Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young brains
���I think I blundered in my statistical calculation in my last posting on this thread. I wrote: Here are the statistics: http://tinyurl.com/yjeq7hm The risk was most increased for breast cancer. In developed countries like the UK, the chance of having had breast cancer by the age of 75 is 9.5 in 100. According to the study, for every extra daily unit of alcohol (over 2 a week), that risk increases by 1.1 per 100. So if you had a roughly 9.5 percent chance of getting breast cancer by the age of 75, but you drank one glass of wine a day, that risk would go up to 10.6 percent. If you drank two glasses of wine a day, that would increase to 11.7 percent. My calculation gives: Chance of getting breast cancer up to age 75 is approximately 1 in 10 Moderate drinking gives 1% increase, i.e., 1% of 10% = 0.1% increase = 1 in 1000 I should have argued that (using the figures from the study) that 9.5 women in every 100 get breast cancer by the age of 75. According to the study, for moderate drinkers this goes up to 10.6 women in every 100. That makes an increase of 1.1 women in every 100, i.e., an increase of roughly 1 in 100. This tallies with the conclusion at the end of the Abstract to the study: Low to moderate alcohol consumption in women increases the risk of certain cancers. For every additional drink regularly consumed per day, the increase in incidence up to age 75 years per 1000 for women in developed countries is estimated to be about 11 for breast cancer… http://tinyurl.com/yc6esev Chris Green wrote: when in fact the actual increase in the breast cancer rate was something like 2 in 10,000 By my reckoning that means Chris is out by a factor of 50. A reminder: The issue here is not the absolute validity of the study, but Chris's assertion: Without actually going back a checking press releases, I can recall the case of the moderate drinking causes breast cancer announcement in Britain earlier this year, in which it seemed pretty clear that the scientists had sexed it up for the university press team, who had then re-sexed it up for the new media, who had then re-re-sexed it up for public (when in fact the actual increase in the breast cancer rate was something like 2 in 10,000… As I wrote in my last posting, from the Abstract of the published study, the press release on a BMJ website (reprinted in the Guardian), and British newspaper reports of the study I can find nothing to support any of the above contentions. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young brains Allen Esterson Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:55:13 -0800 On 28 Dec 2009 Chris Green wrote: There's nothing surprisingly egregious about this particular article, is there? In response to which Stephen Black replied: I've never seen a university press release, which should have been vetted by the authors and presumably ran with their approval, hide the fact that the research was in animals. Chris Green responded: I'm still surprised. Without actually going back a checking press releases, I can recall the case of the moderate drinking causes breast cancer announcement in Britain earlier this year, in which it seemed pretty clear that the scientists had sexed it up for the university press team, who had then re-sexed it up for the new media, who had then re-re-sexed it up for public (when in fact the actual increase in the breast cancer rate was something like 2 in 10,000, and there was little reason to believe that alcohol, rather than the billion or so things correlated with increased alcohol consumption, was responsible even for this tiny increase). Let's all agree that there is much dismal reporting of scientific findings (especially in the field of health) in the media. But Chris's response to Stephen does not directly answer his challenge. Moreover his supposedly just as bad example turns out, on investigation, not to live up to Chris's assertions (at least as far as the British press is concerned). I though it might be interesting to investigate the specific example Chris gives concerning the study which was reported as saying that moderate drinking increases the risk of (not causes) breast cancer. My conclusion, at least in relation to the British press, is that the reporting was nowhere near as bad as Chris asserts, and that he understates the claimed increase of breast cancer rate for moderate drinking by a factor of about 5. First the study by the University of Oxford's Cancer Epidemiology Unit: Moderate Alcohol Intake and Cancer Incidence in Women, Allen N. E. et al, : Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Volume 101, Number 5, 4 March 2009 , pp. 296-305(10). From the Abstract's Conclusion (relating to alcohol): Low to moderate alcohol consumption in women increases the risk of certain cancers. For every additional drink regularly consumed per day, the increase
Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young brains
���On the subject of the reporting of scientific news in the media, Chris Green wrote [snip]: The news is a commercial product. Commercial products are routinely adjusted to ensure that they sell to the greatest number of people at the highest price (or rather, those that are not so adjusted, quickly cease to be commercial products). Surely it became clear to you long ago that journalists are not scientists (as if no scientist ever turned a phrase in order to make his or her work seem more exciting to the public), and certainly no journalist's boss is a scientist. Their values lie in a different place. In reply to which Stephen Black replied, quoting Chris first: Surely it became clear to you long ago that journalists are not scientists Some are both. Not all are shameless hacks intent on sensationalism. Some write excellent and intellectually honest accounts. As you note, there are good science journalists. I agree with Stephen that the world of the media, and journalists themselves, are just a wee bit more complex than Chris would have it. And I think it is important to distinguish between reports on matters in which science figures by non-science journalists, and those written by science correspondents. (A casual check on Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog reveals that many of the articles that he rightly castigates are not written by science correspondents.) Writing from this side of the pond, I can assure you that there *are* intellectually honest science journalists, for example Mark Henderson of the London Times and Robert Matthews, former science correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph and now freelance. To suggest that such journalists are little more than newspaper hacks is simply untrue. I see that even poor old Ben Goldacre of Bad Science fame can't escape Chris's castigation: But what he has done is figure out a way to make good science journalism sexy: he badmouths other journalists (and scientists) who do exactly what they are paid to do (viz., make science salable to newspaper readers). It's good old gotcha journalism. As Chris is evidently unable to credit anyone in the media business with any integrity he represents (or misrepresents) even the invaluable work that Goldacre does in terms of hack journalism – he's found a way of making even good journalism sexy. Not that I think that Ben Goldacre escapes criticism completely (who does?), though in this instance it is in relation to his blog rather than to his published Guardian column. I note that among the topics listed on his blog he has a section headed Media containing links to his blog articles. This includes several British national newspapers, but missing are The Guardian and the Guardian-owned Sunday paper The Observer. Now this can't be because no doubtful scientific stories have been run by these newspapers, because a quick search reveals that Goldacre himself had written on at least a couple of Observer articles on his blog (with at least one that he published in the Guardian, about a major autism/MMR scare story in the Observer) – not to mention an Observer article as recent as 20 September this year that warned that health officials will not be able to stem the growth of the worldwide H1N1 pandemic in developing countries. If the virus takes hold in the poorest nations, millions could die and the economies of fragile countries could be destroyed. Incidentally, this latter story is of interest in that (a) it was not written by a science correspondent, and (b) it could not really have been said to have been sensationalised by the journalist, as he was simply basing his story on a UN report (though one would hope that a responsible science journalist would have treated the report with a modicum of scepticism). This illustrates that there are numerous complexities in the reporting of science in the media, ranging from the extreme position taken by Chris, to the more nuanced position of Stephen's. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- Re: [tips] Cannabis damages young brains sblack Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:30:07 -0800 I said, deploring a news article on the dangers of pot for teenage brains from a report which failed to mention that the research was on rats: Why they did it is obvious. Studies demonstrating the dangers of cannabis for teenagers are sexy; such studies for rats, not so much. If you want publicity, you go with what is sexy, and hide what can impair it. It's also wrong. Chris Green replied: What is it that surprises you about this Stephen? Nothing. As I said, why they did is obvious. I was deploring it. Surely it became clear to you long ago that journalists are not scientists Some are both. Not all are shameless hacks intent on sensationalism. Some write excellent and intellectually honest accounts. As you note, there are good
Re: [tips] Holiday story
���David Hogberg quotes from a poem by Gerald Locklin of University College of North Wales at Bangor: Most of my students here are very poor. As winter hits they have to decide whether To spend their shillings on the coin-operated heaters Or on food. I suspect that heat often wins—you can Freeze to death quicker than you will starve. Their incentive is that they will presumably Have more comfortable lives if they survive The minimalist conditions of college. The government gives them a small grant From which to buy books. We are encouraged to require Very few books. This is really weird. The government doesn't give students grants, and hasn't done so for more than ten years. In order to afford their longterm aim of 50 percent of children attending university, the 1997 Labour Government brought in a system of student loans for England and Wales in place of the previous grant system: http://tinyurl.com/ye8p7d6 This is far from satisfactory, but the rate of interest is generous, and after graduation they don't have to start paying back until their income reaches a certain minimum. I seldom see them in the pubs: they Cannot really afford the prices. That must be because students nowadays don't go to pubs as they did in the past, they go clubbing! And if they're having difficulties in buying booze in North Wales they are untypical of students in the UK, possibly because they haven't taken out a large enough loan. ;-) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- [tips] Holiday story David Hogberg Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:51:27 -0800 from today's *The writer's almanac* by Garrison Keillor: (Originally, I'd intended to send only the Updike piece, but the others included might interest you, too.) DKH At the University College of North Wales at Bangor by Gerald Locklinhttp://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=ons=fj6,jocu,dv,mfsg,ey56,covj, 2k00 Most of my students here are very poor. I seldom see them in the pubs: they Cannot really afford the prices. As winter hits they have to decide whether To spend their shillings on the coin-operated heaters Or on food. I suspect that heat often wins—you can Freeze to death quicker than you will starve. Their incentive is that they will presumably Have more comfortable lives if they survive The minimalist conditions of college. The government gives them a small grant From which to buy books. We are encouraged to require Very few books. A book is a valued art object here. I never hear a complaint here And no one misses a tutorial Without the most profuse and formal Of apologies. In California my students and I and everyone else, Also including the movie stars and politicians and Pro-athletes, Seldom stop for breath In the midst of a constant bitching. At the University College of North Wales at Bangor by Gerald Locklin, from *New and Selected Poems*. © World Parade Books, 2008. Reprinted with permission. (buy nowhttp://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=ons=fj6,jocu,dv,kykc,hvcs,covj,2k00 ) It's the birthday of the poet *Robert Blyhttp://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=ons=fj6,jocu,dv,cbu7,ed5d,covj,2k00 *, (books by this authorhttp://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=ons=fj6,jocu,dv,3cs8,bzsd,covj,2 k00) born in Madison, Minnesota (1926). He said, One day while studying a [William Butler] Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life. I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character, and events of one's own life. It's the birthday of author *Norman Macleanhttp://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=ons=fj6,jocu,dv,ghld,f19d,covj, 2k00 *, (books by this authorhttp://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=ons=fj6,jocu,dv,ejk,caat,covj,2k 00) born in Clarinda, Iowa (1902), but he grew up in Missoula, Montana. He taught English at the University of Chicago, and after his retirement from teaching, at the age of 70, he focused on writing. He published two autobiographical essays, and then he wrote his famous autobiographical novella, *A River Runs Through It*. It begins: In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman. It's Christmas week, *and we're celebrating with Christmas stories. John Updikehttp://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=ons=fj6,jocu,dv,elgv,iwbq,covj,2 k00(books by this authorhttp://www.elabs7.com/c.html?rtr=ons=fj6,jocu,dv,elap,74uv,covj,2 k00) wrote a story called The Carol Sing,* about residents of the Tarbox, Massachusetts, a fictional town
Re: [tips] multicultural thoughts
���Re the article on the Inuit that Beth Benoit cited: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2009/12/21/through_inuit_eyes/ I'm sure some of the mores of the Inuit are very strange to Americans or Europeans, but with several of the examples in the article I find it strange that the author should think them strange. And why the cumbersome etiquette around eating, the obsession with utensils like the fork and dull knife known by Inuit as nuvuittuq (without point). I'm sure one could say something similar about the well-known Japanese tea rituals. At the home where I was staying someone rang the doorbell one day and surprised my hostess by dropping off a dead baby seal. He’d bagged it on a hunting trip. I'd be surprised if this wasn't quite a common occurrence in the past in rural England, with a rabbit for a gift, and for all I know it might well be the case now. Why, he wonders, do Qallunaat always plan some ritual or activity when they have visitors over, such as a bridge game? At least in some parts of English society in the past, this would have been a common occurrence, with card games or musical performances arranged for the guests. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- [tips] multicultural thoughts Beth Benoit Mon, 21 Dec 2009 07:12:52 -0800 And an article that might worthwhile sharing with our social psychology students when we cover outgroup homogeneity bias: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2009/12/21/through_inuit_eyes/ Beth Benoit Granite State College Plymouth State University New Hampshire --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Who put the BF in Skinner?
���Michael Britt wrote on why Skinner preferred to be called Fred: If I had a name like Burrhus I'd probably do the same thing. A rather more famous person (in the UK at least) had a similar problem, but resolved it differently. Chief Inspector Morse, of the Oxford Criminal Investigation Department, insisted that people call him just Morse (though on one occasion he told someone his first name was Inspector – tee, hee!). For some reason he was bashful about revealing that his name was Endeavour. http://www.itv.com/drama/copsandcrime/morseweekend/castandcharacters/default.html Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org Re: [tips] Who put the BF in Skinner? Britt, Michael Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:09:29 -0800 If I had a name like Burrhus I'd probably do the same thing. Michael Britt mich...@thepsychfiles.com www.thepsychfiles.com Twitter: mbritt On Dec 16, 2009, at 2:04 PM, Paul Brandon wrote: Besides, he never liked his given first name, and much preferred 'Fred'. Anecdote: I got this story from C. B. (Charlie) Ferster; one of Skinner's first grad students: Ferster (a frequent visitor at Skinner's home) once walked into Skinner's living room to find Skinner seated on a sofa with a sign around his neck saying FRED. On Dec 16, 2009, at 12:29 PM, Jim Dougan wrote: At 12:22 PM 12/16/2009, you wrote: I could swear that your students will not know. Btw,why is he the only behavioral scienist we address with his first two inititials? We do not say P Brandon,C Green, S Black,or C Hull,so why the BF Skinner? Was there a Jaywalking episode where Jay Leno asked people what the BF stands for in BF Skinner? I am told by my graduate advisor (F.K. McSweeney) that it is something of a Harvard tradition to publish that way. Herrnstein sometimes went as R.J. Herrnstein. Stevens went by S.S. Stevens, etc. They are respectively called Fran Dick and Smitty by friends - but they published using initials. Of course, Skinner's friends called him Fred so he does not break the pattern. Of course there is JER Staddon and MEP Seligman if we want to go to 3 initials. -- J.D. Dougan Paul Brandon Emeritus Professor of Psychology Minnesota State University, Mankato paul.bran...@mnsu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Who put the Little in Little Albert?
���Ken Steele writes: Here is the next to last paragraph of Watson Rayner The Freudians twenty years from now, unless their hypotheses change, when they come to analyze Albert's fear of a seal skin coat - assuming that he comes to analysis at that age - will probably tease from him the recital of a dream which upon their analysis will show that Albert at three years of age attempted to play with the pubic hair of the mother and was scolded violently for it. (We are by no means denying that this might in some other case condition it). If the analyst has sufficiently prepared Albert to accept such a dream when found as an explanation of his avoiding tendencies, and if the analyst has the authority and personality to put it over, Albert may be fully convinced that the dream was a true revealer of the factors which brought about the fear. That would a considerable advance on the reality of the Little Hans analysis! (Actually undertaken by the boy's father under the guidance of Freud.) The little boy had developed a fear of going out in the street, and a fear of a horse biting him, after witnessing a bus-horse fall in the street in front of him. Straightforward enough, one might think, but that would be underestimating the imaginative feats of Sigmund Sherlock Freud. The analysis reveals that the fear all stemmed from the fact that Hans really was a little Oedipus who wanted to get his father 'out of the way', to get rid of him, so he might be alone with his beautiful mother and sleep with her. Freud acknowledges that Hans deeply loved [his] father, but nevertheless he harboured death wishes against him – revealed, of course, by the analysis. You see, Behind the fear to which Hans first gave expression, the fear of a horse biting him, we have discovered a more deeply seated fear, the fear of horses falling down; and both kinds of horses, the biting horse and the falling horse, had been shown to represent his father, who was going to punish him for the evil wishes he was nourishing against him. Freud tells us that during the single short consultation he had with the boy (with the father present), he disclosed to him that he was afraid of his father because he was so fond of his mother… But that was only a small part of what the boy was told by the father on behalf of Freud, who acknowledges: It is true that during the analysis Hans had to be told many things he could not say himself, and he had to be presented with thoughts which he had so far shown no signs of possessing… In a candid moment not in evidence in his popular works he now writes: This detracts from the evidential value of the analysis; but the procedure is the same in every case. For a psychoanalysis is not an impartial scientific investigation, but a therapeutic measure… In a psychoanalysis the physician always gives his patient (sometimes to a greater and sometimes to a lesser extent) the conscious anticipatory ideas by means of which he is put in a position to recognize and to grasp the unconscious material. The mystery here is not the origins of the boy's phobia, but that for several generations analysts and admirers of Freud could ever have taken this case history seriously. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Darwin's illness revisited
���Re the recent article in the Guardian about an article positing yet another solution to Darwin's illness, Stephen Black writes: I find it curious that he does not mention the most recent, Campbell and Matthews (2005), published in the sister publication of the BMJ, the Postgraduate Medical Journal. They cover much of the same ground as Hayman in rejecting other possibilities, but argue that the cause was lactose intolerance. Stephen has missed (vacationing?) what I find the most likely explanation, cited on TIPS on 5 October this year: Darwin's illness: a final diagnosis (2007) Fernando Orrego (Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de los Andes, Santiago, Chile) and Carlos Quintana (Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de los Andes, Santiago, Chile; Department of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, Catholic University of Chile) Notes and Records of the Royal Society 2007: 61, 23-29 http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/61/1/23.full.pdf+html Abstract We have re-examined many of the abundant publications on the illness that afflicted Charles Darwin during most of his life, including some of the 416 health-related letters in his correspondence, as well as his autobiographical writings. We have concluded that he suffered from Crohn’s disease, located mainly in his upper small intestine. This explains his upper abdominal pain, his flatulence and vomiting, as well as his articular and neurological symptoms, his ‘extreme fatigue’, low fever and especially the chronic, relapsing course of his illness that evolved in bouts, did not affect his life expectancy and decreased with old age, and also the time of life at which it started. It apparently does not explain, however, many of his cutaneous symptoms. We do not support other diagnoses such as Chagas’ disease, lactose intolerance or the many psychiatric conditions that have been postulated. Conclusion In summary, virtually all of the symptoms of Darwin’s ‘mysterious illness’ may be explained by Crohn’s disease, with the possible exception of some of the numerous skin alterations (eczema, rash, erythema and boils) that he suffered, part of which seem to have been present before the Beagle voyage. It is also known that eczema is increased by stress, which Darwin suffered abundantly, and that in inflammatory bowel disease the response to stressors is enhanced. In retrospect, it is of interest that the most accurate diagnosis made during Darwin’s life was that by Dr Edward Lane, who said he suffered from ‘dyspepsia of an aggravated character’, which, at the time, was the closest he could get to Crohn’s disease… Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- [tips] Darwin's illness revisited sblack Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:27:58 -0800 Chris Green drew my attention on another list to an article in The Guardian on yet another theory to explain Darwin's curious set of ailments (see http://tinyurl.com/ydyommv ). We've discussed this matter on a number of previous occasions. The best-known theory is that his condition was psychosomatic, brought on by anxiety associated with writing and promoting his Godless theory. The smart money says this theory is nonsense. The Guardian article is based on a report in the current Christmas edition of the BMJ, where they traditionally publish funny or quirky items saved up over the year (this year more quirky than funny). The article is Darwin's illness revisited by John Hayman. It's available at http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/339/dec11_2/b4968 (says extract only, but it lies) Hayman claims the disorder from which Darwin periodically suffered (and he really did suffer) is something called cyclical vomiting syndrome which is as nasty as it sounds. Two things strike me about Hayman's account. First, he reproduces from Darwin's diary a description of the early onset of seasickness on setting sail in the Beagle. Darwin says it caused him great unceasing suffering. Hayman comments, Darwin's seasickness was clearly more severe than that normally experienced. As someone who gets sick on a ferrry ride, I can speak from experience. Darwin's description is about what one would expect for a sailing ship in the north Atlantic. I suspect that Hayman has himself never experienced this charming phenomenon. He should try it. Second, while Hayman lists and rules out a number of other possible diagnoses, I find it curious that he does not mention the most recent, Campbell and Matthews (2005), published in the sister publication of the BMJ, the Postgraduate Medical Journal. They cover much of the same ground as Hayman in rejecting other possibilities, but argue that the cause was lactose intolerance. See http://pmj.bmj.com/content/81/954/248.abstract and click on free pdf (may possibly require free registration if that doesn't work). Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any
Re: [tips] GR8 news: We're entering a new era of literacy - The Globe and Mail
Chris Green writes: Going against the (grumpy) grain: A new study from California's Stanford University has produced some reassuring news: Young people may not be writing so badly after all, and, in fact, their prose is evolving in some promising new ways. They write more on their own time, their school essays are longer, their voices are more attuned to the people who will read their words. They know better -- at least by university -- than to drop text-speak into a http://tinyurl.com/y9b55dm The new study report at Stanford tells us that: Especially interested in testing the hypothesis that two particular variables, audience awareness and rhetorical understanding of sources, are significant in students' writing development, Paul developed an original, 10 point rubric to score a sample of academic writing from 40 study participants. http://ssw.stanford.edu/research/paul_rogers.php Chris, as you cited this cheering news, could you explain for my benefit what is meant by rhetorical understanding of sources? And who is Paul? Oh, that's Paul Rogers. Who he? Dunno, really. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE:[tips] When Metaphors Fail
On 6 December 2009 Rick Froman wrote: In a search to find evidence of a liberal arts college changing building names inspired by Harry Potter, I found that Oxford University, of all places, had done just such a thing: http://tinyurl.com/yg25x46 Well, not quite. Students at one of the Oxford Colleges have voted to rename their Junior Common Room Gryffindor in honour of the Harry Potter house. Not exactly a University decision, more like student hi-jinks. After all, how many students were going to be so stuffy as to oppose such a motion? Anyway, it won't happen: However, it is unlikely that the 550-year-old college will make the change as the fellows must approve it. A student also said they did not expect to get permission to use the name. Laurence Mills, outgoing president of the JCR, said: 'They did technically vote for the name, but legally I don't think we can do it as I believe the name's owned by Warner Brothers. The change would also have to be ratified by the fellows of Magdalen College and I can't imagine them ever agreeing to it.' Matthew Shribman, who voted for the change, said: 'It is a joke, but at the same time, the Magdalen College JCR is currently called Gryffindor, since the motion ran and passed fully legitimately'. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/8378458.st Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - -- From: Rick Froman rfro...@jbu.edu Subject:RE: When Metaphors Fail Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 19:46:28 -0600 Bil Scott doubted that any college-touring high school student would encounter multiple allusions to Harry Potter. I am much more credulous for the following reasons: You can confirm the Middlebury allusion easily by searching their website for Quidditch. What is really sad is that there is an Intercollegiate Quidditch Association: http://www.collegequidditch.com/ Doing the Harvard search: hogwarts site:harvard.edu brings up 98 hits including the fact that JK Rowling spoke at their commencement. Doesn't seem like a stretch that Hogwarts might come up in an Admissions pitch. In a search to find evidence of a liberal arts college changing building names inspired by Harry Potter, I found that Oxford University, of all places, had done just such a thing: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/6645309/Oxford-University-changes-common-room-name-to-Harry-Potters-Gryffindor.html It is not difficult to believe any other college following Oxford's lead. I can easily imagine an Admissions counselor mentioning that a famous person such as Emma Watson was considering attending. The Cornell reference in the Quarterly magazine is confirmed here: http://ezramagazine.cornell.edu/Essentials.html and the college website that listed Cornell as being similar to Hogwarts at Applywise.com. Unlike what the author said, it wasn't only because of its location that it was named one of the top 5 most similar to Hogwarts. In addition to its location, it was also due to physical appearance, residential community, academic rigor, extracurricular opportunities and unique traditions. Also listed was the architecture and long winters. My conclusion is that I have no reason to douhbt this story. Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 rfro...@jbu.edu Don't let your email address define you - Define yourself at http://www.tunome.com today! --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Help with hysteria
