WordNet

apparent validity (同)plausibleness
given to or characterized by presenting specious arguments; "a plausible liar"
apparently reasonable and valid, and truthful; "a plausible excuse"
the quality of provoking disbelief (同)implausibleness

PrepTutorEJDIC

もっともらしさ;口先じょうず
(話などが)もっともらしい;(人が)口先じょうずな

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2013/12/08 17:08:21」(JST)

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In sociology and especially the sociological study of religion, plausibility structures are the sociocultural contexts for systems of meaning within which these meanings make sense, or are made plausible. Beliefs and meanings held by individuals and groups are supported by, and embedded in, sociocultural institutions and processes.

Origins[edit]

The term was coined by Peter L. Berger, who says he draws his meaning of it from the ideas of Karl Marx, G. H. Mead, and Alfred Schutz.^[1] For Berger, the relation between plausibility structure and social "world" is dialectical, the one supporting the other which, in turn, can react back upon the first. Social arrangements may help, say, a certain religious world appear self-evident. This religious outlook may then help to shape the arrangements that contributed to its rise.

Decline of religious plausibility[edit]

Berger was particularly concerned with the loss of plausibility of the sacred in a modernist/postmodern world.^[2] Berger considered that history "constructs and deconstructs plausibility structures", and that the plurality of modern social worlds was "an important cause of the diminishing plausibility of religious traditions"^[3]

Criticism[edit]

Critics have argued that Berger pays too much attention to discourse analysis and not enough to the institutional frameworks that continue to support religious belief.^[4]

Berger may also underestimate the role of self-selected reference groups in maintaining one's plausibility structures,^[5] as well as the erosion of the modernist trend for secularisation which took place with postmodernism.^[6]

References[edit]

^ Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy - Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967) p. 45 and p. 192
^ Peter Berger's the Homeless Mind thesis
^ Peter Berger, A Rumour of Angels (1971) p. 121 and p. 61
^ Robert Wuthnow, Rediscovering the Sacred (1992) p. 30
^ E. R. Smith/D. M. Mackie, Social Psychology (2007) p. 319-20
^ T. R. Phillips/D. L. Okholm, Christian Apologetics in the Postmodern World (1995) p. 186

External links[edit]

PLAUSIBILITY, Encyclopedia of Religion and Society

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English Journal

Disinformation squared Was the HIV-from-Fort-Detrick myth a Stasi success?

Geissler E1, Sprinkle RH.Author information 1Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Robert-Rössle-Strasse 10, 13125, Berlin-Buch, Germany, egeissler@mdc-berlin.de.AbstractAbstract Background. When in May 1983 the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first securely attributed to a virus, eventually called the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), many controversies arose. Among these was one centering on HIV's origin. A startling hypothesis, called here the "HIV-from-Fort-Detrick myth," asserted that HIV had been a product, accidental or intentional, of bioweaponry research. While its earliest identifiable contributors were in the West, this myth's most dynamic propagators were in the East. The Soviet security service, the KGB, took "active measures" to create and disseminate AIDS disinformation beginning no later than July 1983 and ending no earlier than October 1987. The East German security service, a complex bureaucracy popularly known as "the Stasi," was involved, too, but how early, how deeply, how uniformly, how ably, and how successfully has not been clear. Following German reunification, claims arose attributing to the Stasi the masterful execution of ingenious elements in a disinformation campaign they helped shape and soon came to dominate. We have tested these claims. Question. Was the HIV-from-Fort-Detrick myth a Stasi success? Methods. Primary sources were documents and photographs assembled by the Ministry of State Security (MfS) of the German Democratic Republic (GDR or East Germany), the Ministry of Interior of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and the United States Department of State; the estate of myth principals Jakob and Lilli Segal; the "AIDS box" in the estate of East German literary figure Stefan Heym; participant-observer recollections, interviews, and correspondence; and expert interviews. We examined secondary sources in light of primary sources. Findings. The HIV-from-Fort-Detrick myth had debuted in print in India in 1983 and had been described in publications worldwide prior to 1986, the earliest year for which we found any Stasi document mentioning the myth in any context. Many of the myth's exponents were seemingly independent conspiracy theorists. Its single most creative exponent was Jakob Segal, an idiosyncratic Soviet biologist long resident in, and long retired in, the GDR. Segal applied to the myth a thin but tenacious layer of plausibility. We could not exclude a direct KGB influence on him but found no evidence demonstrating it. The Stasi did not direct his efforts and had difficulty tracking his activities. The Stasi were prone to interpretive error and self-aggrandizement. They credited themselves with successes they did not achieve, and, in one instance, failed to appreciate that a major presumptive success had actually been a fiasco. Senior Stasi officers came to see the myth's propagation as an embarrassment threatening broader interests, especially the GDR's interest in being accepted as a scientifically sophisticated state. In 1986, 1988, and 1989, officers of HV A/X, the Stasi's disinformation and "active measures" department, discussed the myth in meetings with the Bulgarian secret service. In the last of these meetings, HV A/X officers tried to interest their Bulgarian counterparts in taking up, or taking over, the myth's propagation. Further efforts, if any, were obscured by collapse of the East German and Bulgarian governments. Conclusion. No, the HIV-from-Fort-Detrick myth was not a Stasi success. Impressions to the contrary can be attributed to reliance on presumptions, boasts, and inventions. Presumptions conceding to the Stasi an extraordinary operational efficiency and an irresistible competence - qualities we could not confirm in this case - made the boasts and inventions more convincing than their evidentiary basis, had it been known, would have allowed. The result was disinformation about disinformation, a product we call "disinformation squared."
Politics and the life sciences : the journal of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences.Politics Life Sci.2014 Fall;32(2):2-99. doi: 10.2990/32_2_2.
Abstract Background. When in May 1983 the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first securely attributed to a virus, eventually called the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), many controversies arose. Among these was one centering on HIV's origin. A startling hypothesis, called here the "HI
PMID 24697634

