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If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#171

Post by loudtieblahblah »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #161
loudtieblahblah wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is. mainstream diets will tell you: * saturated fats are bad (lies told us by a crappy Ancel Keys study, promoted for decades by processed food companies (like Kellogs) ran by Seventh Day Adventists who were convinced "meat led man to dangerous impulses and temptation") * polyunsaturated fats are good. The American Heart Assocation had an article up for years that went as far as to claim Omega6s are heart healthy.…

what's an acceptable oil? olive? peanut? I was told to use olive oil (not even EVOO except for taste related) so that's what I get but it's impossible to know anything.

Anything thats mono or saturated fat. Mono is probably healthier. But coconut oil, beef tallow, duck fat, butter are all healthier than canola, sunflower, or soybean oil or crisco.

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#172

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #160

My 5 cents. There is not one but two psychological sciences at the moment. One is public, publicly funded and in very bad shape, with most of its results being not reproduceable (reproduction crisis), and a partial destruction happening via neuro-sciences. Who destroy, but do not offer large-scale replacement theories, that could encompass the whole species and are not in contradiction to other neuro-science results.…

> I think, academic psychology should have full access to all cooperation databases that contain behavioral data.

No thanks. We already have quack science from the 1950s still driving policy discussions on wedge issues today. I don’t want more convincing shit, I want less shit.

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#173

Post by didibus »

TaupeRanger wrote: post #156
denimnerd42 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

every mainstream thought about diet is untrustworthy to me due to the above type of example :/

Yes. The simple fact is that nutrition epidemiology has failed. We don't know much of anything, other than a handful of basics like avoiding loads of refined sugar and trans fats.

That's not completely true, the information is just harder to find and more complex to make popular.

For example, bad fats still play an important role in clogged arteries, but it's more nuanced then that. There are many kinds of fat, and there are other variables in causing fats to clog arteries, such as sugar.

Well, so yes, it does seem that avoiding refined sugar and trans fat and not overdosing on calories, and keeping highly active in terms of exercise, and not being in the same position for too long, and avoiding foods that inflame you (which seems to be very personal), and making sure you get a varied diet of nutrients, is all we know.

I just don't know if that should be framed as a failure. Could just be that it's a hard problem, could be that there are no real pattern to learn about as well. The latter is interesting, because we start our nutrition quest believing nutrition can affect health to a great deal, but that could just as well be false, nutrition could be a very small factor on health.

I think the problem is just the tendency we all have for snake oil, shortcuts and easy way outs. That is where I think this impression of "failing" comes from. That we didn't find something easy to do and that works very well. In that sense, science is characterized by lots of failures.

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#174

Post by IIAOPSW »

caenn wrote: post #152
fnord123 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you think about it, it's insane that metametascience isn't studied more. We're going to question every little detail about the scientific process, but we're just going to take on faith that peer-review and publication in journals is an effective method for weeding out "bad" metascience?

Indeed, and if you think metascience is bad, imagine meta-metascience.

You've caught an Orobus by the tail!

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#175

Post by edanm »

naasking wrote: post #11
Tarsul wrote: post #2

I still don't understand why we "believed" studies that claimed knowledge about typical behavior and subconscious decisions while those studies were only based on a single experiment with limited participants, e.g. Stanford Prison Experiment. These type of studies should ALWAYS be looked at critically and not just because they fail to reproduce but because they are based on a very small sample size in a very discreet…

The problem is not just with "belief", but in the process itself. Non-replicable studies are actually cited more than replicable studies: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/21/eabd1705 Science journalists probably are vulnerable to the same thing influences that lead scientists to do this, except they have even less review on their claims and so they become pop culture sound bites. As for why non-replicable re…

> As for why non-replicable results are cited more, I'd speculate that non-replicable results are often more unintuitive and surprising

I mean, a kind of well known thing is that in general, something false can be more interesting than something true, since it has more degrees of freedom. You can make up anything you want - the truth has to conform to what's actually real.

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#176

Post by coder-3 »

Sr_developer wrote: post #50
publicola1990 wrote: post #26

Much of such dubious "science" is packaged by self help authours as miracle principles which are going to set ones life right. Popular books like "Power Of Habit" and Cal Newport's books also seem to fall into this category, and seem to enjoy huge patronage, even in HN.