���On Elaine Showalter's book *Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media*, Stephen Black quotes from the Amazon review (Library Journal) and concludes: It sounds like a good starting point for your student. I suspect Stephen would have added a caveat had he read Frederick Crews' review of *Hystories* (Keeping Us in Hysterics, The New Republic, 12 May 1997; republished in Crews, F., *Follies of the Wise: Dissenting Essays*, 2006, pp. 173-186). For instance, Showalter declares herself as one of the New Hysterians who understand hysteria as a body language for people who otherwise might not be able to speak or even admit what they feel. Such understanding, for Showalter, comes from studies at the busy crossroad where psychoanalytic theory, narratology, feminist criticism, and the history of medicine intersect. Crews regards her theoretical positioning as a middle-of-the-road outlook that could pass for sheer reasonableness, but is… more a matter of dodging trouble and taking refuge in received ideas. Crews asks some pertinent questions, such as the rationale for Showalter's including, e.g., belief in UFOs as a form of hysteria: Showalter has yoked together vastly disparate phenomena, from merely mistaken and correctible beliefs on the part of normal people through paranoid phatasms and lasting physical debility. He also challenges her certitude on the supposed hysterical basis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Gulf War Syndrome. According to Crews, Showalter's writings show that she retains an unreflective loyalty to the broad outlines of the psychoanalytic revelation. Elsewhere one can find signs of that adherence. As late as 1993 she wrote of the case of Anna O., Rather than continuing her [Anna O.'s] role as a passive hysterical patient, through her writing she became one who controlled her own cure – this despite Henri Ellenberger's revelation more than 20 years earlier that this famed ‘prototype of a cathartic cure’ was neither a cure nor a catharsis”. Again in 1993 she praises as a brilliant suggestion that a scene in Jane Austen's *Persuasion should be seen from a Freudian perspective, citing Freud as her authority: “falling, stumbling and slipping need not always be interpreted as purely accidental miscarriages of motor actions. The double meanings that language attaches to these expressions are enough to indicate the kind of phantasies involved, which can be represented by such losses of bodily equilibrium.” Thus is a fall by a character in Austen's book [!] in reality an unconsciously motivated accident. Presumably this is an example of what Showalter calls the crossroad between psychoanalytic theory and narratology. http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number15/showalter.htm Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- Re: [tips] Help with hysteria sblack Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:56:09 -0800 On 3 Dec 2009 at 15:32, tay...@sandiego.edu wrote: One of the students in my intro psych course is writing a paper for her English class on hysteria. I am not a clinician and I have a very limited ability to answer her questions she asked me. I could probably google some information--but then so could she. I know wikipedia has a good treatise. Specifically, she'd like to know two things: (1) what do we now label the disorders that used to be called hysteria. I have a vague memory of reading something on the topic which impressed me. After a bit of searching, it seems to me it might be Elaine Showalter's book Hystories: hysterical epidemics and modern culture (1997). Here's what an Amazon review (Library Journal) says about it: The ends of centuries have historically given rise to increased incidents of hysterical epidemics. Literary critic and medical historian Showalter has written a challenging and insightful history of hysteria that brings us up to the Nineties. After defining hysteria, she examines the subject from three perspectives: historically, including the work of Charcot and Freud; culturally, through literature, theater, and film; and, finally, in what is likely to be the book's most controversial area, in terms of epidemics. In this last section, the author hypothesizes that many of today's syndromes, including chronic fatigue, Gulf War, recovered memory, and multiple personality, along with increased reports of satanic ritual abuse and alien abduction, should be correctly categorized as hysterias. Showalter's main point, however, is not the denial of these phenomena but rather how much power emotions have over the body. A thought-provoking work for informed readers.-- Kathleen L. Atwood, Pomfret Sch. Lib., Ct. It sounds like a good starting point for your student. Stephen - Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: sbl
Re: [tips] Thoughts/opinions on Integral Theory
��� Michael Britt writes: Someone asked me what I thought about Ken Wilber and Integral Theory. I have to admit that I've never heard of it. After a quick check online my first impression is that his ideas are either new agey or just more philosophical than psychological. I've never seen him mentioned in any psych texts. Anyone familiar with his ideas? I hope the following helps! From: On the Nature of a Post-Metaphysical Spirituality Ken Wilber Since I have offered an integral theory that I *claim* honors more types of truths than the alternatives, then I must offer a series of justifications for this claim, and that is what my books attempt to do. Since I believe that in many cases I can justify my claims to be more integral than the alternatives, I have often criticized the alternative views as being partial and less integral or less comprehensive (and therefore presumably less true). So yes, I have offered a critical integral theory. (See Jack Crittenden's Foreword to The Eye of Spirit , where he summarizes my critical theory.) But I should say that I hold this integral critical theory very lightly. Part of the difficulty is that, at this early stage, all of our attempts at a more integral theory are very preliminary and sketchy. It will take decades of work among hundreds of scholars to truly flesh out an integral theory with any sort of compelling veracity. Until that time, what I try to offer are suggestions for making our existing theories and practices just a little more integral than they are now.. http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/misc/habermas/index.cfm/xid,1898203/yid,32644213 Richard Todd Carroll examines some of Wilber's notions: If you do not believe in the existence of spirit, either personal spirits or one Big Spirit driving the universe, then Wilber's insights are unlikely to resonate with you. Wilber's Note to the Reader isn't too bad, however. It is clearly written and sets out his plan to deal with everything from the material cosmos and the emergence of life to the Divine Domain. He lets us know early on that he considers the present state of the Kosmos to be dreadful. He calls it flatland and one-dimensional. (He tells us on p. 19 that he prefers Kosmos to cosmos because that's the term the Pythagoreans used and they meant the patterned nature or process of all domains of existence, from matter to mind to God, and not merely the physical universe Fair play to him.) Wilber does not like this postmodern world but it does provide him with a living as one who can discover the radiant Spirit at work, even in our own apparently God-forsaken times. The standard, glib, neo-Darwinian explanation of natural selection--absolutely nobody believes this anymore. Evolution clearly operates in part by Darwinian natural selection, but this process simply selects those transformations that have already occurred by mechanisms that absolutely nobody understands… Wilber doesn't put forth these false claims about evolution in order to promote creationism or intelligent design, however. He puts them forth to support his simplistic teleological vitalism, which he grandly calls the drive to self-transcendence of the Kosmos. http://www.skepdic.com/news/newsletter38.html A more detailed response on Wilber's claims about neo-Darwinism is here: http://www.kheper.net/topics/Wilber/Wilber_on_biological_evolution.html To which criticism Wilber has replied: The material of mine that is being quoted is extremely popularized and simplified material for a lay audience. Publicly, virtually all scientists subscribe to neo-Darwinian theory. Privately, real scientists -- that is, those of us with graduate degrees in science who have professionally practiced it -- don't believe hardly any of its crucial tenets. Instead of a religious preacher like Dawkins, start with something like Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. And then guess what? Neo-Darwinian theory can’t explain shit. Deal with it… The problem is that creation scientists -- who are almost entirely Christians -- after having convincingly demonstrated that neo-Darwinian theory has loopholes large enough to drive several Hummers through -- then try to prove that Jehovah is in one of the Hummers. But, of course, the fact that neo-Darwinian theory cannot explain the central aspects of evolution, does not mean that a specific type of God can. But they never would make the kind of headway they have unless neo-Darwinian theory is the piece of Swiss cheese that it is. But all that this really proves, in my opinion, is that there is an Eros to the Kosmos, an Eros that scientific evolutionary theory as it is simply cannot explain. http://vomitingconfetti.blogspot.com/2005/05/awaken-white-morpheus.html Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill
Re: [tips] Help with hysteria
���Beth Benoit writes: I'd like to add a very interesting book I got a few years ago, at the suggestion of (I think!) Allen Esterson. It's a psychiatric and photographic history (translated from the French) of patients from the notorious Parisian asylum for insane and incurable women in Paris, Salpétrière at the turn of the century, called *Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpétrière.* Not me, Beth! For books discussing Charcot and hysteria I'd have suggested Macmillan's *Freud Evaluated*, or from a different viewpoint, Richard Webster's *Why Freud Was Wrong*. For the dangers of diagnosing hysteria when somatic symptoms apparently defy explanation, see I. S. Cooper's *The Victim is Always the Same* (1974). Peter Medawar's review in *Pluto's Republic* (pp. 136-140) reports Cooper's account of children who contracted the neurological disease Dystonia musculorum deformans (DMD), which produces grotesque deformations in the patient's limbs due to muscle contractions. The symptoms of three of Cooper's young patients had at first been diagnosed as hysterical by psychoanalysts. The progression of their illness eventually led to their being treated by Dr Cooper by a (then) new technique of cryosurgery that enabled him to ameliorate the symptoms using a neurological procedure. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- Re: [tips] Help with hysteria Beth Benoit Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:52:03 -0800 To all of the other excellent suggestions given by other TIPSters, I'd like to add a very interesting book I got a few years ago, at the suggestion of (I think!) Allen Esterson. It's a psychiatric and photographic history (translated from the French) of patients from the notorious Parisian asylum for insane and incurable women in Paris, Salpétrière at the turn of the century, called *Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpétrière.* http://books.google.com/books?id=4DDpLqv_puECdq=invention+of+hysteria+charcotsource=gbs_navlinks_s Jean-Martin Charcot induced many of the 5,000 patients at the Salpétrière to perform their own hysterias so he could show the photographs (and sometimes actual demonstrations) at his Tuesday Lectures. The photographs, most of which are quite alarming and sad, are accompanied by very detailed discussion of the patients, the process of photographing them, their disorders and how they could be induced, as well as an inside look at what a psychiatric hospital was like at the end of the 19th century. That old, vague diagnosis of hysteria really comes to life in this collection of photographs and stories. Beth Benoit Granite State College Plymouth State University New Hampshire --- Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the ... By Georges Didi-Huberm Book overview In this classic of French cultural studies, Georges Didi-Huberman traces the intimate and reciprocal relationship between the disciplines of psychiatry and photography in the late nineteenth century. Focusing on the immense photographic output of the Salpetriere hospital, the notorious Parisian asylum for insane and incurable women, Didi-Huberman shows the crucial role played by photography in the invention of the category of hysteria. Under the direction of the medical teacher and clinician Jean-Martin Charcot, the inmates of Salpetriere identified as hysterics were methodically photographed, providing skeptical colleagues with visual proof of hysteria's specific form. These images, many of which appear in this book, provided the materials for the multivolume album Iconographie photographique de la Salpetriere. As Didi-Huberman shows, these photographs were far from simply objective documentation. The subjects were required to portray their hysterical type—they performed their own hysteria. Bribed by the special status they enjoyed in the purgatory of experimentation and threatened with transfer back to the inferno of the incurables, the women patiently posed for the photographs and submitted to presentations of hysterical attacks before the crowds that gathered for Charcot's Tuesday Lectures. Charcot did not stop at voyeuristic observation. Through techniques such as hypnosis, electroshock therapy, and genital manipulation, he instigated the hysterical symptoms in his patients, eventually giving rise to hatred and resistance on their part. Didi-Huberman follows this path from complicity to antipathy in one of Charcot's favorite cases, that of Augustine, whose image crops up again and again in the Iconographie. Augustine's virtuosic performance of hysteria ultimately became one of self-sacrifice, seen in pictures of ecstasy, crucifixion, and silent cries. Limited preview - 2004 - 385 pages - Medical Preview
RE: [tips] nifty psych gift
On 2 December 2009 Scott Lilienfeld wrote: I know at least one person who works at the Kinsey Institute, and she does quite good science. Although founded by Kinsey, I don't believe the Institute harbors any strong allegiance to his methods or his work. My understanding is that the Institute is now a pretty rigorous consortium of researchers conducting research on human sexuality. Thanks for the inside information, Scott. Still, it is unfortunate that as recently as 1998 the then Director of the Kinsey Institute, Dr John Bancroft, defended Kinsey's use of detailed diary material from, in particular, two serial child sexual abusers, Rex King (on whose work is based Chapter 5 in Sexual Behavior of the Human Male) and the Nazi paedophile Fritz von Balluseck. Details of Kinsey's co-operation with and encouragement of these two serial child sexual abusers are given in the UK Channel 4 documentary Kinsey's Paedophiles broadcast in 1998: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8606305708018993332 Rex King's diaries meticulously record his experiences with over 800 boys and girls: babies (youngest 2 months), infants and children. Kinsey encouraged King in his endeavours, writing to him I congratulate you on your research spirit. King's diaries show he continued his predatory sexual abuse of children for some ten years after Kinsey first met him. According to the Channel 4 documentary, Fritz von Balluseck had been a senior Nazi Party official, a pre-WW2 Stormtrooper, and had commanded a ghetto in a Polish town during the war. Kinsey contacted Balluseck, who sent him some of his detailed diaries that he had kept of his abuse of children. When Balluseck went on trial in the 1950s for suspected murder of a child (on which charge he was acquitted) information about his collaboration with Kinsey emerged. (Balluseck pleaded guilty to 30 allegations of sexual abuse of children.) When questioned about this material, including meticulous details from King on the abuse of babies and infants, Dr Bancroft said that people have to ask themselves if they believe that research into human sexuality should be undertaken. Pressed further on the question of the continuing abuse by the paedophiles in question after being contacted by Kinsey, Bancroft said you should consider the cost of remaining in ignorance unless we know about these behaviours. How (unvalidated) reports of vile sexual abuse of babies and infants, recorded in meticulous detail, enlarges our knowledge of human sexuality, Dr Bancroft failed to enlighten us. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- RE: [tips] nifty psych gift Lilienfeld, Scott O Wed, 02 Dec 2009 04:07:59 -0800 BTW, I don't know what soon science is (interesting Freudian slip on my part, perhaps?). Having trouble typing on my little laptop. Should be good science (thank you Sigmund)..Scott From: Lilienfeld, Scott O [slil...@emory.edu] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 7:01 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] nifty psych gift I know at least one person who works at the Kinsey Institute, and she does quite soon science. Although founded by Kinsey, I don't believe the Institute harbors any strong allegiance to his methods or his work. My understanding is that the Institute is now a pretty rigorous consortium of researchers conducting research on human sexuality. Scott From: Allen Esterson [allenester...@compuserve.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 2:44 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] nifty psych gift I think it's time to introduce a serious note to all this seasonal jocularity. Sue Franz linked to the Kinsey Institute: http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html I have no knowledge of the current activities of the Kinsey Institute, but I think it is unfortunate that the name Kinsey remains a byword in the field of sexual research. I have the impression that there has been a reluctance to take a critical stance towards the famous Kinsey claims by some people because at the time (and later) much of the criticism has come from conservative groups concerned about the influence of the Kinsey Report on social attitudes in the States. But, as NPR has noted, the most damaging critiques focused on his sampling method, questioning whether the enormous number of people he interviewed -- his pride and joy -- were representative of the American population. Indeed this was not an idle question, given Kinsey's predilection for recruiting college students, prostitutes, and prison inmates to participate in the study. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kinsey/peopleevents/e_male.html Again: In 1948, the same year as the original publication, a committee of the American Statistical Association
Re: [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News
���Correction: It looks as if I erred when I wrote that Boyce and Wood paid to have their article Money or mental health: the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy published in the online journal Health Economics, Policy and Law. Searching again through the reams of small print on the Cambridge Journals website, as far as I can make out the authors only pay to have their article freely available, i.e., without charge. Since it costs $30/£20 to read their article, presumably Boyce and Wood didn't make any payment to Cambridge Journals. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- Re: [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News Allen Esterson Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:51:54 -0800 Re the Boyce Wood article Money or mental health: the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy (Health Economics, Policy and Law, November 2009): http://tinyurl.com/yljyl7m I've now obtained the article. It turns out to be considerably worse than even I anticipated! To me it reads like an undergraduate's essay that would be returned by the author's professor with red markings all over it. To take just one of a dozen or so criticisms I could make, there is no evidence that they undertook any critical examination of the numerous articles and studies they cite. I'll leave it at that. Of equal importance is the way that the article has been uncritically trumpeted on numerous medical and mental health websites. And it is evident that psychotherapists are going to jump at the opportunity to boost their profession: Psychotherapist and broadcaster Phillip Hodson, Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, says The Beatles sang money can't buy you love but perhaps they should have penned a verse about investing in professional therapy instead. “ 'We already knew that receiving extra income beyond about £35,000 a year tended not to improve happiness levels. Clearly if you suffer from clinical depression no amount of money could cheer you up. But this research takes us further, suggesting that what really matters in life are our human connections, being able to access and use our emotions and getting personal recognition rather than compensation or bonus cheques.'” http://tinyurl.com/ygkd86s How has all this been achieved by someone who has not yet obtained his doctorate? Well, to start with, Cambridge Publications charge for articles to be published in their online journals. They also tell prospective authors: Our constant aim is to publish papers with maximum speed, accuracy and efficiency… Given the monies obtained from authors, and even more to the point, the $30/£20 they charged to download *every* article in their online journals, it would hardly be surprising if their peer review standards were compromised. Boyce tells us more in an online interview for a U.S. group Thetic: http://tinyurl.com/yjz3c34 On being asked how did this end up getting out into the media, he replied: Well, I put pressure on myself basically, I mean to me, I mean this is a really important idea, it's probably one of the most important chapters of my thesis in terms of its ideas and actually, you know, this is a way that, you know you can really have a real impact. So since we started writing this one it has always been in the back of my mind that we eventually want to get this out to the media, so it's a case of getting the Press Release out, making sure the Press Release was just right, and sending that out to as many people as possible, and it seems to have done quite well, so people have been contacting me… So you pay an online journal to get a quick publication, within a system that must surely compromise academic standards, and then get out Press Releases to as many people as possible. Many of them (in fact every one I've seen), of course, simply post the results of the study as if the conclusions were proven. More from Boyce in his interview: We're basically trying to highlight how ineffective money is in increasing well-being. So we're not necessarily saying psychological therapy is really great, which it is, but we're just trying to highlight that money is relatively ineffective… Just to kind of get things clear. We didn't actually conduct any analysis in and of itself, but what we're actually doing is kind of bringing together very disjoint pieces of research… economists are quite into evaluating effects of income on well-being, we took from their studies and we're basically trying to join that up with various psychological research, various research within law, and also medical research, we're kind of bringing that all together. I'm specifically quite unique because of my kind of very cross-disciplinary approach that enables me to kind of bring all
RE: [tips] nifty psych gift
I think it's time to introduce a serious note to all this seasonal jocularity. Sue Franz linked to the Kinsey Institute: http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-hhscale.html I have no knowledge of the current activities of the Kinsey Institute, but I think it is unfortunate that the name Kinsey remains a byword in the field of sexual research. I have the impression that there has been a reluctance to take a critical stance towards the famous Kinsey claims by some people because at the time (and later) much of the criticism has come from conservative groups concerned about the influence of the Kinsey Report on social attitudes in the States. But, as NPR has noted, the most damaging critiques focused on his sampling method, questioning whether the enormous number of people he interviewed -- his pride and joy -- were representative of the American population. Indeed this was not an idle question, given Kinsey's predilection for recruiting college students, prostitutes, and prison inmates to participate in the study. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kinsey/peopleevents/e_male.html Again: In 1948, the same year as the original publication, a committee of the American Statistical Association, including notable statisticians such as John Tukey, condemned the sampling procedure. Tukey was perhaps the most vocal critic, saying, A random selection of three people would have been better than a group of 300 chosen by Mr. Kinsey. [Refs] Criticism principally revolved around the over-representation of some groups in the sample: 25% were, or had been, prison inmates, and 5% were male prostitutes. [Ref.] A related criticism, by some of the leading psychologists of the day, notably Abraham Maslow, was that Kinsey did not consider 'volunteer bias'. The data represented only those volunteering to participate in discussion of taboo topics. Most Americans were reluctant to discuss the intimate details of their sex lives even with their spouses or close friends. Before the publication of Kinsey's reports, Dr. Maslow tested Kinsey's volunteers for bias. He concluded that Kinsey's sample was unrepresentative of the general population. [Ref] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Reports#Objections_to_methodology Not to mention ethical considerations. Kinsey's reporting of masturbation of children as young as two months was described in a letter to the Archives of Sexual Behavior as the only example in Western scientific literature where egregious abuse of human subjects has been accepted as a valid data source by scientists wishing to be taken seriously. http://www.springerlink.com/content/ut266g0v73hg6006/ Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - RE: [tips] nifty psych gift Frantz, Sue Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:27:59 -0800 Guess where your friends and family fall on the Kinsey Scale, and get them a t-shirt. http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/services/scale_tshirt.html That couldn't possibly go wrong. -- Sue Frantz Highline Community College Psychology, CoordinatorDes Moines, WA 206.878.3710 x3404 sfra...@highline.edu Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology, Associate Director Project Syllabus APA Division 2: Society for the Teaching of Psychology APA's p...@cc Committee --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News
���Re the Boyce Wood article Money or mental health: the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy (Health Economics, Policy and Law, November 2009): http://tinyurl.com/yljyl7m I've now obtained the article. It turns out to be considerably worse than even I anticipated! To me it reads like an undergraduate's essay that would be returned by the author's professor with red markings all over it. To take just one of a dozen or so criticisms I could make, there is no evidence that they undertook any critical examination of the numerous articles and studies they cite. I'll leave it at that. Of equal importance is the way that the article has been uncritically trumpeted on numerous medical and mental health websites. And it is evident that psychotherapists are going to jump at the opportunity to boost their profession: Psychotherapist and broadcaster Phillip Hodson, Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, says The Beatles sang money can't buy you love but perhaps they should have penned a verse about investing in professional therapy instead. “ 'We already knew that receiving extra income beyond about £35,000 a year tended not to improve happiness levels. Clearly if you suffer from clinical depression no amount of money could cheer you up. But this research takes us further, suggesting that what really matters in life are our human connections, being able to access and use our emotions and getting personal recognition rather than compensation or bonus cheques.'” http://tinyurl.com/ygkd86s How has all this been achieved by someone who has not yet obtained his doctorate? Well, to start with, Cambridge Publications charge for articles to be published in their online journals. They also tell prospective authors: Our constant aim is to publish papers with maximum speed, accuracy and efficiency… Given the monies obtained from authors, and even more to the point, the $30/£20 they charged to download *every* article in their online journals, it would hardly be surprising if their peer review standards were compromised. Boyce tells us more in an online interview for a U.S. group Thetic: http://tinyurl.com/yjz3c34 On being asked how did this end up getting out into the media, he replied: Well, I put pressure on myself basically, I mean to me, I mean this is a really important idea, it's probably one of the most important chapters of my thesis in terms of its ideas and actually, you know, this is a way that, you know you can really have a real impact. So since we started writing this one it has always been in the back of my mind that we eventually want to get this out to the media, so it's a case of getting the Press Release out, making sure the Press Release was just right, and sending that out to as many people as possible, and it seems to have done quite well, so people have been contacting me… So you pay an online journal to get a quick publication, within a system that must surely compromise academic standards, and then get out Press Releases to as many people as possible. Many of them (in fact every one I've seen), of course, simply post the results of the study as if the conclusions were proven. More from Boyce in his interview: We're basically trying to highlight how ineffective money is in increasing well-being. So we're not necessarily saying psychological therapy is really great, which it is, but we're just trying to highlight that money is relatively ineffective… Just to kind of get things clear. We didn't actually conduct any analysis in and of itself, but what we're actually doing is kind of bringing together very disjoint pieces of research… economists are quite into evaluating effects of income on well-being, we took from their studies and we're basically trying to join that up with various psychological research, various research within law, and also medical research, we're kind of bringing that all together. I'm specifically quite unique because of my kind of very cross-disciplinary approach that enables me to kind of bring all this research together. I have not actually conducted any new analysis, but we're just drawing it all together. When asked about his claim made in the article that mental health is deteriorating worldwide, his response was: In 1999 unipolar depression was estimated to be the fifth most burdensome disease worldwide, and the estimate is that by 2020 that's expected to be the secondmost. This is the only 'evidence' provided in the article for the claim made therein that Mental health is deteriorating across the world, with a reference to the JAMA article from which this factoid was obtained. To be fair to Boyce and Wood, late among the flurry of assertions and citations they do write: Our argument is not without its limitations. Too true! Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http
[tips] Are commercial considerations compromising academic standards in online publishing?