Verbatim recall in formal thought disorder in schizophrenia: a study of contextual influences.

Dwyer K1, Peters E, McKenna P, David A, McCarthy R.Author information 1a Department of Psychology, King's College London , Institute of Psychiatry , London , UK.AbstractIntroduction We have previously reported that people with schizophrenia and formal thought disorder (FTD) were disproportionately impaired in recalling sentences verbatim and in judging their plausibility. We proposed that these deficits were due to impairment in integrating higher-order semantic information to construct a global whole. However, it is also possible that a lower-level linguistic problem affecting lexical activation could account for this pattern. Methods The present study analysed and compared the sentence repetition errors produced by people with FTD, people with schizophrenia who were non-FTD and healthy controls. Errors due to failure of activation of the target lexical items were differentiated from those due to erroneous integration of information. Results People with FTD produced significantly more unrelated lexical substitutions and omissions in their corpora than the other two groups, indicating an impairment of activation. In addition, they made significantly more erroneous contextual inferences and unrelated references, suggesting they were impaired in reconstructing the global whole from successfully activated items. Conclusion These findings are consistent with a dual process account of impairments in FTD. Difficulties in repeating and judging sentence acceptability arises due to a combination of difficulty with activation and deficits in using linguistic context to process and produce speech. It is suggested that processing difficulties in FTD result from an impairment in using semantic context to drive lexical access and construction of a global whole.
Cognitive neuropsychiatry.Cogn Neuropsychiatry.2014 Jul;19(4):337-58. doi: 10.1080/13546805.2013.870069. Epub 2014 Jan 13.
Introduction We have previously reported that people with schizophrenia and formal thought disorder (FTD) were disproportionately impaired in recalling sentences verbatim and in judging their plausibility. We proposed that these deficits were due to impairment in integrating higher-order semantic in
PMID 24410090

Methodological challenges in mendelian randomization.

Vanderweele TJ1, Tchetgen Tchetgen EJ, Cornelis M, Kraft P.Author information 1From the aDepartments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA; and bDepartment of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA.AbstractWe give critical attention to the assumptions underlying Mendelian randomization analysis and their biological plausibility. Several scenarios violating the Mendelian randomization assumptions are described, including settings with inadequate phenotype definition, the setting of time-varying exposures, the presence of gene-environment interaction, the existence of measurement error, the possibility of reverse causation, and the presence of linkage disequilibrium. Data analysis examples are given, illustrating that the inappropriate use of instrumental variable techniques when the Mendelian randomization assumptions are violated can lead to biases of enormous magnitude. To help address some of the strong assumptions being made, three possible approaches are suggested. First, the original proposal of Katan (Lancet. 1986;1:507-508) for Mendelian randomization was not to use instrumental variable techniques to obtain estimates but merely to examine genotype-outcome associations to test for the presence of an effect of the exposure on the outcome. We show that this more modest goal and approach can circumvent many, though not all, the potential biases described. Second, we discuss the use of sensitivity analysis in evaluating the consequences of violations in the assumptions and in attempting to correct for those violations. Third, we suggest that a focus on negative, rather than positive, Mendelian randomization results may turn out to be more reliable.
Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.).Epidemiology.2014 May;25(3):427-35. doi: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000081.
We give critical attention to the assumptions underlying Mendelian randomization analysis and their biological plausibility. Several scenarios violating the Mendelian randomization assumptions are described, including settings with inadequate phenotype definition, the setting of time-varying exposur
PMID 24681576