Arment, as do so many others, really wants to believe that the door-close button does nothing in an elevator. There are stories going around about this: door-close buttons aren’t really working in elevators, they are just there so you can feel like you’re in control. For his article, Paumgarten may have got some information about this from Otis representative:

In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button. That the door eventually closes reinforces their belief in the button’s power. It’s a little like prayer. (more)

But there’s no specific references in his article : who did confirm this to him? Is it true about all elevators? All brands? Everywhere? Can an elevator be configured one way while another elevator, identical in brand and model, be configured another way? There’s no hard fact about this in the article. Nothing to prove that all door-close buttons are fake. And nothing to disprove it.

And that’s why Arment reaction is so interesting. He doesn’t know for a fact if the door-close button work or not in a given elevator. But he wants to feel in control : he doesn’t want to be controlled by an elevator’s fake button (eh, come on, nobody’s that stupid : we’re not monkeys, right?). So he will likely dismissed any piece of information telling him the very opposite of what he wants to believe. Just like those who believe in the door-close button will dismiss any delay in the closing of the door as being a sign that they did not controlled its action. Arment, though, will be very interested in information (Paumgarten’s article for example) that reinforce his belief. Just like the door-close button believers will consider any closing door as being an empirical proof of the control they can have on the elevator.

And thus, those who think the door-close button is just a fake are not smarter than those who think the door-close button works. It’s just two different ways to cope with a lack of adequate information, a certain degree of uncertainty : without hard facts about this issue, we’re all but believers trying to stay in control in front of an ambiguous situation.

[Update : July 17th, 2010] The same argument goes for Slavoj Zizek:

Zizek loves to correct viewpoints when precisely the opposite is considered correct. He calls this counterintuitive observation. His favorite thought form is the paradox. Using his psychoanalytical skills, he attempts to demonstrate how liberal democracy manipulates people. One of his famous everyday observations on this subject relates to the buttons used to close the door in elevators. He has discovered that they are placebos. The doors don’t close a second faster when one presses the button, but they don’t have to. It’s sufficient that the person pressing the button has the illusion that he is able to influence something. The political illusion machine that calls itself Western democracy functions in exactly the same way, says Zizek. (Spiegel Online: “Welcome to the Slavoj Zizek Show” by Philipp Oehmke, July 8th, 2010)

About Vernor Vinge: “Vernor Steffen Vinge (born October 2, 1944 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, U.S.) is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), Rainbows End (2006), Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004), as well as for his 1993 essay “The Coming Technological Singularity”, in which he argues that exponential growth in technology will reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the consequences.” (Wikipedia).

Read also a summary of Vinge’s thought about a future without the Singularity