���[Was: [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News] Reference the Boyce Wood article Money or mental health: the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy (Health Economics, Policy and Law [Cambridge Journals], November 2009) http://tinyurl.com/yljyl7m I've been checking up on Cambridge Journals. It's part of Cambridge University Press, but it looks prima facie that the Cambridge Journals section has lowered standards for commercial reasons. The Cambridge Open Option (see below) enables people to pay to have articles posted online. This means that their peer review standards are likely to be compromised (also by the fact they guarantee swift publication online). I also note that the online journal in question publishes issues several times a year, with some half-dozen or more articles/reviews in each, all being paid for by the authors (or their organisations/university departments), and all money for Cambridge Journals: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=HEP Add on the $30/£20 cost to view *each article* online, and the whole thing is a great money-spinner for Cambridge Journals. This makes a mockery of academic standards, as is amply demonstrated by the online publication of the article in question. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org References: Cambridge Open Option Cambridge Open Option is a scheme whereby authors, for a one off charge, can make their article freely available to everyone on publication and reflects Cambridge's commitment to further the dissemination of published academic information. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/stream?pageId=4088level=2 At Cambridge Journals we provide a production service that is fast, responsive, effective and reliable. Our constant aim is to publish papers with maximum speed, accuracy and efficiency, thereby best serving the needs of all those who commission a production service from Cambridge Journals. We are acutely aware of the need to publish research as quickly as possible and we have streamlined our production processes to ensure that content reaches the research community as soon as possible without compromising our trademark high standards. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/stream?pageId=3624level=2#1 Re: [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News Allen Esterson Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:51:54 -0800 Re the Boyce Wood article Money or mental health: the cost of alleviating psychological distress with monetary compensation versus psychological therapy (Health Economics, Policy and Law, November 2009): http://tinyurl.com/yljyl7m I've now obtained the article. It turns out to be considerably worse than even I anticipated! To me it reads like an undergraduate's essay that would be returned by the author's professor with red markings all over it. To take just one of a dozen or so criticisms I could make, there is no evidence that they undertook any critical examination of the numerous articles and studies they cite. I'll leave it at that. Of equal importance is the way that the article has been uncritically trumpeted on numerous medical and mental health websites. And it is evident that psychotherapists are going to jump at the opportunity to boost their profession: Psychotherapist and broadcaster Phillip Hodson, Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, says The Beatles sang money can't buy you love but perhaps they should have penned a verse about investing in professional therapy instead. “ 'We already knew that receiving extra income beyond about £35,000 a year tended not to improve happiness levels. Clearly if you suffer from clinical depression no amount of money could cheer you up. But this research takes us further, suggesting that what really matters in life are our human connections, being able to access and use our emotions and getting personal recognition rather than compensation or bonus cheques.'” http://tinyurl.com/ygkd86s How has all this been achieved by someone who has not yet obtained his doctorate? Well, to start with, Cambridge Publications charge for articles to be published in their online journals. They also tell prospective authors: Our constant aim is to publish papers with maximum speed, accuracy and efficiency… Given the monies obtained from authors, and even more to the point, the $30/£20 they charged to download *every* article in their online journals, it would hardly be surprising if their peer review standards were compromised. Boyce tells us more in an online interview for a U.S. group Thetic: http://tinyurl.com/yjz3c34 On being asked how did this end up getting out into the media, he replied: Well, I put pressure on myself basically, I mean to me, I mean this is a really
[tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News
���Re http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/psychotherapycanboosthappinessmorethanmoneystudy Mike Palij writes: I think that it might be more worthwhile to read the original article than to rely upon the popular news story.[…] If there is no sub, one can go to the CUP website and purchase the article (US$30); I have only had to register, no charge (is that only for the UK?). But the article isn't online yet, the latest is the October issue: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=HEP Medical News (25 November) says it will be published online this week. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/172090.php I note the source is Warwick University, i.e., senior author of the article, Christopher Boyce (the guy approaching puberty – see his photo and Mike's comment below). It looks like another case of authors chasing publicity, in this case even before it has been published (or posted in this instance). So, lacking access to the study itself, we have for a few hours to rely on journalist's reports: They found that a 4 month course of psychological therapy had a large effect on well-being. Any psychological therapy? Looks like I'd better wait for the study to go up. This research helps to highlight how relatively ineffective extra income is at raising well-being. Shock news: Money doesn't buy happiness, new study shows. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News Christopher D. Green Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:59:20 -0800 Class, please discuss the following findings (including possible conflicts of interest). :-) http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/psychotherapycanboosthappinessmorethanmoneystudy Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada --- re: [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News Mike Palij Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:06:15 -0800 On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 14:59:20 -0800, Christopher D. Green wrote: Class, please discuss the following findings (including possible conflicts of interest). :-) http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/psychotherapycanboosthappinessmorethanmoneystudy I think that it might be more worthwhile to read the original article than to rely upon the popular news story. The journal in which the research article appears is published by Cambridge University Press and the article's doi is: doi:10.1017/S1744133109990326 If your institution has a subscription to the journal, you should be able to use the doi to access the article directly. If there is no sub, one can go to the CUP website and purchase the article (US$30); see: http://cjo-live.cup.cam.ac.uk/action/displayIssue;jsessionid=2BF65E5FFD94714C8EAE83A72E22A910.tomcat1?jid=HEPvolumeId=-1issueId=-1 or http://tinyurl.com/yljyl7m As for the senior author of the article, Christopher Boyce, some info about his research is available on the following website: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/study/csde/gsp/eportfolio/directory/pg/live/psrfbb/ Note that he has an in press article on a similar artilce in Psychological Science. One wonders what he will do when he hits puberty! ;-) -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
re: [tips] Psychotherapy Can Boost Happiness More Than Money: Study - Yahoo! News
���Mike: Thanks for the clarification (and correction). I went searching for more info on Google, read through a couple of articles, then checked out the Cambridge Journals online, and thought I'd registered to view the articles. Checking back, I now see what I registered for was: Register to tailor Cambridge Journals Online to your precise needs and to take advantage of all our services. (!) I then checked for the latest issue, and came up with the page I cited giving Current Volume, which only went up to October 2009 – by which time I'd forgotten virtually everything that Mike posted. – Sorry Mike! I see that the Abstract reads: Money is the default way in which intangible losses, such as pain and suffering, are currently valued and compensated in law courts. Economists have suggested that subjective well-being regressions can be used to guide compensation payouts for psychological distress following traumatic life events. We bring together studies from law, economic, psychology and medical journals to show that alleviating psychological distress through psychological therapy could be at least 32 times more cost effective than financial compensation. This result is not only important for law courts but has important implications for public health. Mental health is deteriorating across the world – improvements to mental health care might be a more efficient way to increase the health and happiness of our nations than pure income growth. It seems from this that one thing that Boyce et al are suggesting is that instead of monetary compensation for pain and suffering courts would be better advised to award some months of psychological therapy. This, apparently, is on the basis of the alleged considerable effectiveness of the said psychotherapy in improving well-being. As it reads (and admittedly without seeing the article I can't tell) as if the pain and suffering that leads people to seek psychotherapy is being taken as equivalent to the pain and suffering that leads people to seek compensation in a court of law. If so, it sounds a doubtful comparison to me. And I would love to see the studies from…psychology and medical journals that Boyce et al have used to arrive that their conclusions about the remarkable efficacy of psychological therapy for achieving well-being within four months. Almost worth coughing up the £20 – were it not for my suspicion that the study – involving as it does studies over so many fields – is going to turn out to be full of holes. Anyway, that's my prediction. More here: The researchers further draw on two striking pieces of independent evidence to illustrate their point - over the last 50 years developed countries have not seen any increases to national happiness in spite of huge economic gains. Mental health on the other hand appears to be deteriorating worldwide. The researchers argue that resources should be directed towards the things that have the best chance of improving the health and happiness of our nations - investment in mental health care by increasing the access and availability of psychological therapy could be a more effective way of improving national well-being than the pursuit of income growth. http://tinyurl.com/yd956z8 Phew! So many questions come to mind! For starters, I'd like to see the evidence that mental health appears [sic] to be deteriorating worldwide. Then I'd like to see the evidence for the remarkable efficacy of four months of psychological therapy. Again, what about the cost of providing the resources, particularly the education and training of a massive number of new counsellors and psychotherapists to take on this huge task of replacing increased monetary reward by inaugurating what would effectively be a therapeutic society. And what psychological theories and techniques are going to be used – can you imagine how all the different strands of psychotherapy would be competing for the Government monies made available for the new policy – or should I call it this brave new world? Seems to me like these are ivory-tower proposals emanating from Warwick University. Still, it keeps these academics off the streets. :-) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Mark Twain on false memories
I used to remember my brother Henry walking into a fire outdoors when he was a week old. It was remarkable in me to remember a thing like that and it was still more remarkable that I should cling to the delusion for thirty years that I did remember it -- for of course it never happened; he would not have been able to walk at that age. . . . For many years I remembered helping my grandfather drinking his whiskey when I was six weeks old but I do not tell about that any more now; I am grown old and my memory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. http://tinyurl.com/yajdepa Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] FW: [NOVA] What Are Dreams?
On 23 November 2009, Edward Pollak drew attention to NOVA PRESENTS What Are Dreams Tuesday, November 24 at 8pm ET/PT on NOVA Learn more about the Sleep-Memory Connection and ask Harvard neuroscientist Robert your questions about sleep and dreaming on the program's companion website. Robert is Robert Stickgold, a strong critic of Freud's theories of dreams who has used sleep studies to disprove Freud's wish fulfillment theory. For instance how can nightmares about Iraq be considered as wish fulfillment dreams if a mother dreams of her son's death? http://www.unclesirbobby.org.uk/robertstickgold.php Well, if Freud were alive to respond to the above question he would undoubtedly point out that Prof Stickgold fails to distinguish between the manifest dream and the latent dream. Only analysis can reveal the true meaning of the dream. It may be that on some occasion in the past the dreamer had had a passing wish which had been suppressed (Interpretation of Dreams, SE 4, p. 249). Then again, in relation to his own dream of the death of his son who at the time was at the front in WW1, in the course of giving a few salient points of his analysis he reports that deeper analysis enabled him to discover the concealed impulse behind the dream: It was the envy which is felt for the young by those who have grown old, but which they believe they have completely stifled (SE 4, pp. 558-560). Never let it be said that Freud doesn't have an answer to criticisms of his dream theory. :-) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 3:07 PM To: NOVA Bulletin Subject: [NOVA] What Are Dreams? NOVA PRESENTS What Are Dreams Tuesday, November 24 at 8pm ET/PT on NOVA What are dreams and why do we have them? NOVA joins leading dream researchers as they embark on a variety of neurological and psychological experiments to investigate the world of sleep and dreams. Delving deep into the thoughts and brains of a variety of dreamers, scientists are asking important questions about the purpose of this mysterious realm we escape to at night. Do dreams allow us to get a good night's sleep? Do they improve memory? Do they allow us to be more creative? Can they solve our problems or even help us survive the hazards of everyday life? Learn more about the Sleep-Memory Connection and ask Harvard neuroscientist Robert your questions about sleep and dreaming on the program's companion website. Watch the program online beginning November 25 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/dreams/ --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Happy anniversary!
Stephen writes about the CBC's four-part series on Darwin's life: In the second, there's a touching letter to Darwin from his wife Emma, concerned for his immortal soul. Charles was said to be moved to tears by the letter. If, as I suspect, this is the memo that Emma wrote to Darwin soon after their marriage, then this is more than a case of was said to be. At the bottom of the letter, which expressed Emma's concerns about their different views about Christianity and her fear that they would not be together forever (i.e., united in the afterlife), Darwin wrote When I am dead, know that many times, I have kissed and cried over this. The letter was found among Darwin's papers after his death: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=textitemID=CUL-DAR210.8.14pageseq=1 Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Remember Those Free Copies of the On the Origin of the Species Being Given Out by Fundamentalists?
Mike Palij writes in relation to the promotion of Ray Comfort's edition of On the Origin of Species: I have no familiarity with Kirk Cameron, an actor, who was on the show and who authored the introduction as well as handing out copies of the free Darwin on Perdue's campus. I assume this is just another child star whose life has gone seriously wrong. Why do you assume that, Mike? Plenty of people hold cooky views, but that's generally to do with their influences and their mindset. I suggest that opponents of the proponents of creationist ideas and false contentions about Darwinian evolution should stick to the scientific arguments. It is entirely unnecessary to add speculations about their personal lives. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- Re: [tips] Remember Those Free Copies of the On the Origin of the Species Being Given Out by Fundament Jim Clark Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:01:26 -0800 Hi This creationist effort has been around for the past few months and is about to hit certain Canadian universities on 24 Nov. You can see responses discrediting the information in the insert and more at http://ncse.com/ If you follow the Don't Diss Darwin link, you will find a list of the institutions lucky enough to receive this special gift! http://www.dontdissdarwin.com/schools.php I don't know how much actual impact this has had on campuses where book has already been distributed. Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca Mike Palij m...@nyu.edu 22-Nov-09 6:18:16 PM At least one source points out that some of these copies have a 50 page introduction which attacks the volume; see: http://www.dailytech.com/AntiEvolution+Actor+Modifies+Darwins+Work+With+Questionable+Intro/article16892.htm or http://tinyurl.com/ycfu3mp I admit that there are big holes in my pop culture knowledge and that I never watched the sitcom Growing Pains, thus, I have no familiarity with Kirk Cameron, an actor, who was on the show and who authored the introduction as well as handing out copies of the free Darwin on Perdue's campus. I assume this is just another child star whose life has gone seriously wrong. He also promotes the notion that Hitler's ideas were based on Darwin's theory, a position advocated by Ben Stein (political analyst/eye drop shill) and others. In other news, if you had a first edition of the Darwin's On the Origin of Species (published in 1859), where would you keep it? (a) in a glass case, opened to the title page (b) closed in an archival grade envelope to protect against light, humidity, and insects (c) on the book shelf with the rest of the Darwinia (d) in the toilet For the answer to where one person kept it, see: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h-AA11NDInkwPqU7N0Er8sKs0MHA or http://tinyurl.com/yff26en -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Remember Those Free Copies of the On the Origin of the Species Being Given Out by Fundamentalists?
When I typed that Americanism (I like to join in with the local vernacular :-) ) it looked wrong, so I tried a Google search. The first one, Urban Dictionary came up with cooky - Someone you find to be a bit strange. Just shows you should always look for a second opinion when using Google! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=cooky I think I'll stick to proper English next time. How about crackpot? Hmm, not quite the same flavour. But as a London Times letter writer pointed out in the course of correspondence about French words now part of the language and whether there weren't English alternatives: In English one can always find le mot juste. Allen E. Re: [tips] Remember Those Free Copies of the On the Origin of the Species Being Given Out by Fundamentalists? sblack Mon, 23 Nov 2009 06:00:32 -0800 Ah, a chance to simultaneously tweak _both_ Mike Palij and Allen Esterson cannot be denied (even if I will soon be made to pay for it). Their shocking illiteracy astounds me. First Mike: I have no familiarity with Kirk Cameron, an actor, who was on the show and who authored the introduction as well as handing out copies of the free Darwin on Perdue's campus. Perdue = Purdue Now Allen: Why do you assume that, Mike? Plenty of people hold cooky views Cooky = kooky Given the different nationalities of our two offenders, with Purdue being an American university and kooky American slang, I pronounce Mike's transgression the greater. But I forgive both, provided they don't let it happen again. Stephen --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Dystonic cheerleader update
Dr Buttar is reported as saying: We took the toxins out of her system, we supported her system, we reduced inflammation and we started treating her injuries by giving her a certain amount of nutrients that the brain needed to repair the neuroreceptors,. Sounds to me like the standard treatment to repair neuroreceptors, Stephen. Are *you* an expert on neurology? God, these people who comment on matters beyond their specialty. Mrs Buttar c/o Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- [tips] Dystonic cheerleader update sblack Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:31:33 -0800 Desiree Jennings, the cheerleader with the bizarre affliction of dystonia she attributes to receiving a seasonal flu shot, has made an amazing recovery. She now has her own website, here: http://www.desireejennings.com/ But the good news is here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,565984,00.html?test=late stnews or http://tinyurl.com/yg5s95c The doctor responsible for this remarkable achievement, Rashid Buttar, is a practitioner of alternative medicine including urine injection therapy, according to this site: http://tinyurl.com/yfmex5r He also is known as an anti-vaccination advocate. The treatment which restored Ms. Jennings is the controversial mercury detoxification technique known as chelation therapy The site above links to an interesting blog by a clinical neurologist named Steven Novella at the Yale University School of Medicine. ( http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=1195 ) He suggests that Ms. Jennings' condition is most consistent with a diagnosis of psychogenic dystonia; that is, her symptoms indicate a psychological rather than a physiological origin of her disorder. Dr. Novella makes the interesting observation that because Ms. Jennings recovered so rapidly (within 36 hours) in response to an unscientific treatment which is likely a placebo, this provides support for the psychogenesis hypothesis. Giving credit where it's due, I have to point out that in an early post on this topic, Beth Benoit warned us that her husband, an orthopedic surgeon, expressed reservations about this case, although he did use the politically impolite term hoax rather than the kinder psychogenic designation. Me, I voiced reservations too, but I tended to believe her symptoms were real (giving a workout to scare quotes). I shouldn't have. Stephen - Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: sbl...@ubishops.ca 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Critique of Harris's book: The Nurture Assumption/Study in Social psychology?
