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

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

#201

Post by fastball »

blablabla123 wrote: post #181
fastball wrote: post #67

I have a problem with the article author's implication that someone without credentials (read: university degree) isn't a scientist, or at least is a lesser scientist. A scientist is someone who employs the scientific method. That's it. Thomas Erikson does not seem to qualify from what I can tell (he's just winging it), but he absolutely does not need to have a doctorate (or even a bachelors) in order to be a "behavi…

Part of the scientific method is to perform studies. The studies must be self-contained, based on facts, traceable and get published. In many disciplines because of complexity this requires people to include data into the argument. (Psychology is one of these disciplines) Bonus points for peer-review, Science is a team discipline after all, even if done outside of Academia. According to the article almost none of the…

I have no problem with the idea that Thomas Erikson is not himself a scientist, I stated that fairly clearly in my original comment ("Thomas Erikson does not seem to qualify"). I have no problem with the author thinking Thomas Erikson should not be calling himself a behavioral scientist. It is also clear to me as it is to you that the scientific method was not employed in the writing of this book. My issue is with statements like:

> Despite a lack of any qualification, Erikson describes himself as a behavioural scientist.

and

> despite the fact that from a legal point of view in Sweden, it is possible to call yourself a ‘behavioural scientist’ without any formal qualifications

Again, it seems clear to me that the author believes that formal qualifications make you more of a scientist. This is simply untrue. Doing good science requires no qualifications, only good method. In fact, there are so many conflicts of interest in modern academia with regards to performing honest science (and resulting scandals) that something coming out of a university should probably be looked at with a more skeptical eye than science which does not.

I realize now that my last sentence in my original comment may have been confusing, but I was not trying to assert that this book in particular is scientific - merely that it is possible to write a scientific book without a formal higher education background.

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

#202

Post by breck »

oefrha wrote: post #192
breck wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The PhD is a fraternity. I think the only thing a PhD makes you an expert in is "PhD-ing". Don't get me wrong. I think having a PhD is a signal that you are very intelligent, I respect, work with and love people with PhDs (I disrespect the system). But if you believe this: > Meanwhile, the percentage of frauds among self-proclaimed non-Ph.D. experts is likely close to 100% then I would say the percentage of frauds am…

Outside a small percentage of fraudsters, having a Ph.D. in a subject is hard proof that one has devoted thousands of hours into said subject and has treaded a more or less established path, with at least a modicum of quality assurance from field experts. That doesn't automatically make someone an expert (depending on the definition of course), but it does indicate one can have a serious conversation on said subject…

I agree that it's a filter for someone that has put in the work to learn the research, which is very helpful.

But my take is if a guy can go and sell 2 million books and the PhDs get in a tizzy because he doesn't have a PhD, and the lay person can't tell the difference, then the problem is these whining "PhD experts" and their pseudoscience, and not the non-PhD who wrote the book.

The layperson can immediately tell whether a phone was made by electrical engineering experts or some crank amateur. If someone is buying some "fraudsters" theory over some PhD's, perhaps it's because neither of them work so it doesn't really matter.

My take on the field of psychology (and many human bio fields) is we just don't have the scientific tools yet to make it a true science. But technology is finally making in roads (ie, wearables), so perhaps there's hope yet.

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

#203

Post by epx »

oefrha wrote: post #56
achow wrote: post #2

Couldn't help but check that it is rated 4.6/5 (113 reviews) in Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Surrounded-Idiots-Behavior-Effectivel... Excerpt from one of the top review.. The book really helps you to understand why 'blues' ask 100 questions, want to problem solve all the time, always ask for more information, and can be cold and distant instead of being emotional creatures. Yellows on the other hand are always day…

Hah, this reminds me of zodiac signs, which every single non-scientist female friend of mine seems to take very seriously (not sure about male friends since this topic seems to never come up). No wonder it sells.

And the zodiac signs are also divided in 4 groups (air, fire, earth, water) so it seems the idea of dividing people in 4 quadrants is pretty old.

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

#204

Post by wayoutthere »

linuxftw wrote: post #135
wayoutthere wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a big part of it is that corporate HR types are trying to turn people into interchangeable cogs in the machine. But this ignores the richness of our experience -- even if the color model were both static and true, I'm willing to guess that the expression of those characteristics would vary widely from person to person. Better to just get to know people individually and talk to them about their desires, capabi…

The problem is HR types are absolute conformist authoritarians. They don't have any critical thinking skills whatsoever, otherwise they wouldn't be in that field. It's the exact kind of thing I expect colleges and universities to push out. People that can only regurgitate information and then get indignant if you as much as question it's validity. Brainwashing really works, and people often pay for the privilege.

I completely agree with you. HR seems to aggregate all the people that you wouldn't allow anywhere near the actual business of the company.

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

#205

Post by fastball »

DavidSumpter wrote: post #184
fastball wrote: post #67

I have a problem with the article author's implication that someone without credentials (read: university degree) isn't a scientist, or at least is a lesser scientist. A scientist is someone who employs the scientific method. That's it. Thomas Erikson does not seem to qualify from what I can tell (he's just winging it), but he absolutely does not need to have a doctorate (or even a bachelors) in order to be a "behavi…

I am the professor who translated the article from Swedish. I agree that anyone can be a scientist. But, as you Erikson neither has qualifications, nor does he show understanding and nor does he use the scientific method. So very poor all round.

