How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

>or that discrimination in the workplace is in fact normal and healthy

One thing that bothers me is that discrimination is seen as a four letter word, when it is something we do all the time and celebrate. Only specific forms are considered bad and we need to be more explicit on what and why.

For example, racial discrimination is bad. Discrimination based on what degree one holds is not. Or, given that not everyone has the same level of access to earn a degree, should we be so open in accepting such discrimination?

What about discriminating based on punctuality? It seems an easy one to justify, but there is a significant cultural impact on punctuality.

What about discrimination on factors that people can't control and that have no relation to work, but which are currently legally allowed. For example look at the correlation between height and pay. Should that be allowed and what efforts are we doing to stop it. And does it become more of a concern when we account for average height differences between genders and the gendered outcome that can result as a secondary result (paying short people less, given that women are on average shorter than men, results in paying women less).

These sort of conversations never seem to happen when it comes to discrimination in the work place, making me think the name of the issue doesn't accurately reflect what the acted upon concern is.

I'm Swedish and yes, it was almost insufferable when this book was the hotness during the past two years, but this is hardly "one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time". It's not even the worst one that got mainstream in Sweden. Electromagnetic hypersensitivity[1] is far more stupid and God knows how much money has been wasted on shielding people from electromagnetic fields by local governments. Hell, just the fact that this has been debated and taken seriously by politicians and government officials is astounding to me. It's a sad reflection on the state of physics literacy in my country.

So, stupid? Yes. One of the worst pseudo-scientific scandals ever to have swept over Sweden? Not even remotely close.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_hypersensitivi...

I think the right way to think about this is that psychology has the imprimatur of legitimate science (and some pscyhological research is indeed legitimate), but a lot of it is more about having an idea you like, conducting a few inadequate studies, and publishing them in a domain journal with little critical review and no reproduction.

Then, the folks who teach these courses see these papers (presumably in their undergraduate psych classes?) and end up believing them, becacuse they don't have the necessary scientific analytic/critical skills to evaluate them.

At my employer, the IAT was originally presented as scientific fact (with citations). Over time, the citations changed from "This is great!" to "This work appears to not be scientifically accurate, but we like the idea" to "we will not be using this, unless you want to try it voluntarily".

I think in general most people in society don't really have the ability to differentiate bullshit science from real science. I've actually left my scientific field permanently because I've seen far too enough examples of fraud and incompetence leading to tenure track positions.

I skimmed the entire article and am still confused about how this guy managed to persuade the media and “large parts of the Swedish population” that he’s a behavioral scientist. I mean, especially for laypeople, the first question you should ask when someone claims to be an expert in a certain science is “does s/he have a Ph.D.?”. This guy did not disclose his academic background, which no Ph.D. holder would ever hide, and his best claim to authority appears to be “in an interview with Filter I referred to a psychologist who supported my claim [to be a behavioural scientist]”, which is truly bizarre (and false btw). Additionally, this guy debuted as a crime novel author ffs (according to Google-translated version of his Swedish Wikipedia page[1]). What a joke.

(Granted, there’s a small percentage of frauds among Ph.D. holders. Meanwhile, the percentage of frauds among self-proclaimed non-Ph.D. experts is likely close to 100%.)

[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=h...

> the question remains as why so many people bought the book

I tend to think that people like very simple answers to complex questions.

Full spectrum of personality traits back-and-forth? The answer is four colors.

Perhaps the fact of just being able to understand any given answer makes people feel smart. I deduct it this way, since the author defends himself by claiming skeptics "are attempting to make out that his readers are idiots".