���Joan Warmbold writes: I received around the same number of commendations as I did criticisms of my critique of The Nurture Assumption, but the former ALL were sent directly to me whereas the latter were ALL posted to the listserv. I found that kind of weird as it seems to imply that folks feel a bit intimidated to go public with their positive reactions to a critique of Harris? Joan: I think you omitted one posting from this summary, the first one posted on TIPS. I neither criticized nor commended the first part of your critique (other than pointing out that you had omitted to give the context of a passage that you had quoted from The Nurture Assumption), merely asked you supply documentary evidence for a couple of your statements. (See below.) As mine was the first posted on TIPS, I trust a response will be forthcoming after you have completed your critique. Re the commendations, why should people feel too intimidated to post on TIPS if they have a good case to argue? Admittedly they may be subjected to a robust riposte (no names, no pack-drill!) but surely that's one of the occasional hazards of academic debate. I think this is important enough to make a separate discussion. If some people feel that the atmosphere on TIPS deters them from posting on certain issues, it should be aired – on TIPS. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org [tips] Critique of “The Nurture Assumption” Allen Esterson Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:38:12 -0800 Joan: In the first part of your critique of Harris's *Nurture Assumption* you write: When discussing the works of Freud, Watson, Skinner, and Bandura, as well as less luminary researchers, she frequently misinterprets the thrust of their research and perspectives. (1) Would you care to give some examples of where Harris misinterprets the thrust of Freud's work. (2) You quote Harris as follows: . . . Freudian theory . . . had an impact on academic psychologists, the kind who do research and publish the results in academic journals. A few tried to find experimental evidence for various aspects of Freudian theory; these efforts were largely unsuccessful. A greater number were content to drop Freudian buzzwords into their lectures and research papers. You respond to this with: Again, no citation or source and I would suspect quite a surprise to the large numbers of scientific studies published in various psychoanalytic journals. First it should be made clear that Harris's comment cited above was in the context of the first half of the twentieth century (Harris 1998, p. 10). You write of large numbers of scientific studies published in psychoanalytic journals that are effectively rebuttals of Harris's contention. Leaving aside that my experience of glancing through past volumes of psychoanalytic journals on numerous occasions tells me that putting scientific in the same context as psychoanalytic journals is an oxymoron, I would be interested in hearing some examples of psychoanalytic studies *from the first half of the twentieth century that you have in mind. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- Re: [tips] Critique of Harris's book: The Nurture Assumption/Study in Social psychology? Joan Warmbold Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:58:06 -0800 I received around the same number of commendations as I did criticisms of my critique of The Nurture Assumption, but the former ALL were sent directly to me whereas the latter were ALL posted to the listserv. I found that kind of weird as it seems to imply that folks feel a bit intimidated to go public with their positive reactions to a critique of Harris? Regardless, it's of little import, as I quite appreciated each and every one of you who took time out of your busy schedule to provide helpful feedback relative to which aspects were cited as being valid and important as well as segments that were cited as requiring revision. I am moving forward with this critique as certain parties have expressed interest in bringing it to a wider audience. But, never fear, I won't be sending any further installments to the TIPS listserv. For those of you who would like to receive the completed critique (and have not already expressed an interest in such), I will be more than pleased to provide such. Joan jwarm...@oakton.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Critique of Harris's book: The Nurture Assumption/Study in Social psychology?
���Paul: You make a good point (immediately below). I hadn't thought of it in those terms. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - Re: [tips] Critique of Harris's book: The Nurture Assumption/Study in Social psychology? Paul Brandon Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:02:21 -0800 Allen-- Consider this a reply to both Joan and your post First -- my reaction to Harris is similar to Joan's, and I think that her points are valid. However It's much harder to refute an assertion than it is to make it, particularly in a case such as 'The Nurture Assumption' where the assertion is supported by a large assortment of varied references, rather than by a few crucial studies. A really convincing refutation would be a book twice as long as Harris', since each of her specific statements would have to be addressed in detail. On the other hand, it's easy to criticize the limited number of statements that Joan has made so far; clearly she has presented a precise for a refutation; not a refutation on the level of the original (I wish her luck on that). This may be why most of the postings are negative. In addition, those with an investment of some sort in the book are more likely to have read it carefully and to have a copy at hand. In my case, I read her original article, and a bibliography from the book that was posted to this list. Thus, I know that any statement that I make about the book will be answered in more detail than I am capable of. E.g., I think that Joan has a valid point about Harris' failure to address a considerable behavioral literature in the past 20 years showing the effects of parental actions on child behavior (and again, this is not my specialty, so it would involve a considerable response cost to support it in detail), but since I don't have a copy of the book available, I am not prepared to debate it with someone who has. On Nov 18, 2009, at 2:58 AM, Allen Esterson wrote: Joan Warmbold writes: I received around the same number of commendations as I did criticisms of my critique of The Nurture Assumption, but the former ALL were sent directly to me whereas the latter were ALL posted to the listserv. I found that kind of weird as it seems to imply that folks feel a bit intimidated to go public with their positive reactions to a critique of Harris? Joan: I think you omitted one posting from this summary, the first one posted on TIPS. I neither criticized nor commended the first part of your critique (other than pointing out that you had omitted to give the context of a passage that you had quoted from The Nurture Assumption), merely asked you supply documentary evidence for a couple of your statements. (See below.) As mine was the first posted on TIPS, I trust a response will be forthcoming after you have completed your critique. Re the commendations, why should people feel too intimidated to post on TIPS if they have a good case to argue? Admittedly they may be subjected to a robust riposte (no names, no pack-drill!) but surely that's one of the occasional hazards of academic debate. I think this is important enough to make a separate discussion. If some people feel that the atmosphere on TIPS deters them from posting on certain issues, it should be aired – on TIPS. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org [tips] Critique of “The Nurture Assumption” Allen Esterson Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:38:12 -0800 Joan: In the first part of your critique of Harris's *Nurture Assumption* you write: When discussing the works of Freud, Watson, Skinner, and Bandura, as well as less luminary researchers, she frequently misinterprets the thrust of their research and perspectives. (1) Would you care to give some examples of where Harris misinterprets the thrust of Freud's work. (2) You quote Harris as follows: . . . Freudian theory . . . had an impact on academic psychologists, the kind who do research and publish the results in academic journals. A few tried to find experimental evidence for various aspects of Freudian theory; these efforts were largely unsuccessful. A greater number were content to drop Freudian buzzwords into their lectures and research papers. You respond to this with: Again, no citation or source and I would suspect quite a surprise to the large numbers of scientific studies published in various psychoanalytic journals. First it should be made clear that Harris's comment cited above was in the context of the first half of the twentieth century (Harris 1998, p. 10). You write of large numbers of scientific studies published in psychoanalytic journals that are effectively rebuttals of Harris's contention. Leaving aside that my experience of glancing through past volumes of psychoanalytic journals on numerous occasions tells me that putting scientific in the same
Re: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style
���Chris Green writes: Well, now, that's hilarious. It seemed obvious to me that it was intended by Gladwell not as a serious piece, but as as a sendup, (just look at the joke names of the people interviewed: Sanjive, Guff of Malarkey College, Bunquum). It also seemed odd to me that Mike didn't realize it was a sendup. But now Allen informs us that it was a sendup, OF Gladwell, not BY him. Guess I got had. Chris: I looked long and hard at both your [see below] and Mike's postings and couldn't see any sign that the article was recognised as a parody. That's why I highlighted the following: And Christopher Green wrote: [snip] more to the point of THIS ADMITTEDLY TRITE GLADWELL PIECE… (emphasis added) Apologies, Chris. I can only say in mitigation that you responded to Mike's posting as if he were dealing with a genuine piece by Gladwell with no indication that the subject of the discussion was a joke, and you also referred to the admittedly trite Gladwell piece. I thought, strewth!, even Chris is taking it seriously. Yes, in retrospect I can see that by referring to the Gladwell piece you didn't mean to imply that it was a piece *by* Gladwell – my mistake. I would add that there *are* occasions when someone quickly glances at an article, gets the general drift, and doesn't bother with the details if he or she doesn't think it worth bothering with. So it wouldn't have been totally *impossible* that, in the light of a response from Mike with which you wanted to take issue, and following only a quick glance at the article itself without taking in the details, you had taken it to be genuine. Incidentally, I didn't think the piece by Craig Brown was at all trite. It did what good parody does, take the familiar characteristics of a person or writer and exaggerate to the nth degree. Mike writes: you seem to be saying that he pretends to interview people and uses the made-up interview to parody/sartirize/mock the interviewee. Perhaps you reach this conclusion because you are familiar with Brown's other writing where he has used this gimmick (since he is a British writer and not that well known on this side of the pond). Yes, it is not uncommon in the UK to have a satirical column such as Gordon Brown's Week written in diary form, with the hint at the bottom, as told to journalist X. In my previous posting I had originally written something on these lines, then deleted it to keep my posting short and to the point. I'm sorry I omitted it now. But, quite honestly, I thought it was pretty obvious that the piece was a send-up. Given what Vanity Fair has presented on Brown's Malcolm Gladwell article, what either in the magazine or the webpage on which it appears supports your contention that it is fiction? In the case of parody, it rather spoils the joke to spell out what you are doing. I recognize that writers may write about things in a satirical style but one often has to know both the writer and the person/thing being satirized to realize that it is satire. I have to disagree with you there. In this instance one only has to know the person being satirized. I concede that Brown may have written a parody of Gladwell but on the basis of what available evidence (that is the article in VF and on the website) would lead one to this conclusion? Okay, it helps to know that Craig Brown specialises in this kind of thing, but something *that* over the top just *had* to be a parody, and serious writers don't generally send themselves up. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - --- RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style Mike Palij Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:41:47 -0800 On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:52:48 -0800, Allen Esterson wrote: Malcolm Gladwell discusses Christmas with Craig Brown. http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-200912 Perhaps what I like least about Gladwell's writing is when he comes off like a snarky intellectual version of Larry King, as he does in this throwaway article. A greater investment of time but with a much greater payoff would be Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas which provides an interesting history of the holiday from the setting of the date of Christman in 400 AD, its manifestation as misrule and rejection by some Christian sects such as the Puritains (Christmas was briefly legally banned in Massachusetts), and its reinvention by a number of New Yorkers into a child centered holiday (with borrowing from other cultures, especially German) that we continue to celebrate today. Nissenbaum is a professor of history which might be interpreted as implying that perhaps he has some idea of what he is talking about though, clearly, simply being a professor (as in Pinker's case) might imply to some the opposite. Nissenbaum's book is available in snippet view on books.google.com, see
RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style
���In relation to this article: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-200912 Mike Palij wrote [snip] Perhaps what I like least about Gladwell's writing is when he comes off like a snarky intellectual version of Larry King, AS HE DOES IN THIS THROWAWAY ARTICLE. (emphasis added) And Christopher Green wrote: [snip] more to the point of THIS ADMITTEDLY TRITE GLADWELL PIECE… (emphasis added) And Mike again: It may come as a surprise to some, however, that GLADWELL IS DOING A SHTICK, but this is, of course, his most adorable/annoying characteristic. :-) (emphasis added) Hey, folks. The article was a parody of Gladwell *written by Craig Brown*. Craig Brown would be amazed that it led to a serious exchange on the meaning of Christmas! http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/comedy/craigbrown.shtml “Gwyneth Paltrow” shares her secrets of happiness with Craig Brown: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/09/vanities-paltrow200909 Times Higher Education Supplement reviews Craig Brown: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=176946sectioncode=26 Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style Mike Palij Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:41:47 -0800 On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:52:48 -0800, Allen Esterson wrote: Malcolm Gladwell discusses Christmas with Craig Brown. http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-200912 Perhaps what I like least about Gladwell's writing is when he comes off like a snarky intellectual version of Larry King, as he does in this throwaway article. A greater investment of time but with a much greater payoff would be Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas which provides an interesting history of the holiday from the setting of the date of Christman in 400 AD, its manifestation as misrule and rejection by some Christian sects such as the Puritains (Christmas was briefly legally banned in Massachusetts), and its reinvention by a number of New Yorkers into a child centered holiday (with borrowing from other cultures, especially German) that we continue to celebrate today. Nissenbaum is a professor of history which might be interpreted as implying that perhaps he has some idea of what he is talking about though, clearly, simply being a professor (as in Pinker's case) might imply to some the opposite. Nissenbaum's book is available in snippet view on books.google.com, see: http://books.google.com/books?id=-q6BMAAJdq=christmas+history+nissenbaumq=contents#search_anchor It also available in book form on Amazon (sadly, there is no version for Kindle gnawers or Kindle nibblers): http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Christmas-Stephen-Nissenbaum/dp/0679740384/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8s=booksqid=1258290808sr=1-4 or http://tinyurl.com/yzsa2vz -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu Re: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style Christopher D. Green Sun, 15 Nov 2009 07:31:48 -0800 Mike, That's a little like comparing a scholarly treatise on life in neolithic times with the old Reiner Brooks 2000 Year Old Man routine with (We spoke Rock. Really, could you give me an example of Rock? Yeah. 'Hey you, don't throw that Rock at me'.) Of course, Mike has never had a cynical thought about Christmas, or (more to the point of this admittedly trite Gladwell piece) about the kind of overly obvious research conclusions that psychologists sometimes like to dress up as being Scientific Discoveries. :-) Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style Mike Palij Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:41:47 -0800 On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:52:48 -0800, Allen Esterson wrote: Malcolm Gladwell discusses Christmas with Craig Brown. http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-200912 Perhaps what I like least about Gladwell's writing is when he comes off like a snarky intellectual version of Larry King, as he does in this throwaway article. A greater investment of time but with a much greater payoff would be Stephen Nissenbaum's The Battle for Christmas which provides an interesting history of the holiday from the setting of the date of Christman in 400 AD, its manifestation as misrule and rejection by some Christian sects such as the Puritains (Christmas was briefly legally banned in Massachusetts), and its reinvention by a number of New Yorkers into a child centered holiday (with borrowing from other cultures, especially German) that we continue to celebrate today. Nissenbaum is a professor of history which might be interpreted as implying that perhaps he has some idea of what he is talking about though, clearly, simply being a professor (as in Pinker's case) might imply to some the opposite. Nissenbaum's book is available in snippet view on books.google.com, see: http
RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style
���Ken Steele advised me about my not understanding Marie's Yes do watch for the igon values and don't gnaw on your Kindle: Read the review by Pinker and the references will make sense. I had read Pinker's review, and should have rechecked it, thereby seeing he had written The reasoning in 'Outliers,' which consists of cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies, had me gnawing on my Kindle. I've no difficulty about Gladwell's igon values, but I'm still none the wiser about knawing on my Kindle. Am I missing something, or is this an Americanism that hasn't crossed the water? Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- From: Ken Steele steel...@appstate.edu Subject: Re: Dropkicking Malclom Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:33:37 -0500 Allen: Read the review by Pinker and the references will make sense. Ken Allen Esterson wrote: Marie wrote: Yes do watch for the igon values and don't gnaw on your Kindle. Marie: Would you Kindly [sic] explain that cryptic comment for the uninitiated! Allen E. --- RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malclom Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style Helweg-Larsen, Marie Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:51:36 -0800 Yes do watch for the igon values and don't gnaw on your Kindle. Great review. Marie Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D. Department Chair and Associate Professor of Psychology Kaufman 168, Dickinson College Carlisle, PA 17013, office (717) 245-1562, fax (717) 245-1971 Office hours: Mon/Thur 3-4, Tues 10:30-11:30 http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/psych/helwegm -Original Message- From: Mike Palij [mailto:m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:36 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: [tips] Dropkicking Malclom Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style In this Sunday's NY Times Book Review, Steven Pinker reviews Malcolm Gladwell's new book What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures which is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html?_r=1nl=book semc=booksupdateema1pagewanted=all or http://tinyurl.com/ygpb9yd There is something of interest to both fans and player haters. Just be careful and don't step on the Igon values. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu -- --- Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. steel...@appstate.edu Professor Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu Appalachian State University Boone, NC 28608 USA --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style
���Paul Bernhardt enlightened me that A Kindle is an e-book reader marketed by Amazon.com. Thanks, Paul. Annette gave me the same information directly. My ignorance may be put down to a general tendency to be tardy on catching up with the latest technical wizardry, plus the fact that it's only recently arrived in the UK: BBC News 7 October 2009 The European version of the Kindle will begin shipping on October 19 with a $279 (£175) price tag. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8294310.stm Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style Paul C Bernhardt Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:23:06 -0800 A Kindle is an e-book reader marketed by Amazon.com. It suggests that he read the book on his Kindle, so he was saying the equivalent of, gnawing on the pages of the book. Paul C. Bernhardt Department of Psychology Frostburg State University Frostburg, Maryland --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE:[tips] Dropkicking Malcolm Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style
Malcolm Gladwell discusses Christmas with Craig Brown. http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/12/gladwell-200912 Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Einstein demonstrates how not to lecture
���Einstein demonstrates how not to lecture: Einstein subsequently went to Princeton [in 1921], where he delivered a weeklong series of scientific lectures and received an honorary degree 'for voyaging through strange seas of thought.'… Einstein’s lectures were very technical. They included more than 125 complex equations that he scribbled on the blackboard while speaking in German. As one student admitted to a reporter, 'I sat in the balcony, but he talked right over my head anyway'.” http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200912/isaacson-einstein Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malclom Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style
Marie wrote: Yes do watch for the igon values and don't gnaw on your Kindle. Marie: Would you Kindly [sic] explain that cryptic comment for the uninitiated! Allen E. --- RE: [tips] Dropkicking Malclom Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style Helweg-Larsen, Marie Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:51:36 -0800 Yes do watch for the igon values and don't gnaw on your Kindle. Great review. Marie Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D. Department Chair and Associate Professor of Psychology Kaufman 168, Dickinson College Carlisle, PA 17013, office (717) 245-1562, fax (717) 245-1971 Office hours: Mon/Thur 3-4, Tues 10:30-11:30 http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/psych/helwegm -Original Message- From: Mike Palij [mailto:m...@nyu.edu] Sent: Friday, November 13, 2009 3:36 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Mike Palij Subject: [tips] Dropkicking Malclom Gladwell: Steven Pinker Style In this Sunday's NY Times Book Review, Steven Pinker reviews Malcolm Gladwell's new book What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures which is available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/review/Pinker-t.html?_r=1nl=booksemc=booksupdateema1pagewanted=all or http://tinyurl.com/ygpb9yd There is something of interest to both fans and player haters. Just be careful and don't step on the Igon values. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Temperament, innate/learned
On 6 November 2009 Joan Warmbold wrote: I'm most concerned about how and when temperament is measured, as I stated in an earlier post. It's usually around 4 months of age and at that point the quality of care that an infant has received has already made an impact on how they behave. And, as I also stated, most studies that measure infants' temperaments ask parents to make the call by responding to a questionnaire and the validity of parents perceptions has been called into question. No doubt other TIPSters have more knowledge of this subject than I do, but I know that Gopnik et al (1999) describe experimental work on babies from new-borns onward. I would think that differences of behaviour in the first few months would have some relation to individual temperament. I'd be surprised if other researchers haven't been doing similar work since then. Reference Gopnik, A. et al. (1999), *The Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn*. New York: William Morrow. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - Joan Warmbold jwarm...@oakton.edu Subject:Re: Article in WSJ on study how brain develops without Dad. Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:57:00 -0600 (CST) That was a typo as it's 35%, not 65%, that didn't fit into one of the three categories, as I think most folks know from the classic Thomas/Chess longitudinal study. But John, I'm most concerned about how and when temperament is measured, as I stated in an earlier post. It's usually around 4 months of age and at that point the quality of care that an infant has received has already made an impact on how they behave. And, as I also stated, most studies that measure infants' temperaments ask parents to make the call by responding to a questionnaire and the validity of parents perceptions has been called into question. Infants are processing information and responses from the get-go. Therefore, if we wish to make an accurate measurement of temperament, we need to do so from infants' first week of life AS WELL as measuring from week one how they are responded to. The former is totally within the realm of possibility as demonstrated by Brazelton's measurement of how infants' respond to the ringing of a bell when asleep at 2 days of age. The high reactors wake up and cry loudly whereas the low reactors barely react at all. Those infants that react strongly fit into the slow to warm temperament category as their nervous system needs more time to adjust. Joan jwarm...@oakton.edu --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re:[tips] hard studying
���On 6 November 2009 Steven Specht wrote: I spend some time explaining to students that as part of studying they should practice the task that they will be asked to perform... I'm reminded of the old joke about the stranger to New York asking someone How do I get to Carnegie Hall?: Practise, practise, practise. P.S. Does the following say something about modern educational standards?: Practise / Practice: ...If you are not sure about what a verb or noun is, it might be safer to just use the spelling practice, as many Americans do! Reference: Practise / Practice In many parts of the English speaking world (UK, Ireland, Australia, Canada, and South Africa) “practice” is the noun, “practise” the verb. However, in the U.S.A the spelling “practice” is more often used for both the noun and the verb. Contrary to popular belief a significant minority of the American population also observe the distinction. If you are not sure about what a verb or noun is, it might be safer to just use the spelling practice, as many Americans do! http://www.world-english.org/practise_practice.htm Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- Steven Specht sspe...@utica.edu Subject:Re: hard studying Date: Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:35:26 -0500 I spend some time explaining to students that as part of studying they should practice the task that they will be asked to perform on exams... that is, writing. This sometimes puzzles students. I further explain that if the coach wants you to improve your free throws in basketball, she doesn't have you read about it or necessarily look at others doing the task; but requires YOU to practice the task-- tossing up some basketballs. I get frustrated when students (esp. psychology majors) think that looking over notes or the text is a way to prepare to write responses. I implore them to practice writing responses to hypothetical questions as part of their studying so that they are rehearsing the task expected of them (and it won't be the first time they think about writing a response). Specht, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Chair, Department of Psychology Utica College Utica, NY 13502 --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re:[tips] Equasy and ecstasy
On 5 November 2009 Stephen Black wrote: Ecstasy is a class A drug in Britain, which means it is considered among the most harmful, and the penalty for possession is a 7-year sentence. Shock, horror! But what Stephen meant to say was that the *maximum* sentence is a 7-year sentence. I am busy on another (time-consuming) topic, so I don't have time now to enter into the UK drugs classification and David Nutt issues, but here are a few facts to put Stephen's above comment into context. A quick Google search has not brought up the figures for ecstasy specifically, but for the years 2000 to 2007 the total number of people found guilty of possession of a controlled drug was around 133,000. Of these around 2070 were given a custodial sentence, i.e., about 1.5 percent. (These would certainly have been cases of multiple previous offences.) The number who obtained the maximum 7 year sentence was zero. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2009-07-15b.286044.h Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re:[tips] tips digest: November 02, 2009
The best line is: There is substantial evidence that the mortality rate from H1N1 flu is actually much smaller than seasonal flu. Take your choice: Swine flu myth: This is just mild flu. The death rates are even lower than for normal flu 28 October 2009 http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18056-swine-flu-myth-this-is-just-mild-flu-the-death-rates-are-even-lower-than-for-normal-flu.html or http://tinyurl.com/yh5wqns Swine flu death rate similar to seasonal flu 28 October 2009 http://www.tiscali.co.uk/news/topnews/reuters/2009/09/17/swine-flu-death-rate-similar-to-seasonal-flu.html or http://tinyurl.com/ygcj2jf Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- Christopher D. Green chri...@yorku.ca Subject:CBC News - Canada - Hype can make us all ill Date: Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:58:07 -0500 Still worried about the swine flu? Check out this interview: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/11/02/f-viewpoint-cassels.html The best line is: There is substantial evidence that the mortality rate from H1N1 flu is actually much smaller than seasonal flu. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re:[tips] Ghost in the brain
