate?”, in michaelcrichton.net (speech), archived from the original on 14 Jul 2007
    • I believe the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect applies here.2016 April 1, michael....@gmail.com, “Flotation ignorance - Women's Boat Race”, in rec.sport.rowing (Usenet)

Synonyms of Gell-Mann Amnesia effect

Forms of Gell-Mann Amnesia effect

pluralGell-Mann Amnesia effects

Origin of Gell-Mann Amnesia effect

Coined by American author Michael Crichton in a 2002 speech, named after American physicist Murray Gell-Mann (see quotation).

Questions about Gell-Mann Amnesia effect

What does Gell-Mann Amnesia effect mean?
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect means the phenomenon of a person trusting newspapers for topics which that person is not knowledgeable about, despite recognizing the newspaper as being extremely inaccurate on certain topics which that person is knowledgeable about.
What part of speech is Gell-Mann Amnesia effect?
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is a noun.
What is the plural of Gell-Mann Amnesia effect?
The plural of Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is Gell-Mann Amnesia effects.

Words near Gell-Mann Amnesia effect in the dictionary

  1. gelisols
  2. gelistagnic
  3. gelivable
  4. gell
  5. Gell-Mann Amnesia
  6. Gell-Mann Amnesia effect
  7. Gell-Mann Amnesia effects
  8. gellable
  9. gellan
  10. gellan gum
  11. gellan gums

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Gell-Mann Amnesia effect (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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