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Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
51–60 of 291 posts
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#52The book maybe is garbage, but it makes people think about others feelings and goals in meetings. This is already much more than an average person does walking into a social situation.
This is just the “religion might all be made up but it gives people comfort/morality so we shouldn’t look too closely” argument in another form. A useful lie eventual causes side effects (eg: in this case, causing managers to base career trajectories around bunk personality categories).
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#53The interesting question here perhaps isn’t so much whether knowing if you are a particular color or 4-letter Myers-Briggs combination helps you or whether there is a solid foundation to the categorization at all. What’s interesting here is rather: what happens when you think of everyone as a pigeonholed category. Intuitively it seems it should be mostly negative especially if the categories don’t even offer any beha…
Mindfulness and meditation especially, /are/ supported by scientific findings. I don't know about yoga, but it's basically stretching and that's generally good for you.
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#54I struggle often with this somewhat arbitrary desire for everything to be data-driven and backed by science. People hope, pray, follow best practices, listen to advice on the internet and yet, every now and then we are reminded that only fools do these things. Really intelligent people only listen to science and do things backed by science and lots of data. How does anyone accomplish anything if every step they take…
I used to be the way you describe, and I found it left me without any convictions. I used to think that was okay, because I reasoned with myself that convictions are irrational if not backed by data.
Then I got older and realized how easy it is to frame and manipulate data and “facts” to achieve any desired result on the part of the person disseminating the facts. I realized that having some base convictions was a way to defend against people using data in unscrupulous ways, to convince me of things I didn’t want to believe.
So now I do both. I have some points of view that I can’t defend with data and science and peer review studies. They are grounded in my own observations of the world and how they make me feel. I won’t let anyone tell me what my lying eyes see, that’s for me to determine. But for what I can’t see I try to follow data where I can.
Does this mean I may be living under some incorrect convictions? Sure! But it’s far better than floating like a leaf in the wind, blowing wherever someone spouting some “data” would want to take me.
Irrationality is okay because the world and humans are irrational. You can’t operate in a pure mentat/vulcan mode under such conditions.
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#55And yet we still see fools in the US who actually believe that Myers-Briggs personality types like "INTJ" are somehow meaningful. It's hilarious.
They should read it's history. I think its audience is that of people who'd otherwise love astrology if it weren't so out of fashion.
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#56I read some of this article. I have never heard about the color system in question. If it’s really a fraudulent system, it should be easy to say “The system claims thing X, here is evidence X is false.” Instead, this article is filled with anecdotes and what seems like random conjecture on what personality “really” is. This is not a convincing argument.
It does not need to be fraudulent, it is enough that it states facts as scientific when they have not been proven.
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#57And yet we still see fools in the US who actually believe that Myers-Briggs personality types like "INTJ" are somehow meaningful. It's hilarious.
IMO the biggest issue with MBTI types is the lack of "unaligned" letters. Someone at 51% of the way between "P" and "J" probably doesn't meaningfully express their "J", but would still get "INTJ" the same as if they had scored 100% of the way to "J". Adding an "X" to the middle of each scale would probably help differentiate between people genuinely expressing one end or the other of the scale, and the middle who don't really. Of course then the test probably would have never gotten popular, because most people would have a few Xs in their score and it's a lot less catchy of an idea then.
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#58I struggle often with this somewhat arbitrary desire for everything to be data-driven and backed by science. People hope, pray, follow best practices, listen to advice on the internet and yet, every now and then we are reminded that only fools do these things. Really intelligent people only listen to science and do things backed by science and lots of data. How does anyone accomplish anything if every step they take…
Well, someone like Taleb would say that human nature (if there is such a thing) has remained unchanged for at least as long as there has been writing. So we have writings thousands of years old on what people thought about how other people work. These have been subject to the best truth filter we know of: time. So you’ll learn more about how your fellow humans operate by reading the classics than whatever bullshit psych field is critically lauded in $currentyear.
Incidentally I’ve also found this to be true for politics. You will get a much better understanding of politics by reading historical texts about the 20th century than by following the day-to-day oscillations of the political machine from any news source. Actually, the latter negatively impacts your understanding.
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#59I struggle often with this somewhat arbitrary desire for everything to be data-driven and backed by science. People hope, pray, follow best practices, listen to advice on the internet and yet, every now and then we are reminded that only fools do these things. Really intelligent people only listen to science and do things backed by science and lots of data. How does anyone accomplish anything if every step they take…
I think it is a bit of a stretch to call a desire for assertions to be backed by verifiable facts "arbitrary".
> How does anyone accomplish anything if every step they take has to be double blind studied before it even crosses their mind?
First, it doesn't have to be double-blinded before it can "cross your mind". There are lots of solid theories that are worth taking into consideration, however if you are writing a book promoting a theory which you claim has a scientific basis it is helpful to at least some evidence that it is true.
Nothing wrong with enjoying grandma's chicken noodle soup. I'm sure it's beneficial - but don't sell it as a cure for cancer.
Re: Swedes were fooled by one of the biggest scientific bluffs of our time (2020)
#60I've lost the thought around this part: > For example, consider a person who says, “now I understand why I have such negative thoughts, can’t get to sleep, and have difficulty getting going…I’ve got depression.” This person might believe that the explanation of her symptoms is depression, but in fact, the diagnosis of depression is just a categorisation of exactly these symptoms. The diagnosis of depression usually r…
No no no no. The diagnosis of depression absolutely does not revolve around "changes in body chemistry and the functioning of the brain", except insofar as "functioning of the brain" equals the symptoms reported by the patient! There are no known physical or chemical tests for depression. Even if we have some vague theories about "chemical imbalance in the brain", for the most part the neurological or biochemical mec…
> There are no known physical or chemical tests for depression.
The absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence.
It is true that so far, we don't have physical or chemical tests for depression. This doesn't prove that the chemistry or the brains or neurotransmitters are functioning the same way in depressed and non-depressed people, it just says the science still can't tell.