Neurologist Joshua Klein: To me it looked like a ghost. That's exactly what I thought it was. At first I was thinking, Is this the angel of death? http://tinyurl.com/yjcoxmm I can discern a shadow image of a crouching dog to the left of the ghost. There is an arrow apparently sticking out of the middle of its back, but no doubt that's an accidental artefact of the imaging process. Allen E. - From: sbl...@ubishops.ca Subject:Ghost in the brain Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 20:43:28 -0400 Another illustration of our infinite capacity to find order in disorder: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2009/10/ghost_in_the_brain_an _appariti.html or http://tinyurl.com/yjcoxmm (about that for you alone. The (thwarted) intent was to not clutter up the list, so of course that's what I did. Fortunately, there was nothing juicy there, and I resolved not to send yet another e-mail explaining it, but it can piggy-back here. Reminds me to be more careful). Stephen - Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: sbl...@ubishops.ca 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Scary experiments
Re the 25 Scariest Science Experiments webpage, I'm perplexed by the compilers' placing Sigmund Freud and the case of Emma Eckstein as the first item under the subheading Historical Atrocities, above the vile Nazi and Japanese WW2 medical experiment atrocities. Freud's and Fliess's treatment of Emma Einstein would nowadays be regarded as medical malpractice. By no stretch of the imagination was it an atrocity. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- [tips] Scary experiments sblack Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:45:35 -0700 With impeccable timing considering the season, and obviously inspired by it, the Chronicle of Higher Education has just released a list of the 25 scariest science experiments ever conducted. Unfortunately, the piece is only available by subscription but I can tell you about it. Although they use the term experiment loosely, not to mention the word science, they relate projects dear to the hearts of psychologists. These include: Harry Harlow's pit of despair study which subjected young monkeys to severe deprivation and resulted in correspondingly severe psychotic behaviour Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment The Milgram experiments on obedience to authority The treatment of Emma Eckstein for nasal reflex neurosis by Freud and Fliess The Tuskegee syphilis experiment Jose Delgado's demonstration bull fight using electrical intracranial stimulation of the brain to stop a charging bull (couldn't they just have cancelled its credit card?) The CIA's MK-ULTRA's attempts at mind control (with an unfortunate Canadian connection to mad scientist Donald Cameron at the Montreal Allen Memorial Institute) I agree that all of these, although dubious whether all are science or experiments, are all sufficiently scary to be worthy of Halloween and inclusion on this list, with one exception. This is the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which as Allen Esterson recently reminded us, may not deserve its notorious status as a highly unethical experiment. But the myth is now unstoppable. Did they miss any? Nominations welcome. I'd like to mention one surprising entry on the list, although it doesn't pertain to psychology. This is the spidergoat project of Nexia Biotechnologies, which was once a small company based in Montreal. They inserted the spider silk gene into goats. Silk protein was extracted from the goat milk, and spun into thread. The aim was to produce artifical spider silk, which when it comes from a spider, is amazingly strong and light. What's scary about that? I was so taken with this idea that I invested in Nexia. Others were impressed as well, such as the acclaimed Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, who included an account of the company in her science-fiction dystopian novel, Oryx and Craik (2003). Alas, it was not to be. After successfully demonstrating proof of principle (spinning fibre from spider protein extracted from goat milk), they suddenly went out of business, selling off their assets. Their president told me (I asked) that they couldn't find a market for their product, which seems incredible, given its obvious promise for medical and military applications. I've since discovered a comment which suggests that the real reason was that they didn't insert a complete gene for spider silk in the goats, but only a fragment, and the resulting silk was of inferior quality. I'm left with about $15 worth of stock in an oil industry service company, and a Chinese elevator company. I won't tell you what I started with. Now that's scary. Stephen - Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: sbl...@ubishops.ca 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Teach both evolution and creationism say 54% of Britons | Science | The Guardian
Just to clarify one point. I haven't been able to access the Mori webpage giving details of the poll (maybe it's crashed because of people like me wishing to see the actual poll questions :-) ), but before everyone panics, a poll in Great Britain by the same organisation published April 2009 gives just 16% believing in creationism in the form: Life on earth, including human life, was created by a God and has always existed in its current form. http://tinyurl.com/yhddrfe I think it is important to remember that an appreciable number of people, probably a comfortable majority, do not follow the evolution argument closely (or at all in many cases) in the way that TIPSters do. Evolution is not the hot religious topic in the UK that it is in the States (most people are somewhat indifferent about religion, even if they tick the Church of England box), and I doubt that the majority of those who ticked Evolutionary theories should be taught in science lessons in schools together with other possible perspectives, such as intelligent design and creationism see it in the same way as active proponents of Darwinism. Quite possibly many see it as a matter of fairness, and in any case I doubt the great majority of people in the UK even know what the 'theory' of intelligent design is! Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Teach both evolution and creationism say 54% of Britons | Science | The Guardian
From a British Council webpage on the April 2009 UK Mori opinion poll on evolution: Nearly a quarter of Londoners and 16 per cent of people in the UK believe in creationism - the idea that life on Earth was created by a God, a British Council survey has revealed. http://tinyurl.com/yhobb9r How come a sophisticated city like London has a disproportionate number of people believing in creationism? No doubt because of this figure from the 2001 UK Census: 40 percent of Londoners belong to ethnic minorities. (It's almost certainly higher now.) http://www.lho.org.uk/LHO_Topics/Health_Topics/Populations/EthnicMinorities.aspx Note: From British Council webpage: However, the [Mori] survey also revealed that one-in-five British adults had not spent any time thinking about the origins of species and life on earth, which rises to more than a third of those resident in Scotland. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Was Freud fluent in English?
Michael asked: Just curious as to Freud's English skills. I imagine he had some since he practiced in England Freud did not practise in England. He made a trip to England to visit two half-brothers in Manchester when he was nineteen, in the summer of 1875 after achieving his Matura (school leaving/university entrance certificate). When he came to England in 1938 he was too old (and ill) to practise. He was an excellent linguist and was fluent in English, even occasionally slipping English colloquial expressions into his German texts. And while on this subject, with all those psychologists (William James) going to Leipzig did the Americans know German? Must be tough listening to lectures in German. I just checked the Standard Edition and was surprised to find that Freud delivered the Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis at Clark University in 1909 in German. This was probably because he gave the lecture extempore without notes (he wrote them up from memory in 1910 for publication). I suspect that most of the well educated people in the audience in those days had a reasonably good knowledge of German. For a taste of Freud's speaking ability Stephen linked to the following from 1938: http://tinyurl.com/yhgz9ep His thick accent has no bearing on his fluency in English. I recall Arthur Koestler, well after settling in England and having written books in English, saying he thought he had no accent when speaking in English, but on hearing a recording of his voice he realised he had an accent as thick as pea soup. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Was Freud fluent in English?
���Chris Green wrote: Sometimes international conferences in Europe are held in English in order to attract Americans. I suspect there is more to it than that. I have the impression that in many professions English has become the lingua franca for events involving multi-national attendees. I imagine that this is also the case on the professional tennis circuit – all the even moderately successful tennis players are reasonably fluent in English. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re:[tips] Health stats trivia question
���Chris: I note that the first online commenter suggests a solution to such modern health afflictions: During the plagues in Europe, the families that suffered the least were those that used silver utensils. I dug out my grandmother's set two years ago and have not had a cold. flu, sore throat, or other health problem and I work with cash and dirty dishes in a public setting everyday. Medical authorities take note. :-) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org From: Christopher D. Green chri...@yorku.ca Subject:Health stats trivia question Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:38:49 -0400 Are more people killed every year by antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections or by car accidents? Answer below. Chris == Bacteria that develop resistance to common antibiotics mean trouble for more than a quarter million Canadians every year. Most develop infections while in hospital. About 8,000 of them die from those infections — more than will die of breast cancer, AIDS and car accidents combined. (Source: From: http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/02/12/f-superbugs.html) I presume the numbers are roughly the same (but 10 times larger) in the US. Of course, the 30,000+ gun deaths per year in the US may dwarf all of this. :-( --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Replication of scientific findings
���A follow-up to my link to Scott Lilienfeld's article on the need for replication of scientific claims: Hype surrounding fossil find Ida has mislead [sic] scores of people http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6884423.ece Fossil hailed as Man's ancestor is 'not even close relative' http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6884359.ece From the Why Evolution is True website: The authors [of the Ida paper] have supplied an updated Competing Interests statement, which reads as follows: The authors wish to declare, for the avoidance of any misunderstanding concerning competing interests, that a production company (Atlantic Productions), several television channels (History Channel, BBC1, ZDF, NRK) and a book publisher (Little Brown and co) were involved in discussions regarding this paper in advance of publication… In addition, the Natural History Museum of Oslo purchased the fossil that is examined in this paper, however, this purchase in no way influenced the publication of this paper or the science contained within it, and in no way benefited the individual authors. As the website author notes: This is a tad disingenuous, since “benefit” to scientists includes far more than money: it includes (or included) all the hype and buzz around the initial description of Ida as a “missing link” — publicity that of course redounds to a scientist’s career. http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/ida-smackdown/ Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Skeptical Psychologist blog
Thank, Scott, for the link to your Skeptical Psychologist blog: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-skeptical-psychologist One post is a particular gripe of mine (and other TIPSters, I'm sure): We shouldn't put too much trust in any psychology finding unless and until a different investigative team has replicated it. We should also remember that the news media rarely appreciate the importance of replication, so they're liable to hype surprising findings before others have duplicated them. http://tinyurl.com/yzrwpvz And, I would add, sometimes they hype claims of confirmations of popular beliefs that are not necessarily valid. Also: occasionally researchers, with the aid of their University publicity department, send out Press Releases that result in wide coverage of the claimed findings, all too often presented uncritically by journalists. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Worst manuscript reader advice ever?
���From Stephen Black: Make it a manual on pigeon-breeding! Forget the rest. Everyone loves pigeons--it'd be reviewed by every journal in the land. Unnamed publisher's reader on the MS for _ On the Origin of Species_. From the poem, A Pigeon Fancier's Manual by Ruth Padel (Darwin's great-great-grandaughter), reprinted in _Science_, 326, October 2, 2009, p. 49. Another poem about Darwin: “Darwinian man, though well behaved, at best is only a monkey shaved.” W. S. Gilbert http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article5600679.ece http://tinyurl.com/yfkbh6z Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org [tips] Worst manuscript reader advice ever? sblack Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:45:20 -0700 Make it a manual on pigeon-breeding! Forget the rest. Everyone loves pigeons--it'd be reviewed by every journal in the land. Unnamed publisher's reader on the MS for _ On the Origin of Species_. From the poem, A Pigeon Fancier's Manual by Ruth Padel (Darwin's great-great-grandaughter), reprinted in _Science_, 326, October 2, 2009, p. 49. See also http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/books/18pade.html I tried to verify this quote and came up with another version of the claim which seems authoritative (which means I believe it). The misguided reader was the Reverend Whitwell Elwin who was appalled by what he read and in a letter to Murray [Darwin's publisher] poured out his pain and hostility to Darwin´s theories, advising Murray not to publish this controversial work. He described it as `wild and foolish´ and instead suggested that Darwin should write a book on pigeons. Everybody is interested in pigeons. The book would be received in every journal in the kingdom and would soon be on every table. http://darwinspigeons.com/#/john-murray/4535045590 Imagine if Darwin had taken his advice. Stephen --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Worst manuscript reader advice ever?
���Jim wrote: Darwin did write a wonderful book on worms (and books on many other topics) that should be required reading for all people wanting to emulate his great mind. He even describes some tests of worm's perceptual abilities based on research conducted in his study. The essential question was whether worms pull the narrowest part of leaves into their holes on cold nights by trial and error or by first feeling out the narrowest point. Darwin's meticulous experimental results are online here: http://tinyurl.com/yf3rbs3 pp. 92-93 The percentage results of the foregoing observations on the manner in which worms draw various kinds of objects into the mouths of their burrows may be abridged as follows… Michael wrote: I am skeptical to apply any type of conditioning principles to worms and other small organisms. For one thing worms secrete pheronomes that are important in their navigation… […] Darwin wrote (p. 100): To sum up, as chance does not determine the manner in which objects are drawn into the burrows, and as the existence of specialized instincts for each particular case cannot be admitted, the first and most natural supposition is that worms try all methods until they at last succeed; but many appearances are opposed to such a supposition. One alternative alone is left, namely, that worms, although standing low in the scale of organization, possess some degree of intelligence. This will strike every one as very improbable; but it may be doubted whether we know enough about the nervous system of the lower animals to justify our natural distrust of such a conclusion. With respect to the small size of the cerebral ganglia, we should remember what a mass of inherited knowledge, with some power of adapting means to an end, is crowded into the minute brain of a worker-ant. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] The British Continuing Obsession
On the subject of the forthcoming UK Channel 4 programme on IQ Mike Palij wrote: Of course, as unpleasant as all this is, one can say the Daily Mail's handling of the topic is quite moderate, whereas the Telegraph forthrightly pronounces: Scientists claim black people less intelligent than whites in Channel 4 show http://tinyurl.com/ygbdz67 And if scientists make that claim, it has to be true, eh? Who would guess from Mike's representation of the Telegraph piece that the very first sentence of the article reads: Anti-racist groups said the broadcaster was giving legitimacy to discredited 'pseudo science' which was 'irresponsible'. And that considerably more space is given to opponents of the thesis than proponents. Mike writes: guess who should be in power and controlling the other groups?. Taking Mike's presumption as given, it must be North-East Asians from parts of China, Japan and North and South Korea. Mike heads the thread The British Continuing Obsession. So, Mike, please provide evidence that (a) this is an obsession in the Britain (b) that the topic comes up in the news more often than in the States. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - [tips] The British Continuing Obsession Mike Palij Sat, 17 Oct 2009 06:42:05 -0700 The obsession mentioned in the subject line is with the concern of distinguishing groups of people on the basis of their intelligence or IQ scores. This gets translated into assertions that certain ethnic/racial groups systematically differ and with certain groups naturally having higher IQ while other groups having naturally lower IQs (guess who should be in power and controlling the other groups?). I raise this point because such issues are serious and need critical, thoughtful analysis with some degree of intellectual humility. Of course, the best venue for doing this is on TV, as the Brits are about to do on their Channel 4; see: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1220343/Channel-4-controversy-documentary-claims-race-linked-intelligence.html or http://tinyurl.com/yju7ay4 Did you know the following facts: |It will include claims that the most intelligent people in the |world are North-East Asians from parts of China, Japan |and North and South Korea. and |The Australian Aborigines will be said to have the lowest average IQ. The sources for these facts? Not clear but the following provides a clue: |He interviews Richard Lynn, emeritus professor at the University |of Ulster, who has amassed data which he believes shows there |is a global league table of intelligence between the races. | |He is seen claiming that 'the top rate' are North-East Asians who |have an average IQ of 105, followed by North and Central |Europeans with a score of 100. | |He claims American Indians have an IQ of 87, and that sub-Saharan |Africans 'pretty well on either side of the equator' have IQs of |around 70. He says Aborigines have the lowest scores of around 65. | |He says: 'When sub-Saharan Africans come and live - and even |several generations of them come to live - in European or North A |merican countries, their IQs increase because of course their |environment is improved, their schooling is better and their nutrition |is better. | |'But their IQs don't rise up to the same level as Europeans.' Well, I guess that explains why some people don't want White and Black people to marry. World famous Canadian Psychologist J. Phillippe Rushton also is showcased though his comments about racial differences in penis size do not seem to raised (NOTE: is Rushton compensating for something with this concern? See his Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton Quoting: |Rolling Stone magazine (1994) quotes Rushton: It's a trade off, |more brains or more penis. You can't have everything.) Quoting the Daily Mail article: |British-born J Philippe Rushton, a psychology professor at the |University of Western Ontario in Canada, is also interviewed. | |Professor Rushton claims the differences between black and white |and East Asian brains is due to general intelligence. | |He says black people have smaller-sized brains than white people |and are not as intelligent as white people. James Watson does not put in an appearance but is present in spirit; quoting from the article: |The 79-year-old American geneticist - who does not appear in |the show - said he was 'inherently gloomy about the prospect of |Africa' because 'all our social policies are based on the fact that |their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says |not really'. | |He added that he hoped that everyone was equal, but then alleged |that 'people who have to deal with black employees find this not true'. Of course, as unpleasant as all this is, one can say the Daily Mail's handling of the topic is quite moderate, whereas the Telegraph forthrightly
Re: [tips] The British Continuing Obsession
with differences between ethnic and racial groups: Historically, I think that it can be documented that the issues of eugenics, whether different ethnic and racial groups differ in significant ways on measures of moral and intellectual ability, represent a consistent intellectual tradition in Great Britain. Mike includes two categories here, thereby enabling him to include the IQ and race issue. In fact historically the eugenics movement in Britain was almost entirely about what were believed to be heritable mental and physical disabilities, and I don't think there was anything much, if at all, about ethnic and racial groups. But these items have little relevance to my main point, requesting from Mike evidence that there is an obsession with categorizing groups of people on the basis of the IQ currently in Britain. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] *Nature* on APA and clinical psychology
���Nature, 15 October 2009: Editorial Psychology: a reality check Anyone reading Sigmund Freud's original works might well be seduced by the beauty of his prose, the elegance of his arguments and the acuity of his intuition. But those with a grounding in science will also be shocked by the abandon with which he elaborated his theories on the basis of essentially no empirical evidence. This is one of the main reasons why Freudian-style psychoanalysis has long since fallen out of fashion… Clinical psychology at least has its roots in experimentation, but it is drifting away from science. Concerns about cost–benefit issues are growing, especially in the United States. According to a damning report published last week (T. B. Baker et al. Psychol. Sci. Public Interest 9, 67–103; 2008), an alarmingly high proportion of practitioners consider scientific evidence to be less important than their personal — that is, subjective — clinical experience… The situation has created tensions within the American Psychological Association (APA), the body that accredits the courses leading to qualification for a clinical psychologist to practise in the United States and Canada. The APA requires that such courses have a scientific component, but it does not require that science be as central as some members would like. In frustration, representatives of some two-dozen top research-focused graduate-training programmes grouped together in 1994 to form the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science (APCS), with a mission to promote scientific psychology. Read the rest here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7266/full/461847a.html or http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7266/pdf/461847a.pdf Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Women not happy
University of Pennsylvania researchers have released results of a study that showed that women are not too happy. I only wished that they could qualify this by stating that it is white women in the U.S that are not happy. It helps if you actually read details of the study before commenting on it: The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness, page 14: Trends in happiness among blacks are examined in columns one and two. These data show that happiness has trended quite strongly upward for both female and male African-Americans, erasing about two-thirds of the large racial differences in subjective well-being that were evident in the early 1970s (Stevenson and Wolfers, 2008b). http://tinyurl.com/36t7pr Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] *Nature* on APA and clinical psychology
���Chris Green wrote: Allen Esterson wrote: Clinical psychology at least has its roots in experimentation, Just to clarify: I didn't write that sentence (except in the literal sense that I quoted it). If you look closely (see below) you'll see I started with the heading: Nature, 15 October 2009: Editorial Psychology: a reality check There followed three paragraphs copied from *Nature*, after which I wrote Read the rest here:... Nothing of mine at all! --Allen E. [tips] *Nature* on APA and clinical psychology Allen Esterson Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:26:45 -0700 Nature, 15 October 2009: Editorial Psychology: a reality check Anyone reading Sigmund Freud's original works might well be seduced by the beauty of his prose, the elegance of his arguments and the acuity of his intuition. But those with a grounding in science will also be shocked by the abandon with which he elaborated his theories on the basis of essentially no empirical evidence. This is one of the main reasons why Freudian-style psychoanalysis has long since fallen out of fashion… Clinical psychology at least has its roots in experimentation, but it is drifting away from science. Concerns about cost–benefit issues are growing, especially in the United States. According to a damning report published last week (T. B. Baker et al. Psychol. Sci. Public Interest 9, 67–103; 2008), an alarmingly high proportion of practitioners consider scientific evidence to be less important than their personal — that is, subjective — clinical experience… The situation has created tensions within the American Psychological Association (APA), the body that accredits the courses leading to qualification for a clinical psychologist to practise in the United States and Canada. The APA requires that such courses have a scientific component, but it does not require that science be as central as some members would like. In frustration, representatives of some two-dozen top research-focused graduate-training programmes grouped together in 1994 to form the Academy of Psychological Clinical Science (APCS), with a mission to promote scientific psychology. Read the rest here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7266/full/461847a.html or http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7266/pdf/461847a.pdf Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re:[tips] Darwin and cognitive dissonance
Darwin and cognitive dissonance Isn't it interesting that the man who probably discovered that man evoled to be a hunter and seek game as food was himself a vegetarian. Isn't it interesting that some people believe what they read on the internet (or elsewhere) without making any attempt to ascertain if there is any truth in the story. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] News: Correcting a Style Guide - Inside Higher Ed
Jim Clark wrote on the revised APA manual: And to what extent are the errors in the substantive parts because too much time and energy went into such irrelevant things? Could the time and energy going into such irrelevant things be largely a consequence of a variant of one of Parkinson's laws (Work expands to fill the time available for its completion): Employees tend to add unnecessary items/work to a project in order to extend the time spent on it so as demonstrate to employers that they are satisfying their job description (and justifying their salary). Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Men Explain Things to Chicks
