| Thursday,
March 23, 2006 RE:
Voodoo sciences and psychology
As a caveat let me say that I am not in the field of
psychology, but do have a few friends and acquaintances in various graduate
psych programs. I am in one of the other "fuzzy" sciences (archaeology),
which does have some similar problems.
Firstly, I think there does need to be a distinction
made between the various psychological fields of study. Clinical psychology,
neuro-behavioral sciences, and psychological counseling have become
increasingly disparate and distinct fields of study.
The root problem in all of them is epistemological -
there is difficulty in establishing causal relationships between observed or
perceived correlations. This is a problem for any aspiring "science" in
which one is not able (or not permitted) to artificially reproduce the
studied phenomena in an experimental setting. They are relegated to making
observational studies and look for statistically significant correlations.
The problem with this method is obvious to anyone with
even a passing familiarity with statistics - correlations are in part
dependent on the variables defined, false patterns can emerge with
inappropriate statistical tests, and coincidence of phenomena may or may not
be related by causation.
There have been incredible recent advances in the
understanding of genetics and in imaging technologies that allow monitoring
of neurological activity with ever increasing resolution. However, they are
still dependent on hypothetical causal links that cannot be definitively
established.
Because of this, these types of sciences will never be
able to create the same sort of definitive, reproducible, and predictive
theories that can be accomplished in the physical sciences.
Where they have largely lapsed in judgment (and what
produces some of the more laughable theories and statements) is their
failure to explicitly make the distinction between coincidence and
causation. This is partly driven by the immense pressure to publish results
and try and "say something new" inherent in academia, and in part driven by
poor understanding of their statistical tools.
Another reason is the rampant "scientism" that has
taken hold in the behavioral sciences since the 1960s. By that I mean that
many of the "softer" sciences began adopting the rhetoric and trappings of
the "hard" sciences (e.g. "new" geology and "new" archaeology, and to
disastrous effect with "new" educational "sciences), but without a
fundamental understanding of scientific methods and tools. This created a
falsely "authoritative voice" in the literature leading to the production of
definitive "results" that were nothing more than speculations presented as
fact (sound a bit like Kyoto?).
Just my opinion as a reluctant "voodoo" scientist.
Regards, J. Scott Cardinal
I replied briefly:
Well said. Actually, behavioral psychology had
"hypothetical constructs and intervening variables" and posed some very
mathematical looking expressions whose actual contents were meaningless
starting in the 40's, but I suspect the 60's is where scientism took off and
many of the humanities became voodoo sciences.
Margaret Meade and her fake Samoan sociology were
earlier examples of voodoo rampant.
One of Meade's subjects is still alive (or was a
decade ago) and said they'd put Meade on, laying it on with a trowel, but
they never thought anyone would really believe them. Yet all that nonsense
became social science.
I'll post this with comments sometime this week
And received this reply
RE: Voodoo sciences and psychology
I've heard about the Meade subject's criticisms -
rather amusing stuff reminiscent of a "Far Side" cartoon.
In various arch-theory classes I've run across journal
articles and books from 60s/70s era archaeology trying to "mathematically"
state "fundamental principles" of human behavior. My absolute favorite was a
graph and formula "describing" the "correlation" between (if I'm remembering
correctly) burial elaboration and social stratification. It was the
generalized y=x^2 with (you guessed it) the function graphed!
No ACTUAL data involved. Anywhere. None!
What was more amusing/disturbing was that no one else
in the class recognized what it was. Including the professor!
I just happened to start off my undergrad as a physics
major and have an engineer as a father, so...
However, this doesn't mean that there aren't ways to
do rigorous observational (rather than experimental) science, and fields
such as anthropology and psychology really _could_ be doing good work. Most
of us got into it expecting to do so (I would hope), but academia and
education in general are lacking and there is great pressure to "tow the
party line" within departments.
Myself I have an eye for discerning patterns and a
fascination with the mechanics of social organizational systems, so
archaeology seemed to be a good fit. Then I started "learning" social and
cultural theory and was sorely disappointed. Now I work in historic resource
preservation (one area where government involvement is warranted if not
ideally implemented), but still work on my "social theorizing" on the side.
