Comments on: Sanity Squad psychs Psych Today

By: Thoams

Thoams — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 13:00:11 +0000

I listened to the presentation and I’d like to add my two cents. I think this ‘fear’ = conservatism / right wing / fascism thing needs to be dealt with at a deeper level rather than just responding to the arguments made in favor. It’s an absurd false concept and a broader treatment of where it came from might help dispel it IMO. I’d compare it to the left’s claim to be ‘pro peace’. In the 80s, several books dealt with the left’s claims of being the ‘peace’ faction from a historical vantage point dealing with the claim’s roots in socialist ideology (ie, as ‘capitalism’ required war to maintain the status quo, being anti capitalist = pro peace….) and Soviet funding of peace groups.. Which resulted in today the average American rolls their eyes when hearing from the ‘peace’ movement…. That’s all, attack the root meme… stop reacting to the propaganda (even if it is pseudo scientific propaganda about psych profiles…)…

By: Sally

Sally — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 02:30:40 +0000

A point to consider in all this is that about 3/4 of the academics in social “science” departments self-identify as liberals, and this includes more than 4/5 in Psychology and Political Science. Such numbers make any “study” by such faculty that flatters their own ideological faith suspect just on the face of it. I think they also suggest that these kinds of departments are, at many institutions at least, really beginning to operate more as ideological indoctrination centers than as sources of legitimate scholarly, much less scientific, inquiry.

By: Sergey

Sergey — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 23:01:57 +0000

I can add some recent experience to this discussion. Two or three month ago in “Science” there was an article comparing men’s and women’s cognitive skills by comparing their respective IQ on a vast, ostensibly representative sample. Authors get two nice bell-shaped curves, so close to each other, that superimposed on the single graph they virtually coincided. But after cutting through three pages of dull technicalities, I burst with laugh. The whole trick was the definition of measured quantity. Such thing as intellect can not, of course, be quantified by single number. That is, when the procedure of measurement is defined, you get one of myriad of possible definition of what intellect is, depending on what type of task included into tests. Some deal with logic reasoning, some with pattern recognition, some with common sense and linguistic skills, and all are relative to “scores” that other people got on the same set of tasks. Every block contain many repetitive variation on the same theme. No wonder, that in such tests on any large sample a normal Gaussian distribution is obtained. The mean value is normalized to be 100 points; but really on different types of tasks different people get different results. Some are better in logic, some in geometry, some in arithmetic; proportion of different type of tasks is arbitrary, just as amount of time for every block. This arbitrariness means that any concrete “recipe” of the test is a definition of the measured quantity. Recipe by definition is adjusted so that the results were independent on sexual composition of the sample. If they are not, your recipe is turned down as “gender biased”. This means that in reality, the definition of intellectual capabilities by IQ is arbitrary chosen so it can not differentiate between the two sexes, and completely non-fit to study any real differences if they exist. But the next blunder in this study is even more egregious. Authors normalized experimental curves for male and female sub-samples by their respective standard deviations — for males by standard deviation for males, and for females by standard deviation for females! As every statistician knew, Gaussian distribution has only two free parameters — mean and standard deviation, so when you normalize it by both you have the only one possible result — The Normalized Normal Distribution! It simply can not be different for different samples, irrespective of the nature of the set under study, and this has not anything to do with psychology, men and women, and with any physical reality at all. This is statistical artifact — Central Limit Theorem. It neither proves nor disproves anything, except complete mathematical illiteracy (innumeracy?) of the authors and ideological blindness of editorial board of this, in the old days reputable journal (“Science”), which, after its hijacking by Leftist Donald Kennedy, became a laughing-stock and megaphone of Leftist Agitprop.

By: Sergey

Sergey — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 21:43:47 +0000

As a mathematician, I have a deep contempt of the whole world of modern “quantitative” psychology. This is, at best, self-deception, futile attempt to measure non-measurable “quantities”, which really are not quantities at all. Many times in my professional life I was invited “to do math” for some psychological study, and in final analysis it inevitably happened that quality of the data made impossible unambiguous interpretation. The very concepts of this “science” are so elastic and even fluid, that they positively defy any math rigor. By very slight manipulation, which is unavoidable for any formalization, you can shape your conclusions to any desired outcome. Does it mean that psychology is not a science? Certainly not in the sense in which physics, chemistry or even biology are. This is “humanitarian science”, that is more philosophy and art, and this is hypocrisy to pretend that in this field any “hard” facts independent on world-view are possible. This is another illustration and interpretation of Orwell”s statement that “any humanitarian is hypocrite”.

By: brad

brad — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 14:15:22 +0000

Yes, A very revealing link. Written at an undergrad level by a tenured clown. The irony is, in fact, delicious.
Anon, whoever you are, you would do well to take another path in your drive to discredit these people and their neocon views. Relying on pseudo-academic snake oil will bring you only laughter.

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:35:14 +0000

I went to that link and was quite disappointed. Not only was it a professor commenting on areas only tangentially related to his field (he is a researcher on organizational behavior, speculating on group psychology and foreign policy), he was commenting not very intelligently. It was vague, emotion-laden blather. Artful arrangements of previous prejudices.

Very revealing link, actually.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 08:18:37 +0000

Thanks Brad, the irony is delicious. Neo-neocon, below is a link to an editorial by John T. Jost, the lead author of "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition" (see above). The editorial is Jost's response to September 11, published on October 1, 2001. Legitimate Responses to Illegitimate Acts .

By: Sally

Sally — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 07:07:17 +0000

I suppose, then, that you'd be perfectly willing to repudiate "Bush Derangement Syndrome" and the notion that liberals want the terrorists to win and for freedom to fall and for no more apple pies to be baked? Oh, let's not get carried away! Those are true. I don't think liberals are too keen on motherhood either.

By: Ymar

Ymar — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 05:49:15 +0000

Neo, your SS stuff needs to be longer. They seem to be shortening…. Very bad mojo there.

By: Assistant Village Idiot

Assistant Village Idiot — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 05:37:50 +0000

Anon, another oversimplification.

Yes, it would be a nice world if one could just write a well-reasoned letter to the editor of semi-prestigious social science journals and have the whole edifice crumble. If you are willing to wait for the long haul of this type of unreasoning being discredited in my field, however, it is already underway. It will take another generation.

I have several times been part of psych research, though in relatively minor capacities. The definitions of concepts are often circular, and this work is an excellent example. “Dogmatism” and “intolerance of ambiguity” are actually highly variable in individuals from context to context. I am dogmatic in some settings, not at all in others. Despite the use of these tests as “tools,” many do not have any predictive value about behavior. I admit I do not know this test in particular. You might follow Dr. Sanity’s comments on the podcast, however. She is evidently quite familiar with the test and used in in real-world applications.