���Re: [tips] Men Explain Things to Chicks On 11 October 2009 Robin Abrahams wrote: Ah, another day, another series of men explaining women's experiences to them. Robin: And I thought we were simply exchanging views in a discussion which started as one about the use of the word chicks on TIPS and has been generalised in a lengthy (and thoughtful) contribution from Stephen. As one of those men who made a contribution (see below) to the Stephen thread, Robin, please point out to me where I was explaining women's experiences to them. I can't help it if Robin is the only woman who bothered to comment on whether or not 'chick' is offensive! The reason I effectively set g oing the original thread to which Stephen was responding (see further below) was because, as others have noted, at least three women had objected to it over a period of time. And my contribution then was to support the suggestion made by others that those of us who found Michael Sylvester's use of the term offensive, which I thought likely was most TIPSters, should cease to respond to his posts. I was previously tempted to respond to the last sentence in Robin's previous posting but let it go. Given the nature of her response this time I shall now do so: If anyone writes in objection to my points, and I do not respond, do not assume that you have either offended me or won the argument. I thought we were having an exchange of views on a topic that Stephen had broadened out to a more generalised discussion. I didn't realise we were engaged in an argument that could be won or lost. Nancy Melucci wrote: I try to resist the language police thing. I think these judgments (about the offensiveness of words) can rarely be made outside the context in which the word is being used. I strongly agree that in this particular instance the *context* is relevant, which is why I made the central point of my previous contribution the distinction between using chicks as a synonym for women in postings to TIPS, and the use of the word in entirely different contexts. I can certainly understand why many women object to the use of chicks more generally, but Robin chose to discuss its use in the expression chick lit, which, as I supported by links to a wide variety of sources, seems to be an unobjectionable term for a particular genre of writings. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org Re: [tips] On chick Allen Esterson Sun, 11 Oct 2009 I agree with almost everything that Stephen wrote on the use of the word chick – except that I think he omitted the most significant point about it's use as far as TIPS is concerned, namely is the use of the slang expression chicks as a synonym for woman is just plain inappropriate in the contexts in which it has been used? In this sense Stephens proposed survey on the offensiveness of chicks requires modification. I find its use on TIPS inappropriate rather than offensive (though I'd vote for the latter if given no other choice), but have no objection whatever to chick-lit. Which takes me to Robin's posting: I have no objection to movies marketed to women being referred to as chick flicks, as long as movies marketed to men are similarly referred to as dick flicks. Why should it be the case that, because there happens to be a term f or a particular kind of book that is widely recognised and is not generally regarded as offensive (see below), that there has to be an equivalent term for a supposedly equivalent male interest film. Why should an equivalent male term be sought here to supposedly even things up? In this instance I see nothing to even up. Part of the problem with chick lit and chick flicks is the notion that what men are interested in is universal, whereas what women are interested in is a lesser subsection of the human experience. Sorry, I don't accept that. In my experience men are frequently associated with limited horizons – empty-minded action films, technical books of a variety 20of kinds with no connection with real life experience, and so on. Everyone is expected to find meaning in Hamlet, but a man who finds meaning in Jane Eyre is praised for his sensitivity. As a generality, I don't accept that either. I have often seen/read men expressing high praise for Jane Austen's novels (as I do myself) which deal almost solely with the relationships between the characters, but I can't ever recall them being praised for their sensitivity. Now to the question of how widely chick-lit is found to be offensive. I have to say this is the first time I have heard/read of anyone taking offence at the term. I've just done a quick Google search and the 0D following webpages have come up: From The Guardian, 8 May 2009: A tale of romance by the king of chick lit – Napoleon Bonaparte Maev Kennedy and Catherine Neilan Napoleon turned to literature, or at least
Re: [tips] Men Explain Things to Chicks
���I've just recalled that some TIPSters block postings containing a certain person's name, so (with apologies) I'm posting my last contribution again. On 11 October 2009 Robin Abrahams wrote: Ah, another day, another series of men explaining women's experiences to them. Robin: And I thought we were simply exchanging views in a discussion which started as one about the use of the word chicks on TIPS and has been generalised in a lengthy (and thoughtful) contribution from Stephen. As one of those men who made a contribution (see below) to the Stephen thread, Robin, please point out to me where I was explaining women's experiences to them. I can't help it if Robin is the 20only woman who bothered to comment on whether or not 'chick' is offensive! The reason I effectively set going the original thread to which Stephen was responding (see further below) was because, as others have noted, at least three women had objected to it over a period of time. And my contribution then was to support the suggestion made by others that those of us who found one TIPSter's use of the term offensive, which I thought likely was most people, should cease to respond to his posts. I was previously tempted to respond to the last sentence in Robin's previous posting but let it go. Given the nature of her response this time I shall now do so: If anyone writes=2 0in objection to my points, and I do not respond, do not assume that you have either offended me or won the argument. I thought we were having an exchange of views on a topic that Stephen had broadened out to a more generalised discussion. I didn't realise we were engaged in an argument that could be won or lost. Nancy Melucci wrote: I try to resist the language police thing. I think these judgments (about the offensiveness of words) can rarely be made outside the context in which the word is being used. I strongly agree that in this particular instance the *context* is relevant, which is why I made the central point of my previous contribution the distinction between=2 0using chicks as a synonym for women in postings to TIPS, and the use of the word in entirely different contexts. I can certainly understand why many women object to the use of chicks more generally, but Robin chose to discuss its use in the expression chick lit, which, as I supported by links to a wide variety of sources, seems to be an unobjectionable term for a particular genre of writings. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org Re: [tips] On chick Allen Esterson Sun, 11 Oct 2009 I agree with almost everything that Stephen wrote on the use of the word chick ��=9 3 except that I think he omitted the most significant point about it's use as far as TIPS is concerned, namely is the use of the slang expression chicks as a synonym for woman is just plain inappropriate in the contexts in which it has been used? In this sense Stephens proposed survey on the offensiveness of chicks requires modification. I find its use on TIPS inappropriate rather than offensive (though I'd vote for the latter if given no other choice), but have no objection whatever to chick-lit. Which takes me to Robin's posting: I have no objection to movies marketed to women being referred to as chick flicks, as long as movies marketed to men are similarly referred to as dick flicks. Why should it be the case that, because there happens to be a term for a particular kind of book that is widely recognised and is not generally regarded as offensive (see below), that there has to be an equivalent term for a supposedly equivalent male interest film. Why should an equivalent male term be sought here to supposedly even things up? In this instance I see nothing to even up. Part of the problem with chick lit and chick flicks is the notion that what men are interested in is universal, whereas what women are interested in is a lesser subsection of the human experience. Sorry, I don't accept that. In my experience men are frequently 0D associated with limited horizons – empty-minded action films, technical books of a variety of kinds with no connection with real life experience, and so on. Everyone is expected to find meaning in Hamlet, but a man who finds meaning in Jane Eyre is praised for his sensitivity. As a generality, I don't accept that either. I have often seen/read men expressing high praise for Jane Austen's novels (as I do myself) which deal almost solely with the relationships between the characters, but I can't ever recall them being praised for their sensitivity. Now to the question of how widely chick-lit is found to be offensive. I have to say this is the first time I have h eard/read of anyone taking offence at the term. I've just done a quick Google search and the following webpages have come up: From The Guardian, 8 May 2009: A tale of romance by the king
Re: [tips] Men Explain Things to Chicks
Stephen Black comments: As a logical point, if chick lit is inoffensive, and if it means, as it does, literature for chicks, then surely the term chick must itself be considered inoffensive. I'm not entirely convinced by this argument, as rules of logic don't necessarily apply where language is concerned. My sense is that the term chick lit was coined (and achieved wide usage) in a specific context and that the word chick being used in *that* context may be distinguished from its use as a separate word in a different context. Chick lit is a widely accepted term for identifying a particular genre of literature, and would not be out of place in a relevant scholarly book or paper. I'm sure this is not the case with chick as a synonym for woman regardless of logical arguments such as the above. Stephen again: As for context, I agree with this, but the primary context may be who it is who dares to use this contested word. For example, if it was the esteemed Mike Palij who employed it rather than the irrepressible Michael, would we have had the protests we did? I'm pretty sure you're wrong there (I think your view on this is implied by the very fact you raised it as a question, with the implication it was at least partly the identity of the 'culprit' that led to the kerfuffle). At any rate, I would certainly regard the use of chicks as a synonym for women as wholly inappropriate in a TIPS posting that was not intended to be 'jokey', whoever used it. More generally, would any TIPSters regard it as acceptable for chicks to be used as a synonym for women in a scholarly journal? Assuming not (over to you, Stephen :-) ), then evidently context in the sense of where the term is being used does matter. So it's a question of judgement, and my judgement is that it is inappropriate for TIPS. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] On chick
���I agree with almost everything that Stephen wrote on the use of the word chick – except that I think he omitted the most significant point about it's use as far as TIPS is concerned, namely that the use of the slang expression chicks as a synonym for women is just plain inappropriate in the contexts in which it has been used. In this sense Stephens proposed survey on the offensiveness of chicks requires modification. I find its use on TIPS inappropriate rather than offensive (though I'd vote for the latter if given no other choice), but have no objection whatever to chick-lit. Which takes me to Robin's posting: I have no objection to movies marketed to women being referred to as chick flicks, as long as movies marketed to men are similarly referred to as dick flicks. Why should it be the case that, because there happens to be a term for a particular kind of book that is widely recognised and is not generally regarded as offensive (see below), there has to be an equivalent term for a supposedly equivalent male interest film. Why should an equivalent male term be sought here to supposedly even things up? In this instance I see nothing to even up. Part of the problem with chick lit and chick flicks is the notion that what men are interested in is universal, whereas what women are interested in is a lesser subsection of th e human experience. Sorry, I don't accept that. In my experience men are frequently associated with limited horizons – empty-minded action films, technical books of a variety of kinds with no connection with real life experience, and so on. Everyone is expected to find meaning in Hamlet, but a man who finds meaning in Jane Eyre is praised for his sensitivity. As a generality, I don't accept that either. I have often seen/read men expressing high praise for Jane Austen's novels (as I do myself) which deal almost solely with the relationships between the characters, but I can't ever recall them being praised for their sensitivity. Now to the question of how widely chick-lit is found to be offensive. I have to say this is the first time I have heard/read of anyone taking offence at the term. I've just done a quick Google search and the following webpages have come up: From The Guardian, 8 May 2009: A tale of romance by the king of chick lit – Napoleon Bonaparte Maev Kennedy and Catherine Neilan Napoleon turned to literature, or at least an early precursor of chick-lit, at a wretched time when he seemed to have stalled his glorious career and lost his woman. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/08/napoleon-novella-manuscript-translation If female reviewers on The Guardian (whose journalists are prone to find sexism at the drop of a hat)=2 0have no problem with chick-lit, I suspect it means that those who do in the UK are in a very, very tiny minority. Oh, yes, and in the Independent: End of a chapter: chick lit takes on the credit crunch In hard times, sex-and-shopping sagas are being reinvented. Welcome to the world of recessionista lit By Susie Mesure http://tinyurl.com/nzgatb The UK Jewish Chronicle also seems untroubled by the term: Why chick lit is actually chicken-soup lit By Brigit Grant, http://www.thejc.com/arts/books/why-chick-lit-actually-chicken-soup-lit Then we have a celebration of chick-lit: Chicklit is the online women's magazine that celebrates 21st century woman's contemporary fiction and lifestyle. Come on in... http://www.chicklit.co.uk/articles/index.asp Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - Re: [tips] On chick Robin Abrahams Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:19:12 -0700 I have no objection to movies marketed to women being referred to as chick flicks, as long as movies marketed to men are similarly referred to as dick flicks. Part of the problem with chick lit and chick flicks is the notion that what men are interested in is universal, whereas what women are interested in is a lesser subsection of the human experience. Everyone is expected to find meaning in Ham let, but a man who finds meaning in Jane Eyre is praised for his sensitivity. There are also terms that can be used by members of the ingroup, but not by others. Chick and girl (for a grown woman) are, I think, terms like this. I am very busy and do not have the time to get into the debate that this will undoubtedly provoke (unless others are more sensible than Stephen and I and are taking this beautiful weekend off instead of working). If anyone writes in objection to my points, and I do not respond, do not assume that you have either offended me or won the argument. Robin Robin Abrahams www.robinabrahams.com -- --- --- On Sun, 10/11/09, sbl...@ubishops.ca sbl...@ubishops.ca wrote: From: sbl...@ubishops.ca sbl...@ubishops.ca Subject: [tips] On chick To: Teaching
RE: [tips] Beyond analysis
On 9 October 2009 Mike Palij wrote: By the way, when I tried to access the blog listed at the end of the story I got a You are not authorized to view page; see: Researchdigest.org.uk/blog I did some Googling, and it seems the website name has been changed. It's a British Psychological Society research digest webpage, not a blog. (It seems to be a free subscription service.): http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/ The Independent article is a reduced version of an item on the website (BPS asked over twenty psychologists). I note the webpage says: Thanks also to The Independent for helping spread the word. Pity the newspaper didn't get the URL right. :-) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE: [tips] Beyond analysis
���The Mental Health link on BPS Research Digest brings up some interesting stuff: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/search/label/Mental%20health Re the TIPS thread on blushing a little while back: Thinking that you're blushing makes you blush even more http://tinyurl.com/ll53uq And what I think is an important point about making CBT more effective: Turning talking therapies into doing therapies: The biggest single problem… is that real life clinicians often fail to deliver proper CBT with all its active ingredients. For example, one of the most important aspects of CBT is behavioural change, yet clinicians often shy away from encouraging clients to adopt the changes they need to make, especial ly when such changes are likely to provoke increased anxiety in the short term. http://tinyurl.com/yhwy4dc And if you click the link Older Posts at the bottom of the webpage: Fresh doubt cast on memories of abuse recovered in therapy http://tinyurl.com/ytdy3v And another one I think is important: Acceptance, not distraction, is the way to deal with pain http://tinyurl.com/ylgah4b Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Beyond analysis
Beyond analysis: Inside the minds of the world's top psychologists From belief in God to the irresistible urge to flirt with the opposite sex, there are some human impulses that even the biggest brains in psychology are unable to explain. Here are their greatest unanswered questions http://tinyurl.com/ydcxrrx Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE: [tips] From the If You're So Smart How Come You Ain't Rich? Department
���Beth Benoit wrote of Malcolm Gladwell's *Outliers* that: On p. 79, he writes: In general, the higher your [IQ] score, the more education you'll get, the more money you're likely to make, and - believe it or not – the longer you'll live. But there's a catch. The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn't seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage. This may be a side issue, but a highly intelligent academic friend of mine who has been a lifelong expert on Wittegenstein has had what I'm sure he regards as a very satisfying career with modest financial re ward. Does this count as real world success? Beth also quotes Gladwell citing Liam Hudson on Nobel Prize winners: A mature scientist with an adult IQ of 130 is as likely to win a Nobel Prize as is one whose IQ is 180.' Two points on this. I wonder what evidence Hudson provides for this statement. I wouldn't have thought that knowledge of the IQs of the great majority of Nobel Prize winners was available. A cursory Google search of Nobel Prize winners + IQ doesn't bring anything up. Nevertheless, my view is that Hudson's assertion may well be the case, but that if so it is probably less significant than he (and Gladwell) seems to think. In the physical sciences ther e is a world of difference between the Nobel achievements of a Heisenberg or Dirac, which involve the fundamental foundations of theoretical physics, and more straightforward work on a limited topic that more frequently leads to a Nobel Prize. However satisfying for the recipient, the Nobel Prize is not by any means a direct measure of *extraordinary* intellectual inspiration or achievement. It is only to be expected that a moderately high IQ combined with a capacity for hard work and dedication to a particular topic may suffice for obtaining a Nobel Prize. I think it is highly likely that the work of the great majority of Nobel Prize winners in the physical sciences since WW2 remains unk nown to most scientists, unlike that of people of the calibre of the aforementioned. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Darwin Movie Creation Finds a U.S. Distributor
���On 5 October 2009 Mike Palij provided a link to the forthcoming TV programme Darwin's Darkest Hour, the blurb for which includes the following: Charles Darwin’s greatest personal crisis: the anguishing decision over whether to go publicwith his theory of evolution. Darwin, portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick (Lost), spent years refining his ideas and penning his book the Origin of Species. Yet, daunted by looming conflict with the orthodox religious values of his day, he resisted publishing — until a letter from naturalist Alfred Wallace forced his hand. In 1858, Darwin learned that Wallace was ready to publish ideas very similar to his own. In a sickened panic, Darwin grasped his dilemma: To delay publishing any longer would be to condemn all of his work to obscurity — his voyage on the Beagle, his adventures in the Andes, the gauchos and bizarre fossils of Patagonia, the finches and giant tortoises of the Galapagos. But to come forward with his ideas risked the fury of the Church and perhaps a rift with his own devoted wife, Emma… I fear this programme will further propagate common myths about Darwin. To save my expanding on this, may I suggest those interested read the following article: Mind the gap: Did Darwin avoid publishing his theory for many years? http://tinyurl.com/cobvtn It is by John van Whye, historian of science at=2 0Cambridge University, and Director of The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. http://darwin-online.org.uk/people/van_wyhe.html A brief (though inadequate) summary of Whye's views is given here: Contrary to the beliefs of many Darwin scholars, the great evolutionist did not delay publishing his theory for fear of professional ridicule or social shame. According to a new analysis of Charles Darwin's correspondence, the real reason was much more prosaic - he was snowed under with work. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/mar/28/uk.books Re one well-known notion, the supposedly psychosomatic origins of Darwin's chronic illnesses, I had reason earlier this year to check Darwin's letters and diaries to see if there was any correlation between his more severe bouts of sickness and his working on his transmutation of species (evolution) theory as is frequently claimed, and found none. (There were even a couple of occasions that Darwin turned away from writing up one of the many books and articles on which he laboured in the two decades immediately following the Beagle voyage to *follow up* his notes on his transformation theory because he was feeling so ill and hard work on his other writings exacerbated his sickness.) Because he was ill so much of the time, there is no problem for an author to (selectively) 'find' that illness coincided with specific events, both within and without Darwin's personal life. For instance, John Bowlby, in his otherwise excellent biography, is able to 'find' evidence for life events evoking separation anxiety to explain Darwin's bouts of illness (largely on the basis of Darwin's mother having died when he was eight.) Reference Darwin's illness: a final diagnosis Fernando Orrego and Carlos Quintana Notes and Records of the Royal Society 2007: 61, 23-29 http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/61/1/23.full.pdf+html Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Darwin Movie Creation Finds a U.S. Distributor
���Re the publishing of Origin of Species*, Chris Green wrote: The urgency of the barnacle book can't really be made to bear quite so much weight, IMHO. The issue, it seems to me, was not so much whether he was afraid of religious authorities but, rather, that he knew the theory would be extremely controversial, and he wanted to collect in advance as many lines of evidence as possible in order to be able to most effectively defend his position (having seen all too well what happened in the /Vestiges/ controversy of the late 1840s). I couldn't agree more that (especially after the publication of the seriously flawed *Vestiges*) Darwin was deeply concerned to collect as many lines of 20evidence as possible for his highly controversial theory. With regard to the barnacle work, it is probably significant that Darwin took a remark from Hooker to heart in 1845, to which he replied, How painfully (to me) true is your remark that no one has hardly a right to examine the question of species who has not minutely described many. I was, however, pleased to hear from Owen (who is vehemently opposed to any mutability in species) that he thought it was a very fair subject and that there was a mass of facts to be brought to bear on the question, not hitherto collected. The barnacle studies were to be an example of the mass of facts brought to bear on one small 20corner of animal life, and in 1846 Darwin wrote to Hooker that the work would take him some months, perhaps a year, and then I shall begin looking over my ten-year-long accumulation of notes on species and varieties, which, with writing, I dare say will take me five years… Once started, being Darwin he could not but make sure he had covered just about everything there was to say about the subject, and eventually produced in four large volumes the definitive work on barnacles, what Rebecca Stott describes as the sum of all barnacle knowledge. The first volume alone, together with his work on coral reefs, led to his being awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society. =0 D And with all the specimens he was receiving from all over the world, the possibly a year ended up about six years (which included an estimated couple of years lost through lengthy periods of illness and attempts to alleviate the symptoms with time away from Down on cures). Mike Palij wrote: One question I didn't see addressed (perhaps I missed it) is what effect would having published the book 20 years earlier would have had? Would its reception had been different from when it actually came out? Worse, the same, better? Just to clarify one point for those not familiar with the details, there was of course no way that Darwin could have produced such a book 20 years earlier (ie, around 1839), within a couple of years of returning from the Beagle trip in late 1837. It was only in March 1838 that the identification of his Galapagos mocking birds as different species by Gould became the starting point for his conviction of the transmutation of species, and his reading of Malthus later that year inspired in him the notion that evolutionary changes occurred by what came to be called natural selection. But at that time he had a mass of work to undertake, writing books and articles on the Beagle voyage, on geological ideas arising from what he had seen on the voyage, and on the formation of coral reefs. Only as what he called his prime hobby cou ld he in those years make notes on his ideas on transmutation, including during times when his illness prevented the arduous work required for books and articles. References Stott, Rebecca (2003). *Darwin and the Barnacle*. Faber and Faber. Sulloway, Frank (1982). Darwin's Conversion: The Beagle Voyage and Its Aftermath. Journal of the History of Biology, 15 (1982): 325-96. http://www.sulloway.org/Conversion.pdf Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Darwin Movie Creation Finds a U.S. Distributor
Correction! I slipped up on dates in my last posting, where I wrote of Darwin returning from the Beagle voyage in late 1837, and the identification of the Galapagos mocking birds as different species by Gould in March 1838. I should have written: ...there was of course no way that Darwin could have produced such a book 20 years earlier (ie, around 1839), within a couple of years of returning from the Beagle trip in late 1836. It was only in March 1837 that the identification of his Galapagos mocking birds as different species by Gould became the starting point for his conviction of the transmutation of species, and his reading of Malthus in the following year inspired in him the notion that evolutionary changes occurred by what came to be called natural selection... Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re:[tips] tips digest: October 03, 2009
��� Re: How Do You Explain A 4.4 Million Skeleton in a 6,000 Year Old Universe? -Original Message- From: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) digest tips@acsun.frostburg.edu To: tips digest recipients tips@acsun.frostburg.edu Sent: Sun, Oct 4, 2009 5:00 am Subject: tips digest: October 03, 2009 Subject: tips digest: October 03, 2009 From: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) digest tips@acsun.frostburg.edu Reply-To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@acsun.frostburg.edu Date: Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:29 -0400 TIPS Digest for Saturday, October 03, 2009. 1. Random Thought: The Power Of A Smile 2. Re: How Do You Explain A 4.4 Million Skeleton in a 6,000 Year Old Universe? 3. Resistance to extinction 4. Re:How Do You Explain A 4.4 Million Skeleton in a 6,000 Year Old Universe? 5. Re:How Do You Explain A 4.4 Million Skeleton in a 6,000 Year Old Universe? 6. The 6million into the 4000 7. Re: How Do You Explain A 4.4 Million Skeleton in a 6,000 Year Old Universe? 8. Starbucks as ritualized contact 9. Re: Starbucks as ritualized contact --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tipstext_mode=0lang=english Attached Message From: Louis Schmier lschm...@valdosta.edu Subject: Random Thought : The Power Of A Smile Date: Sat, 3 Oct 2009 06:16:51 -0400 As I struggled to catch up with student journals, A statement made by Lou Foltz at the Lilly conference kept ringing in my head: we are feeling people who think, not thinking people who feel. Then, I read Madeline's journal entry last night and his words resounded as loudly as if I was next to the bells of Big Ben. She had written this entry while she was in Traverse City at the Lilly-North conference, I miss your constant smile. I look forward to it. It brightens me up. It warms me up and melts the chill of my low self-esteem and=2 0weak self-confidence. Your smile tells ugly me that I'm attractive. Every time I'm in class with you when you smile at me, I feel noticed and valuable, and I believe that inside what a lot of people say is this worm you're helping me to see the beautiful cocooned butterfly that you see. It's so hard, but every time you offer me one of your 'I care' smiles I get a shot of 'I can do this stuff' that's a temporary vaccination against my fears and insecurities and disbeliefs As I read her words over and over and over again, I started thinking about a sequence of feelings and attitudes: impact a student's heart, and you alter her or his stor y; change her or his story, and you affected her or his perceptions; affect his or her perceptions, and you've touched that student; touch that student, and you've altered the future and changed the world. Madeline reminded me again of the smallest, most useful, most powerful tool each of us have at our disposal in the classroom to make a difference. It has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with us. It has nothing to do with giant leaps or dramatic U-turns. It's proof that every little thing you feel and do leaves a consequence in its wake, that supposed little things can make huge differences, and that those small things quickly=2 0add up to big differences. I want you to think about this: every stirring in our heart stirs and matters. So many of us think we only speak with our mouths. But, I tell you, researchers tell us, we speak so loud with our bodies, with our hands, with our faces, and with our eyes that our words are drowned out. So, both inside and outside the classroom, both inside and outside us, something so simple as a sincere smile not only turns on the lights of the likes of a Madeline, but it magically turns walls into doors. Sneers blind; faith opens eyes; scowls deafen; hope perks up the ears; frowns chill; love warms up; grimaces numb; empathy sensitizes; 20sneers paralyze; compassion moves. A simple, genuine smile improves all of us. When we sincerely smile, we are more confident, enthusiastic, upbeat, and convincing. We even look better when we smile. A simple, genuine smile from our heart is an aura of our own positive outlook on life that we extend to envelope others. When we sincerely smile, we immediately add value to our encounters with others. When we sincerely smile we see, listen to, and empathize with others who are otherwise not there when we are dour and scowled. And, that makes that simple, small, useful, powerful act of just sincerely smiling, anything but small and meaningless. It's actually=2 0so powerful that it can lift the heaviest of hearts. Make it a good day. --Louis-- Louis Schmier http:/www.therandomthoughts.com Department of History Valdosta State University Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\ (229-333-5947)
Re:[tips] How Do You Explain A 4.4 Million Skeleton in a 6,000 Year Old Universe?