There have been some very interesting theoretical
(i.e. philosophical) developments in the past ten years in social sciences
(e.g. some of the concepts in Anthony Giddens work or the social simulation
experiments like the sorts described in
http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/JASSS.html ), but these are still very
much in their conceptual infancy as far as being anywhere near applicable to
large scale real-world societal analysis. "Harry Seldon" is a long-long-long
way off at best to be sure. Meanwhile the voodoo practitioners reign in
academia.
At least it seems a growing number of the graduate
students I've spoken with (both in archaeology and psychology) seem to be
increasing dissatisfied with the voodoo and seem to be looking at it as just
a hoop to jump though. Then once they start getting into academia themselves
start to "reshape" the direction of their disciplines.
Maybe there is hope for the "fuzzies" after all.
Regards, J. Scott Cardinal
One of my favorite examples of nonsense in the
social sciences was the rage for "equations" in behavior analysis put forth
by Hull and some of those at the University of Iowa. They looked like
algebra but the variables were undefinded.
You can read as much of this nonsense -- I
use the term advisedly -- in "Classics in Psychology":
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/MacMeehl/hypcon-intvar.htm and see for
yourself. The Meehl and MacQuorkadale
article was all the rage in psychology classes when I was in graduate
school. It's a classic in the history of the voodoo sciences to appear
scientific, as was Hull's Principles of Behavior which inspired it.
Undefined variables, and learned
discussions of them, and all of it nonsense.
==
Subject: Psychiatry today
Jerry
Psychiatry today is a mess. It's been driven into a
corner where about all the insurance companies want us to do is prescribe
meds. Of course, that is what is being taught. Some places still teach it
well, but more and more the programs simply teach What's New. They don't
teach all the meds, just what's the newest (and most expensive).
The worst of it all, though, is that postgraduate
education has been captured by drug companies. We have lectures on how to
diagnose and treat "bipolar disorder" shoved in our faces. So every
depressed person whose mood fluctuates is having "mood swings." Every
anxious person is having "racing thoughts." And people who started using
drugs - and hence quit maturing - in their teens, seem to addiction-naïve
shrinks to be having hypomanic episodes rather than behaving like the silly
teens and pre-teens they really are on the inside. All these add up to
"bipolar disorder."
It used to be that the only bipolar disorder was
manic-depressive disorder, which is a serious biologically-based condition -
and uncommon. When insurance companies and disability boards were denying
coverage and claims for depression, they allowed claims for the biological
disorder bipolar disorder. Well, now everybody seems to have it. And now it
is the excuse for substance abuse: the poor folks are just
"self-medicating," don't you know. This is why the substance abuse treatment
community does not like psychiatrists: psychiatrists "enable" (a technical
term in this biz) the abusers to abuse their substances.
ADHD and ADD are real conditions. The degree of
disability they produce varies. The practice of self-control (boys used to
do this when teachers threatened to slap their wrists with rulers), the
development of maturity (something that stops with the use of drugs and
alcohol) and the assiduous application of effort to learn generally
compensates for the disability these disorders can produce. So, when a
substance-using slacker says he has ADD and can't work, who is to blame? The
disorder? The slacker? Or the shrinks who aid and abet this fraud?
I see lots of prisoners with ADHD. Of course: they are
impulsive. But they also have put no effort into self discipline and they
use substances, which seem to worsen their original ADHD problems. Of
course, most of them are diagnosed also or only "bipolar disorder" by their
shrinks.
Oh yes: does it come as any surprise that the drug
companies have a number of meds targeted at "bipolar disorder" and ADD/ADHD,
all of which are phenomenally expensive?
But don't worry about Freud: his concepts bear no
relation to prescribing meds.
Ed
I suppose I should be relieved that Uncle
Ziggy is no longer a big influence, but the self-serving drug companies and
their influence is terrifying. If children do not learn self-discipline in
school, when and where will they learn it? When I was young I was
practically a poster boy for being drugged, but since there were no drugs,
the teachers did the best they could: they threatened corporal punishment. I
was skeptical enough to test the system once in Catholic schools and not
thereafter, and twice at Capleville, but in both cases I found the threats
were not idle; and not being stupid I found it was better to discipline
myself than to get whacked. It wasn't very easy, but then few things are;
and I did learn.