Oh, I agree. Erikson does not appear to be a scientist at all. But I think the criticism should be along the lines of "he was not using the scientific method or citing sources which used such in the writing of this book", not personal attacks of "he doesn't have a degree in behavioral science".

To illustrate my point, this article[0] paints a very dim view of the science used in the book "Why We Sleep". The author of the book is a professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley. Being in academia (even a professor at a prestigious school!) doesn't mean the book he wrote is de facto "scientific".

[0] https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/#appendix-what-do-you-d...

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

#206

Post by fsloth »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #118
dgellow wrote: post #9

> · Red: dominant, driven, solution focussed. > · Blue: analytic, careful, meticulous > · Green: patient, considerate, nice > · Yellow: extroverted, creative, verbal Damn. I spent so much of my time and energy pushing back exactly on this bullshit when I was young. That's part of the curriculum of mandatory courses I had to take during an apprenticeship in Switzerland. Expensive and mandatory courses paid by students…

Colours WTF! The Belbin team Roles does have some value I feel as that's derived from real results - but you should not use it prescriptivly

Belbin is same bs mostly. Yes, some people tend to be more comfortable in leadership roles and yes, some people are more creative.

But the belbin model is yet again one failed attempt to quantify these ephemeral observations - and failing at that.

I deal with several roles. My belbin questionnaire mapped pretty well the type of communication that was required in each role between the other person, but did not tell about me as such.

These tools are best used as an entertainment to get people thinking about how they behave, but in that a "which hogwarts house do you belong to" would run the same function. I.e. they are all fiction. Fiction can capture important insights, but it's not science.

(For those not familiar with belbin, part of the routine is collecting feedback from 5-6 of you coworkers)

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

#207

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

> The invocation of a personality Gremlin is one example of careless thinking.

Am I supposed to accept this because it already makes sense, because Katz or Sumpter wrote it, because other people believe it, or because of research to back it up? I sympathize with all the so called foolish Swedes.

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

#208

Post by fastball »

projektfu wrote: post #100
fastball wrote: post #67

I have a problem with the article author's implication that someone without credentials (read: university degree) isn't a scientist, or at least is a lesser scientist. A scientist is someone who employs the scientific method. That's it. Thomas Erikson does not seem to qualify from what I can tell (he's just winging it), but he absolutely does not need to have a doctorate (or even a bachelors) in order to be a "behavi…

The question is how such a person is able to do research. If you weren't independently wealthy, how would you go about getting funding for a study of human subjects and have it covered by the oversight that it should entail, if you didn't already receive training to a satisfactory degree in an institution of higher learning? Not saying it's impossible, but it would be remarkable on its own. Of course, once you have a…

Having a masters degree in X is a "formal qualification" but does not give you any more ability to perform more research after doing that degree than anyone else, in the terms (money) you are talking about.

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

#209

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

n4r9 wrote: post #179
oefrha wrote: post #47

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 hid…

People will very readily suppress or withhold questioning something that confirms their wolrdview.

I feel bad for people who don't use worldview, like the scientists that discover things you thought were true already.

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

#210

Post by legitster »

As someone with more than a fair bit of experience with DISC, I wanted to provide some pushback on the article a bit:

> Erikson has repeatedly claimed that the benefit of his colour approach is that it helps us understand ourselves and others and, as a result, improves our communication and reduces conflicts. This is his argument as to why companies and organisations should adopt his approach. Since there is no scientific support for the four colours, there is naturally no support for this claim either.

Bullshit. Just because there was no study published on it in Nature doesn't mean it doesn't have value or you should dismiss it completely! If I went around proclaiming the importance of Agile, you shouldn't just dismiss me because "there is no academic support". And to more of a point, it seems unfair to single this guy out of the sea of pop-psychology and business management books.

> It is difficult to imagine a more unpleasant and unfair way of dealing with a problem than simply attributing it to the fact that the person in the centre of a conflict “is blue”.

This seems to be a gross mis-characterization of the expected outcomes of the behavioral training. The outcome of them (at least the ones I've gone through) is to reframe work conflicts away from "this guy is stupid and should be fired" to "we have completely different ways of talking through problems". In that regards it's been super freaking helpful. I don't need an academic consensus that I feel warm and fuzzy afterwards.

I strongly recommend this post from SlateStarCodex: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/27/on-types-of-typologies...

>The claim that MBTI gives you new information would be a bold scientific claim and would require bold scientific evidence. I don’t know to what degree the MBTI people make this claim, but I don’t think it’s necessary for me to enjoy the test and consider it useful. All it needs to do is condense the information you put into it in a way that makes it more relevant and digestible.

>Five Factor and MBTI are trying to do fundamentally different things. Five Factor is trying to give us a mathematized, objectively correct version of personality useful for research purposes. MBTI is trying to separate people into little bins that put continuous personality space into discrete and easy-to-think-about terms suitable for human processing, and even very poorly drawn bins will do a pretty good job, just like European countries.

100%, DISC is just a construct, but it can still be a super useful and effective one. Even if it's a placebo, I don't need someone running up and knocking it out of my hand and telling me they did me a favor.

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