In a response in this thread Mike Smith wrote: Of course individual scientists can 'respond' or get involved in politics if they want (witness that clown Dawkins). But when doing so, they are engaged in politics not science. Mike: Referring to someone whose views on a specific subject you strongly disagree with as a clown is not conducive to rational discussion. I happen to disagree with some aspects of Dawkins' views on religious belief (though not his atheism), and when he steps outside his specialty I think his views/arguments occasionally verge on the simplistic, but he is a highly intelligent man whose arguments and attitudes deserve to be treated in dispassionate terms without resorting to name-calling. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE: [tips] NFL/Tuskegee flashback
���On 1 October 2009 Michael Sylvester wrote: Like the Tuskegee experiment blacks are perceived as dispensable. It seems that this topic is destined to come up every two years on TIPS, 2005, 2007, 2009... Whatever the ethical rights and wrongs of the Tuskegee study, it is far from evident that racism played a significant role in it, let alone an attitude that the participants were perceived as dispensable. According to an article in the medical journal *The Lancet*: It is debatable whether the study was racist. All the patients and controls were black (as was 82% of the population of Macon County in 1930), but this was because the study has its origins in earlier work supported 20by the philanthropic Rosenwald Fund, with the motivation of promoting the welfare of African Americans. Although the Rosenwald Fund decided not to support the Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis, it was endorsed by the Tuskegee Institute – an entirely African American orgaisation – and black health care professionals were involved at all stages of the study. Indeed, as late as 1969, the Macon County Medical Society, consisting mostly of black doctors, agreed to assist the USPHS in continuing the study. Clearing the myths of time: Tuskegee revisited http://tinyurl.com/a3kkc See also a more detailed article by Richard A. Shweder cited by Steven Black in 1905 (see below): h ttp://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/000CA34A.htm Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- Tuskegee experiment re-examined Stephen Black Fri, 17 Jun 2005 15:17:26 -0700 A colleague has alerted me to a remarkable on-line essay. The subject is the infamous Tuskegee study of untreated syphilis in Black men in Alabama, carried out between 1932 and 1972. My knowledge of this study is limited, but I'm aware, along with most people, that it's considered one of the most shameful episodes in American scientific history. Some believe that the subjects of the study were deliberately infected with syphilis,=2 0which is untrue. Yet even that scientists would stand by and allow the untreated progress of a dread disease in poor, uneducated members of a minority group solely to obtain information about its effects bears comparison with the atrocities committed by the Nazis. Consequently, Tuskegee today is a synonym for grieviously misguided science and racism, and is often invoked as a reason why we must have institutional review boards to safeguard against such perversions of science. Indeed, on May 16, 1997, President Clinton issued a formal apology to the surviving participants of the study on behalf of the United States Government.(see http://www.med.virginia.edu/hslibrary/historical/apology/whouse.html) Why talk about Tu skegee and this particular essay on TIPS? Well, aside from the fact that I've always appreciated that this list has a refreshing tolerance for important topics even if marginally related to the teaching of psychology, it does have relevance. It concerns experimental design, racism in science, and the ethics of experimentation. The essay itself brilliantly illustrates one of the themes that comes up repeatedly in our discussions: the need for critical evaluation of received wisdom, no matter how well-accepted. This essay does challenge received wisdom regarding the Tuskegee study. What its author, Richard Shweder, calls a counter-narrative has three main themes: a) that a concerned, ethically-responsible, fully-informed=2 0researcher back in the 1930s may well have judged the Tuskegee study to be ethically acceptable and free of racism b) that the study may not have caused harm to those who participated in it c) that we must be cautious in using our present-day standards to judge the decisions of the past and on that basis to condemn them These conclusions may seem outrageous to those who have heard of the study and who may suspect that the essay is an apology for racism. But it's no blogger's rant. It's a careful examination of what is known about Tuskegee in a balanced, impartial manner free of preconceived notions. Richard A. Shweder is a respected academic, a cultural anthropologist at the Univer sity of Chicago (see http://humdev.uchicago.edu/shweder.html); the essay originated in an invited address to the _Philosophy of Education Meetings_; he thanks other recognized scholars; and he specifically recommends the reader consult another scholar who is a critic of his counter-analysis. He also references his essay. Enough from me. The essay's at http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/000CA34A.htm It's long but well worth reading, a persuasive, radically different interpretation of an event whose significance I thought was settled long ago. His view deserves to be better known and debated. Stephen Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.tel
[tips] for Marc Carter
���On 1 October 2009 in a posting headed for Marc Carter Michael Sylvester wrote: I saw where you posed a question to me in the Tips archives but I did not receive the post in my regular mail. I am preparing to take action against Frostburg State through the ACLU if my First amendment rights are been violated FSU could lose some federal funds. The only question posed by Marc recently (as far as I can see) is the following: I lived in the Dominican Republic; baseball is bigger there than it is here, so naturally there are going to be a lot of good players coming out of there. In what way is that a bad thing? Why Michael follows his remark about a question f rom Marc with his reference to First Amendment rights is unclear. It would make more sense in relation to Jim Matiya's criticisms of Michael's language and tone in a couple of his recent postings (see below) followed by Bill Southerly's response, This matter is being addressed. My immediate reaction to Bill's comment was a concern that some action was being considered in relation to Michael's comments that some people (most I suggest) find offensive. My own feeling about such comments is that if they are continued after objections have been made (as in the case of his use of chicks for women), then subsequent postings from Michael should be ignored. Of course we don't know w hat Bill meant by the matter being addressed, but I think that (within limits – something of course difficult to define) there should not be heavy-handed action against someone who uses language most of us find offensive, or as in the following instance, unworthy of a response: Ken,Jim: Your posts are ridiculous. Are bystanders' apathy only reserved for white people?... Obviously you all know nothing about a black community. Gimme a break. Keep your eurocentric cognitive imperialistic analysis in the classrom. dude. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - --- 0A[tips] for Marc Carter michael sylvester Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:37:38 -0700 I saw where you posed a question to me in the Tips archives but I did not receive the post in my regular mail. I am preparing to take action against Frostburg State through the ACLU if my First amendment rights are been violated FSU could lose some federal funds Anyway, re your question about the Dominican Republic: yep,baseball is very popular in the DR,Panama,Porto Rico and Nicaragua and they have produced excellent players for baseball in the U.S so recruitment from those countries would be a good idea. However,among some Afro-American scholars,the Central American irecruitment has helped to dil ute the hope and aspirations of many black youth in the U.S who aspire to be players but view the Central American initiatives as competing and puts them at an unfair disadvantage. Some Afro-American scholars also see trhis as the Hispanization of the game-as if the game had become too Africanized.Interestingly enough,most of those players have African ancestry and would be considered as black according to the U.S one drop rule.But Dominicans are very racist in denying their African roots because of the mulatto escape hatch concept. But more on this later. Hope this helps. Michael Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida - --- RE: [tips] NFL/Tuskegee flashback Marc Carter Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:57:01 -0700 I lived in the Dominican Republic; baseball is bigger there than it is here, so naturally there are going to be a lot of good players coming out of there. In what way is that a bad thing? -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts Sciences Baker University - Re: [tips] Kitty Genovese/The Windy City Bill Southerly Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:30:28 -0700 FYI, This matter is being addressed. Bill TIPS ListManager --- On Sep 30, 2009, at 12:01 PM, Jim Mati ya wrote: Once again, we are subjected to Michaels' words that spread hurt, disappointment, and degrade a person. He has done this consistently over the past several years because he does not agree with another person's post. Just last week, several women objected to his reference of women as chicks. Michael, you know nothing about who I am, where I have lived and my experiences. Yet, you feel you have the right to criticize me and others, because of their race, because of their posts (too many references, too many examples), because of their sexuality. Here is the link to the complete video taken by a student at Fenger High School. Watch it and make your own decisions. Be careful, it is difficult to watch. At 42 seconds into the video, Derrion Albert is hit with a board. I do not know what people 100-200
[tips] History of false memory concept (Was: Darwin on animal experimentation)
���On 19 September 2009 Stephen Black wrote on Frances Cobbe's remarkably modern account (1867) of how false memories occur: Having a fascination with firsts, I wonder whether this is the earliest that anyone has described these concepts. My own quick Google search turned up nothing to dispute this conclusion, although it is not an easy topic for a search. Perhaps Freud could be credited with a particular form of it in his (1897? 1906?) contention that his patients confabulated stories of seduction [rape] by an adult, which he belatedly claimed were merely fantasies. (Someone named Esterson (2001) takes exception to how Freud tells this story, BTW). Stephen cites the following (small correction made! ) Esterson, A. (2001). The mythologizing of psychoanalytic history: Deception and self-deception in Freud´s accounts of the seduction theory episode. History of Psychiatry, 12, 329-352. On the issue of firsts, it was Frank Cioffi in a BBC Radio 3 broadcast in 1973 who first pointed out the numerous discrepancies in Freud's ever-changing accounts of the seduction theory episode (article published in The Listener, 7 February 1974 under the title Was Freud a Liar?). As Cioffi argued, Freud did not base his seduction theory on stories of infantile seduction related by his patients. In any case, his patients did not tell him any fictitious seduction stories. The subtitle of my artic le cited by Stephen indicates my view that that although self-deception along the lines suggested by Cobbe (how liars come to believe their own lies) played a significant role in Freud's road to the traditional story, there is abundant evidence that he also practised deliberate deception to conceal the truth about his supposed clinical findings proclaimed in 1896 as the solution to the aetiology of hysteria and obsessional neurosis. My article could well have been subtitled How he got away with it!: http://www.esterson.org/Mythologizing_psychoanalytic_history.htm A caveat to Stephen's comments. He indicates that in that Freud's retrospective explanation of the 1896 sexual abuse claims the term seduc tion was equivalent to rape. This needs amplification. Misled by Jeffrey Masson's tendentious accounts, many people think that Freud's 1896 clinical claims were about incest. In fact rape scarcely figured in the seduction theory papers, and fathers not at all. All Freud's theory required was some kind of sexual excitation in early childhood, and it would better have been described as the sexual molestation theory. In his final accounts of the episode Freud used the term seduction without specifying what he meant, and since by then he had implicated fathers (to accord with his Oedipal theory), it has often been interpreted to mean rape. Reference Cioffi, F. (1998 [1974]). Was Freud a=2 0Liar? In *Freud and the Question of Pseudoscience*, Open Court. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- [tips] History of false memory concept (Was: Darwin on animal experimentation) sblack Sat, 19 Sep 2009 Allen Esterson wrote, in drawing attention to an exchange of letters between Darwin and the Irish feminist Frances Cobbe: My knowledge of Cobbe previously did not extend beyond her perspicacious remarks on memory, which rebutted the contemporary idea of memory and also provided an explanation for false memories: Allen cited her work The Fallacies of memory (1867) as the source of her comments on memory as reprinted in _Embodied Selves_,1998) [Googling suggests the essay may have first appeared a year earlier]. Cobbe's comments (memory a finger marked traced on shifting sand) appear remarkably prescient of modern research on false memory and its malleability, which started, as far as I know, in the early 1990's with Elizabeth Loftus, and with the founding of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation. Having a fascination with firsts, I wonder whether this is the earliest that anyone has described these concepts. My own quick Google search turned up nothing to dispute this conclusion, although it is not an easy topic for a search. Perhaps Freud could be credited with 20a particular form of it in his (1897? 1906?) contention that his patients confabulated stories of seduction [rape] by an adult, which he belatedly claimed were merely fantasies. (Someone named Esterson (2001) takes exception to how Freud tells this story, BTW). However, Cobbe's treatment of false memory is more general and more compatible with current scientific knowledge, and still beats Freud by around 30 years. Anyone have anything earlier? Stephen Esterson, A. (2001). The mythologizing of psychoanalytic theory: Deception and self-deception in Freud´s accounts of the seduction theory episode. History of Psychiatry, 12, 329-352. Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop' s University e-mail: sbl
[tips] Darwin on animal experimentation
���TIPSters may be interested in a public exchange of letters between Darwin and the Irish feminist Frances Power Cobbe on animal experimentation that I've just chanced upon: http://timesonline.typepad.com/timesarchive/2009/02/video-ben-macin.html (Hold down left hand side of your mouse and drag to see complete letter.) My knowledge of Cobbe previously did not extend beyond her perspicacious remarks on memory, which rebutted the contemporary idea of memory and also provided an explanation for false memories: Memory is for ever likened by poets and rhetoricians to an engraved tablet, treasured in the recesses of mind, and liable only to obliteration by the slow abrasion of time, or the dissolving heat of=2 0 madness. We venture to affirm that such a simile is not in the remotest degree applicable to the real phenomena of the case, and that memory is neither an impression made, once for all, like an engraving on a tablet, nor yet safe for an hour from obliteration or modification, after being formed. Rather is memory a finger mark traced on shifting sand, ever exposed to obliteration when left unrenewed; and if renewed, then modified, and made, not the same, but a fresh and different mark. […] Again, by this theory of memory, we obtain an available hypothesis, to account for the notorious but marvellous fact, that liars come in time to believe their own falsehoods. The warp ing of the original trace of the story, albeit voluntary and conscious, has, equally with unconscious dereliction, effected the end of obliterating the primary mark, and substituting a false one, which has assumed the place of a remembrance. Without conscious falsehood, the same thing happens also occasionally when we realize strongly by imagination some circumstance which never happened, or happened to another person… Frances Power Cobbe, “The Fallacies of Memory” (1867) (Embodied Selves: An Anthology of Psychological Texts, pp. 151-152, OUP, 1998) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Creation
���On 13 September 2009 Jim Clark wrote: Also, USA is just tip of anti-evolution iceberg. Many developing countries have levels of religiosity that far exceed those in USA, which does not bode well for evolution. A recent survey, for example, found that only 8% of Egyptians think there is evidence for evolution… Similarly low figures for South Africa. USA had 33% believing there is evidence for evolution, versus over 50% (depressingly low) for UK, China, and Mexico. Ironically, USA had highest figure (55%) for knowing a good/fair amount about evolution. See following or numerous other sites for results. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/01/evolution I'll stick to the U K here! For some reason (sometimes, but not always, to do with the way the questions are worded) polls about evolution/intelligent design, etc, have been inconsistent in the UK in recent years. Jim cites a Guardian article from 1July 2009 reporting an international poll recording that only some 51% of UK respondents agree that the scientific evidence for evolution exists. Compare that to a Guardian article of 2 March 2009 that reports on a survey that suggests there is a widespread lack of religious sentiment across Britain. National average figures revealed that less than a third of adults see evolution as part of God's plan, 89% dismiss intelligent design and 83% reject creationism as plau sible explanations for the existence of human life. http://tinyurl.com/chev9f Again, a 2006 international poll gives a 75% figure for the acceptance of evolution in the UK: http://tinyurl.com/nmyw36 (Scroll down for international table.) Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- Re: [tips] Creation Jim Clark Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:21:28 -0700 Hi Here's a piece on Pandasthumb by Eugenie Scott on Creation with some links to other sites. http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2009/09/eugenie-scott-r.html#more Also, USA is just tip of anti-evolution iceberg. Many developing countries h ave levels of religiosity that far exceed those in USA, which does not bode well for evolution. A recent survey, for example, found that only 8% of Egyptians think there is evidence for evolution. Perhaps not surprising since only 38% had even heard of Darwin. Similarly low figures for South Africa. USA had 33% believing there is evidence for evolution, versus over 50% (depressingly low) for UK, China, and Mexico. Ironically, USA had highest figure (55%) for knowing a good/fair amount about evolution. See following or numerous other sites for results http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/01/evolution You can also complete a related survey at http://www.zoomerang.com/Surv ey/survey.zgi?p=WEB229CD3MTHT5 It is too bad they are not collecting demographic information (except religiousness) in this survey (e.g., education, gender, age, ...). Take care Jim James M. Clark --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Thanks Chris/AL
Michael Sylvester wrote: It is my understanding that Britain does not have a written constitution. So do they go by intuition or the Magna Carta? Strictly speaking, it is untrue that Britain does not have a written constitution. The legal expert Joshua Rozenberg rather describes it as uncodified. For descriptions of the (complicated) nature of British Constitutional practice, see: http://tinyurl.com/dmgqxk and/or http://tinyurl.com/nsz7kz Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] CCross-cultural: British Parliament
���Michael Sylvester wrote: British parliamentary debates and proceedings must be the most uncivilized affair on the planet. Members of parliament disrupt, laugh, boo and throw all types of verbal assaults at the Premier and cabinet ministers. It continues outside of the building where members of parliament can be pied and egged. Consider how shocking it was when Joe Wilson of South Carolina uttered You lie when Obama was speaking. It is said that this is the first time this has happened in the history of U.S presidential address to the congress. The U.S is a nation of laws and this was an unusual violation. There are other forms misbehavior that occur in other countries like fist fights and shoe throwing in other cultures but they seldom occur, but that British Benny Hill parliamentary stuff goes on all the time. I have little doubt that Michael is referring to Prime Minister's Question Time, which occupies about half-an-hour of Parliamentary time each week. Sure, the behaviour of some members on these weekly occasions is often rowdy and ill-mannered beyond what should be acceptable in a civilised debate, but on the other hand, Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQs) is an opportunity for MPs from all parties to question the PM on any subject: http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page5180 Michael's first misconception is that the behaviour of MPs during the weekly PMQs sessi on is typical of debates in the House of Commons, which is far from the case. Michael writes: It continues outside the building where members of parliament can be pied and egged. Perhaps Michael will now provide examples of incidents where MPs have been pied and egged outside parliament. I can only think that he has in mind an occasion in June this year when Nick Griffin, the leader of the far-right British National Party, was forced to abandon a press conference outside the Houses of Parliament when protesters threw eggs at him. So, Michael, please supply chapter and verse to support your assertion in relation to MPs. Consider how shocking it was when Joe Wilson=2 0of South Carolina uttered You lie when Obama was speaking. If one MP calls another member a liar in the House of Commons, the Speaker requests that the MP in question withdraws his/her statement, and if he/she does not do so, he/she is ordered to leave the chamber and may well be suspended for a week or more. There are other forms misbehavior that occur in other countries… but that British Benny Hill parliamentary stuff goes on all the time. Michael, it is quite evident that you have never seen an ordinary session of the House of Commons, otherwise you would not make such an erroneous assertion. Incidentally, as I'm sure is the case in the State s, most of the really important Parliamentary work gets done in the numerous Committees in which many MPs are involved. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org P. S. BBC News 15 May 2008 John McCain has said he would introduce an American version of prime minister's questions if elected US president. The Republican candidate will pledge later to submit himself to regular grillings by both houses of Congress. He said exchanges such as those in the British House of Commons were a way of holding leaders accountable. The weekly half hour PMQ sessions in the Commons are often rowdy affairs with party leaders 20trading insults spurred on by baying MPs. But they allow the main opposition party leaders to put the prime minister on the spot on a subject of their choice and backbench MPs to raise issues on behalf of constituents… http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7403162.stm --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] CCross-cultural: British Parliament
In his erudite and informative account, Chris Green wrote: You may recall that Margaret Thatcher was thrown out *not* by a vote of the opposition, but by a vote of her own Tory caucus. This requires some amplification. In 1990 the former Defence Minister Michael Heseltine stood against Margaret Thatcher in a first ballot for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and 'won' by 204 votes to 152. However, under the rules for the contest she needed to win the backing of both an absolute majority of Tory MPs and also win by a margin of at least 15% of the electorate. As her majority was a little short of 14% of the total number of Tory MPs, there would have to be a second ballot. Although Thatcher announced she would be standing in the second ballot, her closest advisors persuaded her that now a substantial number of Tory MPs had openly opposed her, she was unlikely win on a second ballot when other leading Tories would have their names put forward. To avoid the humiliation of a likely defeat, the next morning Thatcher announced her resignation. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] CCross-cultural: British Parliament