If boys don't learn to take charge of
themselves in school, and in Scouts, and without drugs, then what kind of
men will they be? Our neighborhood lawyer found himself in middle age after
"suffering" from ADHD all his life; and having found himself not only quit
his job and became a bum living in his mother's basement, but is now
demanding that his wife sell the house so he can get his share. If this is
finding oneself, staying lost seems preferable, for he is no longer a man at
all. It would be better if he were a man suffering ADHD...
========
Phonics First in UK Schools
"The national curriculum in England is to be revised
so children are taught to read primarily using the method known as synthetic
phonics. "
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4818516.stm
Now if we could only get this in the schools in the
USA. My daughter was taught phonics in a Montessori pre-school and was
reading at age 4. By 3rd grade she was reading at 12th grade level and was
at post-college graduate level by 6th grade.
Edmund Hack
It's better than whole word, but real phonics
is better yet. See Mrs. Pournelle's stuff on
this. The best reading program we have yet seen is hers.
==
Subject: The national curriculum in England is to be
revised so children are taught to read primarily using the method known as
synthetic phonics
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4818516.stm
Teaching of reading to be revised
The national curriculum in England is to be
revised so children are taught to read primarily using the method known as
synthetic phonics. The approach is a key recommendation of a review headed
by former Ofsted inspections director Jim Rose. He says phonics - letter
sounds - must happen alongside paying attention to speaking and listening.
The government and the Tories back the
findings. The Lib Dems say it should be for teachers to decide what is best.
And Steve Sinnott of the National Union of Teachers said teachers would be
bemused because phonics was already a national curriculum requirement for
infants.
Phonics first
The current approved strategy involves a
mixture of approaches. I am clear that synthetic phonics should be the first
strategy in teaching all children to read
Ruth Kelly
Education Secretary
Phonics focuses on sounds - rather than, for
example, having children try to recognise whole words. In the widely-used
analytic phonics, words are deconstructed into their beginning and end
parts, such as "str-" and "-eet". In pure synthetic phonics, children start
by learning the sounds of letters and of letter combinations: "ss-t-rrr-ee-t".
Only once they have learnt all these do they progress to reading books. The
final Rose report, published on Monday morning, recommends that for most
children, systematic phonics teaching should start by the age of five. There
should be extra help for children who fall behind. Head teachers should make
phonics the priority - and set ambitious targets for what children should
achieve by the time they finish primary school six years later.
Scottish example
In the most famous experiment, in
Clackmannanshire, children taught using synthetic phonics were years ahead
of their contemporaries by the time they moved on to secondary school. The
method is already endorsed by the Scottish Executive. Unless you can
actually decode the words on the page you will not be able, obviously, to
comprehend them
Jim Rose
Critics say it might teach children to read -
but not necessarily to understand what they are reading.
And research commissioned by England's
education department said the evidence base for using synthetic phonics was
weak. The Westminster government is proud that its national literacy
strategy, introduced in 1998, has seen the proportion of 11-year-olds
reading at the expected level for their age rise from 67% to 84%.
But it acknowledges that one in five children
still does not reach the necessary standard in English overall and, as a
result, their teenage learning is hampered. Ms Kelly said she accepted all
the recommendations in the report and had launched a programme of training
for teachers. She said: "I am clear that synthetic phonics should be the
first strategy in teaching all children to read."
Her department will work with the
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority on how best to embed this in the
national curriculum.
'Challenge' ahead
Mr Rose said the best schools already use
systematic phonics teaching within "a language-rich curriculum". He said he
had reached his conclusions because synthetic phonics combines both word
recognition - cracking the alphabetic code - and comprehension. "This is a
programme for beginner readers," he said. "This is for children starting out
on the way to reading and undoubtedly the evidence shows that this is the
most successful route." Unless a child can learn to read, they can't learn
at all
Lord Adonis Schools minister
However, he stressed that phonic work was only
"part of the story". "It's not the whole story but it's an extremely
important step because unless you can actually decode the words on the page
you will not be able, obviously, to comprehend them."
The Conservatives campaigned for such an
approach during last year's general election. Shadow schools minister Nick
Gibb said synthetic phonics should be happening in every primary school.
"The alternative 'look and say' approach has,
over two generations, led to poor literacy levels in this country and the
associated problems at secondary schools of low levels of attainment and
disruptive behaviour," he said.
Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Sarah
Teather said being overly prescriptive approach would not leave any
flexibility for teachers to decide what was best for the children in their
class. "Schools should get guidance based on the latest research but the
precise mix of methods used in classrooms is a matter for teachers working
with individual pupils," she said.
"Phonics is only one tool to help children
learn the English language. The national curriculum neglects communication
skills and more needs to be done to address speaking and listening in the
early years."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/education/4818516.stm
Synthetic is better than none, but whole
phonics is better. See Mrs. Pournelle's site
on this.
==========
Subject: THE STARS MY DESTINATION : the Bester news
this year!
Preston of Preston here,
Now, if you guys could just sell "Mote" or "Hammer"
(and be on set to make sure it's done right). I've read that Mr. Heinlein
didn't like working in Hollywood, and that place is certainly worse now than
then but, do it for the fans!
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22812
"A great science fiction revenge tale, a brilliant
novel that is based loosely upon a story in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC about a
sailor that spent 4 months during WWII on a raft at sea, watching ship after
ship ignoring his cries for help, for fear that he was a lure for a sub
attack."
"Well, Michael Fleming of Variety broke that Universal
Pictures and Lorenzo Di Bonaventura are set to make this novel into a
cinematic confection for our digestion . . . I just hope they don't water
down Gulliver Foyle - as a character he's a rapist and a murderer, a slacker
and a bastard, he's Snake Plissken on his worst day."
He is that. He is also memorable. "Pigs,
you! I kill you filthy!"
=============
Subject: the Equinox, the
Analemma, etc.
People have complained that the days and nights are
not precisely even on the equinox
It helps if you measure things from the Equator vs
someplace else on the globe.
Since the earth is moving through space, it passes
through the position where things would be even. Before and after that
position, the relationships are different, and are subject to the conditions
exisiting when you make your measurement.
Of course there are other phenomena releated to this,
as seen on this site:
http://www.analemma.com
With lots of diagrams, movies, and other illustrations
There is also this nifty free software, where you can
explore the details for your latitude and longitude.
http://www.analemma.com/SunGraph/index.html
Their explanation has more to do with the tilt,
perehelion, and the eccentricity of the earth's orbit more than anything
else.
The given illiustrations explain it far more
effectively than I can in such a short space. with this information , we get
a much more detailed, and hopefully, more accurate picture.
The material on other planets is also interesting.
Mike Z.
=============
Subject: Ms. Noonan on Elites
and the Real World...
If per chance you haven't seen this, Dr. Pournelle,
you might want to have a look.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110008126
Ms. Noonan leads into her points with "..."Freedom at
Midnight," the popular classic of 30 years ago that recounted the coming of
democracy to India. The authors, journalists Larry Collins and Dominique
Lapierre, capture the end of the Raj with sweep and drama, and manage to
make even the dividing of India and Pakistan--I mean the literal drawing of
the lines between the two countries, by a British civil servant--riveting.
But the sobering lesson of this history, the big thing you bring away, is
this: They didn't know.
"Mountbatten and Nehru and Jinnah were brilliant men
who'd not only experienced a great deal; they'd done a great deal, and yet
they did not know that the Subcontinent--which each in his own way, and
sometimes it was an odd way, loved--would explode in violence, that
bloodlust would rule as soon as the Union Jack was lowered."
and
"Each of these leaders had been removed by his own
history from facts on the ground. "Elitism" doesn't always speak of where
you went to school or what caste, as it were, you came from. You can wind up
one of the elites simply by rising. Simply by being separated for a certain
amount of time from those you seek to lead.
"People who know most intimately, and through most
recent experience, what is happening on the ground, and in the hearts of
men, are usually not in the inner councils. They have not fought their way
or earned their way in yet. Sometimes they're called in and listened to, at
least for a moment, but in the end they tend to be ignored. They're
nobodies, after all.
"This is a problem with government and governing
bodies--with the White House, Downing Street, with State Department
specialists, and the Council on Foreign Relations, and West Point, too. It
is not so much a matter of fault as it is structural. The minute you rise to
govern you become another step removed from the lives of those you govern.
Which means you become removed from reality."
