What makes a song go to number one the charts? According to researchers at New York’s Columbia University, it may have little to do with talent or slick production.

In a story published recently in the science magazine Cosmos, the researchers set up a website with a range of songs by unknown artists for free download. They then advertised the website to web-surfing teenagers. Visitors to the site were invited to listen to the songs and rate them on a scale of one to five stars.

Some participants were given only the song title and artist; others were given the same information plus an indication of how often the song had been downloaded by others.

The researchers discovered that when visitors could see the success (or lack thereof) of a given song, they were more likely to go with the crowd. The popular songs became wildly popular; the less-downloaded songs were shunned. Where the most popular downloads were not known, downloads were spread more evenly across all the songs.

An expected outcome from a survey of teenagers, we might say. But what about us grown ups? How immune are we to the sway of peer pressure?

Well, to begin to answer that, let’s think about our wardrobes and compare the clothes we wear today with those we wore five or ten years ago. Few of us could claim they’re the same. Designs from the influential fashion houses hit the catwalks each month, declaring what it means to be relevant and trendy. These designs are bought by the up-market boutiques, and make their way onto the bodies of film, stage and music video-clip stars. The new look finally makes its way onto the in-store posters at mass market clothing stores to become society’s new acceptable standard of dress. There’s pressure on the rank and file to buy the new look and conform. In fact, you’re stigmatised as ‘uncool’ if you don’t. Hair styles, car models and household appliances can all be influenced by adult peer pressure too. (And, hey, I admit I’m not ready to hit a party in that floral-print short-sleave shirt which looked great in 1992. I’m seeing more and more widescreen TVs in my friends’ middle-class homes, and I’m starting to feel a bit self-conscious about my comparatively tweeny TEAC 18-inch model!)

So then, if the external worlds of us grown ups are prone to peer pressure, could our internal worlds—our beliefs and values—fall prey to popular conformity too?

Well, it’s been interesting to watch the way Intelligent Design has been received in Australia. The scientists and philosophers behind Intelligent Design believe there is evidence to show that this world and universe bear the marks of an intelligent being behind them. That’s as far as they take the argument—they don’t try and argue for any particular god as creator, believing that to be religion’s job.

Of course, any alternative to the popular theory of Evolution is bound to raise discussion and argument. But Intelligent Design has not been argued against so much as ridiculed. Comedians and media personalities have mocked it, in many cases showing little evidence that they’ve actually read any of the texts on it, and completely ignoring the fact that Intelligent Design is supported by hundreds (if not thousands) of the scientific community in mainstream universities around the world. It now seems popular to laugh at Intelligent Design. Like fashion and hair styles, the media really can shape our individual opinions and beliefs. In fact, just like wearing yesterday’s clothes, you can be stigmatised if you claim to believe in Intelligent Design.

But just say it’s true. What might that mean for our whole view of the world? Could we be missing out on the most intriguing discoveries in centuries? There may be many similar issues.

It’s good to ask ourselves if our beliefs and values are indeed our own or really just rehashed popular fashion. Because, as those Columbia researchers discovered, perhaps it’s only when we ignore the voices of popular opinion—the faddish, the trendy and the fashionable—that we’ll have an opportunity to hear a new song that may well open our eyes to a new way of seeing the world.