There is a cottage industry of what you may call,if you feel uncharitable, bullshit peddlers: Simon Sinek Cal Newport Charles Duhigg Mark Manson Ryan Hollyday Malcolm Gladwell The list is endless to be honest, they are each different on their own way but they have the following common points: - They are on this for the money, so expect them to be always pushing their books, products, next book, next tour, next progra…

I don't understand why the desire to make money from one's work is correlated with how bullshit the work is. It's not. Desire to make money is only sometimes associated with with bullshit (but we tend to remember it more because it leaves a bad taste). If that was not the case any capitalistic society would have never worked at all to begin with.

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#177

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

colechristensen wrote: post #144
jrochkind1 wrote: post #104

The realities of science as actually practiced rather complicates the religion of "trust the science!" (which usually actually means "trust the scientists!")

The science-as-religion people think that science delivers truth in the same way any other theology does. I took a philosophy class filled with people in science degree programs and a few of my classmates were often vocally upset about how nothing was certain in philosophy and everything had multiple sides to it. That was very eye opening, many of these people were soon to be graduated and through their entire educat…

> You're not supposed to "trust the science" you're supposed to trust the process to approach the truth. If you can't read multiple arguments on the same topic and analyze them, you really don't get it at all (and waaay too many people with degrees can't do this).

Agree entirely. I’ll add that I go slightly further. If you can’t take your pet topic, and can’t make even a slightly good faith argument against yourself, you have no business with strong feelings on it.

I have a wedge issue topic I am an expert on. I could argue against myself, both effectively, and in an actual compromise that no one wants.

Yet… people who argue against “my side” are constantly using complete bullshit science from the 1980/1990s when governments literally weaponized depts and ivy leagues to push for “evidence” to support their desired policy changes.

These people now tell me to “trust the science”, “I’m sure this researcher at Harvard is wrong and you’re right”, and ”this article from CNN / FOX / VOX / WAPO proves you are wrong and I refuse to consider they have an agenda”.

Worst part that there is no shame of willful ignorance, they “trust” the people they claim can’t be wrong, simple, done. Why should they bother to acknowledge another side - if they do it means everything else needs reevaluation too.

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#178

Post by earthscienceman »

walrus wrote: post #113
PatentlyDC123 wrote: post #105

Is there a method of flagging papers in scientific journals that have been criticized or refuted, e.g., by later studies or proven inability to replicate the data? In legal research services, like Lexis Nexis or Westlaw, many cases are "flagged" when a later case or statute reverses, narrows, or otherwise affects the earlier case. This system warns lawyers that they may not be able to cite the flagged case in their c…

A journal can publish a retraction. The website Retraction Watch[1] aggregates these retractions and provides a database that you can query. Reference management software like Zotero[2] can use this to monitor your collection of papers and notify you when one is retracted. [1] https://retractionwatch.com/ [2] https://www.zotero.org/blog/retracted-item-notifications/

Yeah. They could. But few (zero?) studies are retracted for the sake of being proven incorrect later. And, to be far, it would be ridiculous. Imagine having your career nullified because when you're 60 some major break through shows that your studies aren't relevant anymore. Your work was good when you did it, but now there's something new. It's kind of the definition of scientific progress.

However, as a counter example, in my very narrow specialty there is a well known lab that has produced highly cited bogus studies. I've personally published opposing results and said, "these studies are wrong for these reasons" using almost exactly those words. Should they be retracted? Absolutely. Will they ever be? No. Because, of course, the publisher and the authors just point the finger back at me and say "no, you're wrong!" and that's more than enough to keep the vague debate going.

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#179

Post by earthscienceman »

colechristensen wrote: post #140
tern wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who do you look to for wisdom about how to live your life?

In general, nobody who is trying to sell it to me.

I absolutely love this answer, it's the only correct answer. I look to the people around me who have modeled leadership, good loving relationships, and productive respectful communication... then I try to mimic their behaviors. Those people are far wiser in their actions than any of those authors are in their words.

Re: If you think psychological science is bad, imagine how bad it was in 1999

#180

Post by BurningFrog »

fallingknife wrote: post #154
munificent wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's insane that metascience isn't studied more. It is, probably more than is apparent. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology_of_scientific_knowle... There is an interesting recursive problem here, though: what tools do you use to scientifically analyze the scientific process? Whatever tools you use will themselves be hobbled by the same systemic flaws you…

> what tools do you use to scientifically analyze the scientific process? Engineering. If you can build something that works based on the rules theorized by scientists, they are on to something. e.g. building a skyscraper proves we know the properties of steel to a pretty good margin of error.

For many sciences, like psychology, that's not normally an option.
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