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| Terminologist and Economist: Paul Krugman at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
"Incestuous Amplification." What a wonderful phrase, which Paul Krugman describes as
"a term for how highly dubious ideas become not just accepted, but viewed
as certainties. “Incestuous amplification” happen when a closed group of people
repeat the same things to each other – and when accepting the group’s
preconceptions itself becomes a necessary ticket to being in the
in-group."
Krugman is talking about his fellow economists, but this concept also works with other small or closed groups, and that includes scholars in a given discipline.
