Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Category

Psychology

At Mind Matters News: We trust nonsense from lab coats more than from gurus

It’s hard to understand why the researchers take comfort from finding that, worldwide, people will believe absolute nonsense if it comes from scientists. Read More ›

At ScienceNews: Statistical significance as a strange idea

Bower: To make matters worse, psychology journals began to publish papers only if they reported statistically significant findings, prompting a surprisingly large number of investigators to massage their data — either by gaming the system or cheating — to get below the P value of 0.05 that granted that status. Inevitably, bogus findings and chance associations began to proliferate. Read More ›

L&FP, 48 – i: The conscience factor in consciousness

Conscience is a major aspect of our consciousness, one of the “first facts” of our embodiment in the world, thus part of the start-point for sound thinking. Hence, Cicero’s recognition that it was consensus even in his day that “[sound] conscience is a law”: Given word games that may crop up, let us note a high quality dictionary: con·science (kŏn′shəns)n.1. a. An awareness of morality in regard to one’s behavior; a sense of right and wrong that urges one to act morally: Let your conscience be your guide.b. A source of moral or ethical judgment or pronouncement: a document that serves as the nation’s conscience.c. Conformity to one’s own sense of right conduct: a person of unflagging conscience. 2. The Read More ›

When psychology tries to be a science instead of a mythology…

Gabriel encourages us to see psychology as a mythology and, of course, he is right: “Sigmund Freud’s theories were largely unfalsifiable, and the promissory note that the mind is the brain has yet to be cashed in.” The idea that the mind is just the brain is unfalsifiable too. Beliefs that do not originate in fact are impervious to evidence. Read More ›

Apparently, canceling Jordan Peterson didn’t really work

Douglas Murray: Peterson watchers will also notice that he signed off by saying that “With God’s grace and mercy” he hoped to complete some of the tasks which he lays out in it. Read More ›

Michael Egnor skewers claim that there is no continuity of the human self

Egnor: if Blackmore is not the same person now that she was a moment ago, then it makes no sense to call the YouTube video above an interview with Susan Blackmore. Perhaps it should be called interviews with Susan Blackmores or interviews with countless women, one of whom was Susan Blackmore. Or interviews with women formerly known as Susan Blackmore... Read More ›

Researchers: Many published psych studies lack validity

ScienceDaily: Chester and Lasko investigated 348 psychological manipulations included in peer-reviewed studies. They found that roughly 42% of the experiments were paired with no validity evidence, and that the remaining psychological manipulations were validated in ways that were extremely limited. Read More ›

Anyone remember psychologist Hans Eysenck? There’s now a retraction frenzy on his papers

The rap? Among other things, “the implausibility of the results presented, many of which show effect sizes virtually unknown in medical science.” Read More ›