As for Iraq, she says:
"This is what I've been thinking about as I've
considered the obvious fact that those in positions of authority in
Washington were taken aback by and not prepared for the strength and
durability of the insurgency in Iraq. Obviously India in 1947 is not Iraq in
2006. But there is a lesson both have in common. The resistance in Iraq did
not in fact collapse like Saddam's army, and some people could have told
Washington that. (Some apparently did.) But those who knew best were on the
ground, and not elites. They were young army colonels, or old village
elders. They had not earned their way in. No one listened. Or they listened
for a moment and didn't hear.
"Elites become detached, and governments are composed
of elites. In a way we all know this, but we know it so well we forget it.
The tribute politicians pay to pollsters shows they are aware they operate
at a remove. At least pollsters can claim to have spoken to people on the
ground, at least by phone, last Wednesday. They have numbers, on a page."
The take-home lesson...
"In international actions great nations should, in
general, go slow, think dark, assume the worst. If it can go wrong it likely
will. Prepare, take steps; forewarned is forearmed. Listen to the
"unimportant"; heed the outside voice. Know you don't know."
Enjoy!
Charles Brumbelow
Those who will not learn history. etc. etc.
Peggy Noonan is always worth listening to. In the case of Iraq, though, many
of us knew what was going to happen and some said so. I know I did.
Listening to Chalabi and the exiles was probably not the optimum
intelligence strategy.
==========
Subject: Larry Wilkerson uses term "Neo-Jacobin"
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001297.php
I'm not sure if he's a fan or the term is catching on
in general use.
Tom Fagan
Reagan used to teach us that it's astonishing
how much you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit.
===========
Subject: Government and telecom
development
Mr. Pournelle
In today’s Byte, you
claim that Korea, Japan, and Europe are moving ahead of the US in telecom
capabilities. I can’t say I disagree, but I see two specific reasons why.
First, they’re smaller countries geographically, have
higher urban density (as far as I can tell, and in general), and have had
less past investments in infrastructure, meaning that rolling out brand new
infrastructure is less costly. They also, perhaps ironically, probably have
fewer regulatory roadblocks standing in the way, since their telecom
development is largely government-dictated. Which leads me to the second
reason.
You also mention “massive public subsidies,” which is
perhaps more important than you gave credit in your article; either one
agrees with “massive public subsidies” as a method of deciding what’s
important (i.e., what technologies), or not. If one agrees with it, then by
golly it should be used for everything; if not, then not. Personally, I
think the market is a (practically and morally) better arbiter of such
things: if there’s an advantage to having faster broadband, it will happen
(absent government action to the contrary) and for whom it should happen,
simply because those entities will be willing to make the required
investments. Sure, the Japanese have access to a great deal more technology
than we do here in the States, but so far I can’t see how it’s making
Japanese society or economy better.
I look at it like our national highway system. It
would be impossible at this point to determine which roads were actually
necessary or even good investments, and which returned as much as they cost.
Many (most?) were porkbarrel projects spearheaded not based on their
potential returns but rather through whose Congressional district they might
cut. Now, we have the monumental task of maintaining those roads, and no
good way to determine where to spend the trillions of dollars necessary. I
predict that Europe, Korea, and Japan, et al, will have the same sort of
dilemma one day, to the extent that they build their telecom infrastructures
on government fiat rather than (free) economic sense.
Which is all probably more than you wanted to read on
the subject, so I’ll finish there. Thanks for the time.
Mark R. Coppock coppockm@yahoo.com
The Constitution of the US specifically
allows Federal expenditures for Post Roads, and Hamilton and others held
that highways, canals, harbors, and other facilities that served the entire
nation were legitimate objects of federal expenditure. Even Jefferson,
though originally opposed, got on board not only buying Louisiana but
sending expeditions to explore it. The US has long had organizations for
mapping the nation and the world, and making naval charts, and observing
climate.
In other words there are legitimate
national expenses -- massive public subsidies -- such as highways, and the
like. And while this is the usual path for pork it is not the case that all
such are useless. I would contend that despite some waste, the National
Science Foundation returns far more for each public dollar invested than
most private investments do.
Choosing the targets for public subsidy is
difficult, and the pork barrel principle often rules; we are not in
disagreement there. But even Adam Smith endorses government expenditures in
those enterprises "the return from which to individuals is small, but to the
nation is large"; and von Mises considered the Vienna State Opera a
legitimate national expense as being worth more than an army division.
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