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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”

#241

Post by Symmetry »

banads wrote: post #151
Symmetry wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be an aspect of the same problem that DARE had. If you castigate some act but at the same time speak in a way that says that act is common then the effect of making it seem normal will tend to trump the disapproval.

>the effect of making it seem normal will tend to trump the disapproval. I think it may be more due to the fact that people have a natural disinclination towards people pretending to be moral authorities, especially when their premise is revealed to be based on lies and pseudoscience

There were aspects of DARE that were based on Psuedoscience but lots of major and minor campaigns, from ending dueling to getting people not to steal things from the Petrified Forest National Park, have been derailed by this effect without involving lies or pseudoscience.

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

#242

Post by ncmncm »

makach wrote: post #157

oh this gem of a book , I remember I saw it at some managers desk, where there was no attempt to hide it or anything. I often wonder wtf he was thinking.

In parts of Bloomberg, as in apparently many other places, there is a cult around what Geoff Pullum calls "the nasty book", Elements of Style.

It is similarly full of ignorant proclamations that serve mainly to make people insecure about their communication skills.

Whenever I found one that didn't obviously belong to someone, I recycled it.

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

#243

Post by ncmncm »

briandear wrote: post #46

I’m curious if it is possible we are being fooled by other scientific hoaxes at this very moment but yet don’t even realize it.

Of course we are.

As Josh Billings is usually quoted these days, "It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so."

We are so sure of things that are not true that we don't bother to check.

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

#244

Post by projektfu »

mattkrause wrote: post #161
projektfu wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very little in biology reaches a high level of confidence, let alone in psychology.

And that’s because biology and psychology are incredibly, stupendously more complicated.

Exactly. There would be almost no results if we needed r^2=0.9999 or some such standard.

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

#245

Post by Miraste »

nlstitch wrote: post #145

Not to be the devils advocate here, but does the fact that there isnt any scientific proof proof it doesnt work? Not everything has to be tested and verified in a lab, right? Perhaps I am justifying myself though: I've had the DiSC traing THREE times now. Is it all just a lie? I was kinda hoping this article would show actual proof it doesnt work.

Tests like DiSC and Meyers-Briggs are hard to disprove because they make contradictory, non-falsifiable claims. This is part of what makes them appealing: there's something identifiable for everyone in most of the profiles, and stuff that doesn't fit is easy to dismiss. It's the same strategy that enables horoscopes and psychics. Don't feel bad for believing it--it's designed to be believable, rather than correct. If you want a more in-depth breakdown of this and the other problems that make the test false but also hard to falsify, this [1] is a pretty good analysis.

[1] https://medium.com/@ronsoak/a-warning-against-using-disc-mye...

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

#246

Post by eitland »

To be fair, a some of the supposedly peer reviewed management science we learned in engineering wasn't too far away from this.

Edit: And while I cannot say if it is right or wrong - it isn't like you can put this stuff into a particle accellerator and smash it and verify predictions - useful things can be extracted from it. One of the biggest ones might be that it gives everyone a common terminology to discuss such topics.

I've said before that organizational psychology and management seemed like a huge waste of time when the young me looked at the subjects I was supposed to learn in engineering and yet sometimes feel like the most useful ones now that I look back on it.

I mean: everything useful I nnow about programming from school I learned in the C and microprocessors course. Almost everything else I know aboit programming I learned either before or after my engineering degree.

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

#247

Post by ncmncm »

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.

At issue is whether the translated author's qualifications are any better. A professorship in psychology doesn't seem to take much understanding.

Does he really think depression is as delusory as redness?

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

#248

Post by Digory »

linuxftw wrote: post #119
SkyBelow wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 h…

Enforcing culture is highly discriminatory. You have to talk, dress, and act a certain way within cultural boundaries, otherwise you're discriminated against. Imagine you're in a job interview. You describe the position to a candidate, and the candidate says "Wow, that sounds cool." You describe the position to a different candidate. That person says "Shxt, that's tight dog." Does one sound more professional to you?…

All norms reflect a certain kinds of power.

We seem to be in a period where norms are assumed to be malicious or harmful, where the majority has a moral obligation to minimize the advantages of following norms.

At bottom, though, that's just an attack on all norms.

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

#249

Post by ncmncm »

aidenn0 wrote: post #229
ncmncm wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing to "believe". If it is useful in expanding your comfort zone, it's useful, full stop. If it's useful in helping to get along with people who are different from you, it's useful, full stop. If it's not useful to you, that does not mean it is not useful to anybody else.

Meyers-Briggs claims that 1. We all have specific preferences in the way we construe our experiences, and these preferences underlie our interests, needs, values, and motivation 2. The MBTI is an accurate measure of #1 There's also an implicit claim that each of the 4 dichotomies are well represented by a binary value. There are far more claims made about it by Meyers and Briggs, but those 3 are baked into the MBTI t…

I have never encountered anyone who claimed either of the above. The test results indicate a spectrum on each axis.

Horoscopes are useful to people otherwise inclined to get stuck in a rut. Likewise, the I Ching. You don't need to believe either one for it to be useful. Not believing is an intelligent response, but not everybody is so equipped. Intelligent people get stuck in ruts, too.

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

#250

Post by WAHa_06x36 »

csours wrote: post #139
fastball wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought of Myers-Briggs as being about identifying the things you are less comfortable with and learning to address them. It's about identification of tendencies, not blaming a Gremlin.

Someone should do a talk on Pseudo-Psychology, the Good Parts. I had no idea what Myers-Briggs was actually meant to be used for.

Myers-Briggs is a proprietary test marketed by a commercial company. It is meant to extract money from corporate customers.
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