Sorry, I massively blundered in my posting on Margaret Thatcher: In 1990 the former Defence Minister Michael Heseltine stood against Margaret Thatcher in a first ballot for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and 'won' by 204 votes to 152. I meant to write that *Thatcher* won the first ballot by 204 votes to 152. Allen E. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
re: [tips] For MP
On 2 September Michael Sylvester wrote: It is my understanding that brevity is the hallmark of good scientific writing and enterprises. Perhaps the best response to that would be along the lines of one that Mozart supposedly gave to Emperor Josef II when the latter said of one of his works that it contained an awful lot of notes, dear Mozart: No more notes than necessary, Your Majesty! From my own experience, both personally and from observations of the writings of others, it is only too evident that an erroneous assertion made (briefly!) in one sentence or short paragraph may require several detailed paragraphs to refute comprehensively. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Determining major and minor
���On 30 August 2009 Stuart McKelvie wrote: All AE did was to make a reasonable request for a citation for MS's claim, for how can we debate a claim unless we know that it has been made? So I politely repeat Alan's request: Michael: Who has made the claim about major and minor theories and approaches (besides yourself in the posting)? In response to Michael's I have noted a tendency to allocate major status to theories emanating in Europe most of them Jewish and minor to those emanating outside of Europe, I also asked who is doing the allocating. I presume it is the ubiquitous they (details to be filled in according to one's prejudices). Allen Esterso n Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - Re: [tips] Determining major and minor michael sylvester Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:12:13 -0700 Michael, supposing what you have noted is in fact the case, please tell us who is doing the allocating. Allen Esterson Allen: One does need a weatherman to note which way the wind is blowing. Michael Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida --- RE: [tips] Determining major and minor Stuart McKelvie Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:30:05 -0700 Dear Tipsters, While I heartily approve of MS quoting a Dylan line (You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows), it is disheartening to see that his pithy comment undercuts our academic debate. All AE did was to make a reasonable request for a citation for MS's claim, for how can we debate a claim unless we know that it has been made? So I politely repeat Alan's request: Michael: Who has made the claim about major and minor theories and approaches (besides yourself in the posting)? Sincerely, Stuart Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D., Phone: 819 822 9600 x 2402 Department of Psychology, Fax: 819 822 9661 Bishop's University, 2600 rue College, Sherbrooke, Québec J1M 201Z7, Canada. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Checking references
���On 31 August 2009 Michael Smith wrote: Generally someone makes a point and provides a reference and the point tends to be considered proven and true. Does it? That's not the general impression I have of TIPSters' attitudes. (I suggest that if this were the case, there would be little point to TIPS.) Of course the public position of almost everyone is that they don't accept the point as proven and true. But, rather, the point is neither accepted nor denied for now. And everyone will of course claim that they will check out the reference(s) -- as if that is very likely. On any one thread the number of TIPSters responding is generally rather few. Of those who say th ey will check the references, how do you know that they are unlikely to have done so? My impression is that those who are the more interested in the topic in question and say they'll check the references frequently do so. How many (much fewer to almost non-existent I think) will then go on to seek out conflicting opinions and references (and again thoroughly study those) when they already have a bias that the point is true (the example here that spanking is not effective and is indeed harmful, as all the academics know). It is true that there are some topics that tend to produce a consensus but we are fortunate on TIPS that there is generally someone (I think one in par ticular may come to mind – check out the spanking thread!) who will challenge that consensus, with citations provided for consideration. Even if most TIPSters don't check out the citations in detail (or even at all), the challenge will at least mean that they are aware that the consensus view is not necessarily proven. The inclusion of a reference or two which settles it can be a kind of reference to authority. I don't know how a reference or two can settle any issue, though a closely argued, scholarly article may provide good evidence for a specific viewpoint. Again though, many will say, yes--but a reliable authority. But again, people can't know this unless the y thoroughly read and study the relevant papers (and of course the opposing papers)--which is unlikely to happen. I haven't noticed a general propensity among TIPSters to treat cited specific authors as authorities not open to question (especially in a subject like psychology!). Of course it is very time-consuming to read sometimes lengthy articles and opposing articles, and no doubt TIPSters only do so if they have a specific interest in the topic in question, but this is inevitably the case with busy people. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - ---=0 D Re: [tips] Spanking - an idea that won't go away Michael Smith Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:30:30 -0700 Michael Sylvester said he is tired of the demand for references. lol Well that's not likely to change, but I agree that you have a point. Generally someone makes a point and provides a reference and the point tends to be considered proven and true. Of course the public position of almost everyone is that they don't accept the point as proven and true. But, rather, the point is neither accepted nor denied for now. And everyone will of course claim that they will check out the reference(s) -- as if that is very likely. Or even if they do get around to checking out a reference (agai n I think pretty unlikely unless they have a specific use for it), how many will thoroughly read and study it to find if the point made is justified? How many (much fewer to almost non-existent I think) will then go on to seek out conflicting opinions and references (and again thoroughly study those) when they already have a bias that the point is true (the example here that spanking is not effective and is indeed harmful, as all the academics know). The inclusion of a reference or two which settles it can be a kind of reference to authority. Again though, many will say, yes--but a reliable authority. But again, people can't know this unless they thoroughly read and study the relevant=2 0papers (and of course the opposing papers)--which is unlikely to happen. --Mike --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Determining major and minor
How do we determine major and minor psychological theories? I have noted a tendency to allocate major status to theories emanating in Europe most of them Jewish and minor to those emanating outside of Europe. Michael, supposing what you have noted is in fact the case, please tell us who is doing the allocating. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Re: [tips] Op-Ed Contributor - No ‘Hero’s Welcome’ in Libya - NYTimes.com
Chris Green writes: It is always interesting to hear the other side of stories like the one that pervaded the Western media a couple of weeks ago that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing received a hero's welcome in Libya. As it turns out, there may not have been any such thing. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/opinion/30qaddafi.html No doubt the reception was exaggerated in the US and UK media, but there's something close to a straw man argument in Saif El-Gaddafi's article. He writes There was not in fact any official reception for the return of Mr. Megrahi, who had been convicted and imprisoned in Scotland for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. My impression, including from Googling, is that the media did not say there was an official reception, but that Megrahi was given a hero's welcome. It certainly wasn't large, and not remotely comparable to one that would have been organised by the Libyan regime had they wanted to, but viewers can be forgiven for gaining the impression of a hero's welcome, as can be seen here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8213352.stm Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Re: [tips] Op-Ed Contributor - No ‘Hero’s Welcome’ in Libya - NYTimes.com
���I have no idea how accurate this is, but here is a report in The Guardian, 21 August 2009: The spectacle of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, being greeted by crowds holding Scottish saltires at Tripoli airport triggered diplomatic aftershocks in three continents … Choreographed celebrations on the tarmac at Tripoli International airport to mark the return of the terminally ill Megrahi after eight years in a Scottish jail saw the blue and white of the Scottish national flag flown by members of the Libyan Youth Association. Kitted out in white T-shirts and caps, they were bussed in to welcome Megrahi, who stood at the top of the aircraft steps a nd raised a clenched fist in a victory salute for the TV cameras… Megrahi stepped on to Libyan soil alongside Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the leader's son. Some supporters threw flower petals as he stepped from the plane, and he was driven away in a convoy of white SUVs, horns honking. Within minutes of Megrahi's plane landing, Libyan authorities rushed much of the welcoming party away and pared the crowd down to around 300. The nationalist songs being played were halted and international media who had been brought to the airport were taken away. A Libyan TV channel connected to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had been granted exclusive rights to broadcast Megrahi's arrival live. But it did not do so. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/21/lockerbie-bomber-celebrations-libya Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Determining major and minor
���On 29 August 2009 Michael Sylvester wrote: How do we determine major and minor psychological theories? I have noted a tendency to allocate major status to theories emanating in Europe most of them Jewish and minor to those emanating outside of Europe. […] Send me something. Michael: Perhaps for a change you could send *us* something: For instance, some statistically-based evidence for your assertion. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- michael sylvester Sat, 29 Aug 2009 10:35:18 -0700 How do we determine major and minor psychological theories? I have noted a tendency to allocate major status to theories emanating in Europe most of them Jewish and minor to those emanating outside of Europe.Of course withun each group there are hierarchical divisions. Freud is over Adler. American bred functionalism puts James and Dewey on a higher status than Angell and Carr. Re behaviorism, Skinner is upgraded whereas Watson is downgraded.There are splits among gestaltists, humanists, and existentialists.And the Russian dude Vigotsky gets no respect in developmental theory. I have noted a preference to favor theories that emphasize discrete stages than overlappping and interacting phases. Send me something. Michael Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Pitfalls in academic literature
���I should perhaps clarify that my comments on Dr Hans Koechler in my previous posting in this thread were not meant to impugn his integrity, only his judgement (in more than one sense). As one of five observers appointed by the then UN secretary general Kofi Annan to attend the Lockerbie trial, his ill-advised political contentions based on self-acknowledged guesses were made in an address to an Arab League conference in Cairo. http://i-p-o.org/Observer.jpg Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - On 25 August 2009 Allen Esterson wrote [snip]: Mike also links to a n article by Dr. Hans Koechler, an international observer at the Lockerbie trial at the Hague held under Scottish law. http://i-p-o.org/nr-lockerbie-14Oct05.htm At first sight this seems impressive, and no doubt the article contains important points, but my confidence in Dr Koechler ebbed away the more I read around the subject. The article is on the website of the International Progress Organization, a non-governmental organization. I was prepared to be impressed until I looked into some of the articles on the website. When I see an article with the following concluding sentence I tend to look elsewhere for the facts about a given situation: Thus Congolese man and woman where you are stand [stand where you=0 D are?] and cut the string [held by international Capitalist Interests] that prevent each of you to transform this country into a land where flows milk and honey. http://i-p-o.org/congodem.htm More on Dr Koechler (a professor of political philosophy at Innsbruck University, not a legal expert), who is quoted as saying about the original trial: You cannot come out with a verdict of guilty for one and innocent for the other when they were both being tried with the same evidence. In my opinion there seemed [sic] to be considerable political influence on the judges and the verdict. My guess [sic] is that it came from the United Kingdom and the United States. This was my impression [sic]. How seriously can you take an assertion from someone who resorts to seems and guesses? From my own very limited knowledge of the case, I know that there was evidence relating to Megrahi that did not relate to the other defendant. More important is Koechler's ignorance of the independence of the judiciary in the UK. And the notion that *Scottish* judges would be influenced by behind-the-scenes representations from the *Westminster* government in London displays an ignorance of UK affairs of some magnificence! But let the Scottish Crown office speak for itself: A spokesman for the Crown Office in Edinburgh said… that Koechler's views were based on a complete misunderstanding of the function and independen ce of the judiciary. He added In particular he misunderstands that in Scotland, as in other English-speaking systems, criminal proceedings are adversarial, that is, involving a contest between prosecution and defence, rather than an enquiry carried out by judges. http://i-p-o.org/times.jpg --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] The compassion of Braveheart
On 25 August 2009 Paul Brandon wrote: Please note that Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was not convicted of _committing_ mass murder. He was convicted on the grounds that a Maltese shopkeeper said that he had purchased a shirt whose remnants were found wrapped around the bomb http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111881314. I'll leave alternative explanations to the readers. Paul, I don't understand this. You've conflated what Megrahi was convicted of, and the evidence on which he was convicted. As the Scottish Daily Record says: In January 2001, Megrahi was found guilty of mass murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 20 years. http://tinyurl.com/n88a9p Incidentally, the cited NPR article does not say quite what Paul states above. It says largely on the grounds of that evidence. My recollection of seeing a TV programme about the evidence some years ago is that there was considerably more to it than that. (A first appeal by Megrahi was turned down by the appeal court.) Nevertheless I am of the view that the conviction was unsafe, on the grounds that a major item in the evidence was the Maltese shopkeeper's identification of Megrahi, and that such witness identification is inherently unreliable. I was of the opinion that, had the second appeal gone ahead, significant information about the episode might well have emerged. This is not the view of Professor Peter Duff, who spent three-and-a-half years reviewing the case as a member of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission: I think it highly unlikely that the truth is out there and would have emerged as a result of the appeal. I don't know if it's out there any more. http://tinyurl.com/n88a9p Incidentally, I wonder how those in the Libyan welcome home crowd who waved Scottish flags got hold of them. I find it difficult to imagine that Scottish flags are obtainable by individuals at short notice in Libya. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] The compassion of Braveheart
is that his second appeal will now not go forward. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Pitfalls in academic literature
���In his 24 August posting on the Lockerbie affair, Mike Palij wrote: Perhaps it's a good time to remember that even experimental research only provides tentative knowledge subject to support through replication. All other 'knowledge' is frequently of even less quality. [My scare quotes!] I'd like to broaden the discussion to academics and academic literature, mostly out of my own experience. First consider Dr. Hans Koechler, an academic with the impressive credentials of being a professor of political philosophy at Innsbruck University: http://hanskoechler.com/index.htm In relation to the original Lockerbie trial Dr Koechler stated: In my opinion there seemed [sic] to be considerable political influe nce on the judges and the verdict. My guess [sic] is that it came from the United Kingdom and the United States. This was my impression [sic]. http://i-p-o.org/times.jpg A professor of political philosophy offers his considered opinion in terms of seems and guesses, while displaying a colossal ignorance of UK affairs! Would I buy a used car from Dr Koechler? Only after it had been checked very carefully by an expert. My first close encounter with academic literature occurred in the field of Freud studies. It rapidly became obvious that 'facts' in wide circulation in psychology texts and the academic literature required only the merest examination of original sources (namely Freud's=2 0own writings) and of the work of a few independently minded researchers to demonstrate that they were either false, or at the very least grossly misleading: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n08/print/borc01_.html More recently I have found a similar uncritical recycling of dubious 'facts' in relation to Einstein (e.g., about his supposedly poor educational prowess), and, especially, concerning the claims that his first wife Mileva Maric collaborated on (indeed was the co-author of) the celebrated 1905 epoch-making papers. I'm no longer talking about feminist academic literature, where unfortunately one has come to expect such things, but in mainstream serious literature. In a book by Ruth H. Howes and Carolin e L. Herzenberg, who both have held distinguished academic positions in physics, we find Mileva Maric hailed as one of the five Founding Mothers of nuclear physics (pp. 20, 26-28): http://tinyurl.com/l4c97m In *Creativity and the Brain* (eds. Mario Tokoro, Ken Mogi), Luc Steele, professor of computer science at the Free University of Brussels, writes that [Einstein's] first wife, Mileva Maric, … is actually credited now with having worked out the mathematics of special relativity, and was a joint author of other important papers (p. 116). In *Alfred North Whitehead on learning and education: theory and application*, Franz G. Riffert (Department for Educational Research and Cultural S ociology at Salzburg University) likens the alleged Einstein/Maric collaboration to that of Whitehead and Russell's joint authorship of *Principia Mathematica* (!) : The second type of collaboration is typified by the collaboration of a team, such as Whitehead and Russell's collaboration in creating the magnus opus, Principia Mathematica, or that of the young Einstein and his wife Mileva Maric-Einstein, in pondering the questions of light that led to relativity theory. (p. 170) http://tinyurl.com/ldbvup These academic authors show a colossal ignorance of basic facts, such as that Einstein had virtually acquired the knowledge of the rather elementary mathematics required for his 1905 special relativity 20paper by self-study by the age of 15, and that Maric twice failed exams for a diploma to teach mathematics and physics in secondary schools, with a dismally poor grade in the basic mathematical component, theory of functions. So where do they get their 'information' from? They are recycling 'facts' that they read in a book (of which there are now several perpetuating the mythical story). It takes a bit of effort to track down the original sources for these claims, a book and an article by Desanka Trbuhovic-Gjuric and Senta Troemel-Ploetz respectively, both of which display abysmal scholarship, and a lack of understanding of basic notions of scholarly historical research: http://www.bu tterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=218 However, with a bit of Googling there can be found references to scholarly refutations of the claims by knowledgeable historians of physics, such as Gerald Holton and John Stachel. See also Alberta A. Martinez, Handling Evidence in History: The Case of Einstein's Wife: http://tinyurl.com/2dzrmo So what general conclusions can be drawn from all this? Don't accept a supposed 'fact' on the basis of its being found repeatedly in serious/academic literature. And, above all, don't be overly impressed by the academic credentials of an author (not even by my B.Sc from University College London!). Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark
Re: [tips] The compassion of Braveheart
On 23 August 2009, I wrote: Mike, I presume you are referring to the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill. He wasn't imposing his will on everyone involved, he came to a decision that it was his responsibility to make on the basis of Scottish law and precedent. To which Mike Smith replied: Really? Besides the fact that I don't know how you could possibly know such a thing, I wonder why so many disagree with it then (including those in Scotland). If it was more or less a foregone conclusion based on Scottish law and precedent why do so many think he made the wrong decision? If it isn't a more or less foregone conclusion based on Scottish law and precedent, then MacAskill IS imposing his will on everyone involved. I didn't say MacAskill made the right decision (at least, I didn't mean to), let alone that it was a more or less foregone conclusion. By no means all legal decisions are absolutely clearcut, and I think MacAskill arrived at his decision on what *in his judgement* was the correct decision based on Scottish law and precedent. In fact, as I already noted, many people in Scotland disagree with that decision. If it isn't a more or less foregone conclusion based on Scottish law and precedent, then MacAskill IS imposing his will on everyone involved. But that is the nature of decisions made by the Justice Minister in a representative democracy. Mike wrote: I also disagree that it was his decision to make. Rather he has a responsibility to the public and to uphold the agreements arrived at that the terrorist will serve out a life sentence. He does NOT have free-will, free-wheeling, do as he thinks best authority. And As I understand comments from the people in the States via the news, It was agreed by the US that the terrorist would serve a life sentence in Scotland. On the last point first, could we have a citation please. I can't see how there could have been any such agreement with the United States, as Scotland has a devolved parliament (and, anyway, always had its own legal system) within the sovereign state of the UK. (As Paul has pointed out, a life sentence under Scottish (and England Welsh) law actually means a definite minimum sentence that may be extended in the light of the prisoner's (mis)behaviour.) He is a public SERVANT, not a public master. While MacAskill should certainly have sounded out relevant viewpoints (and he says he did), having taken them into account it is not his duty to be swayed from his carefully considered judgement. All to often people like this, bent by their position of responsibility which they mentally twist into a position of power and authority come to believe that they ARE the law rather than merely a servant of it. Since we are considering a specific case here, could we have some evidence that Kenny MacAskill fits this character study: http://www.kennymacaskill.co.uk/ Paul Brandon wrote: The jurisdiction is the UK -- Scotland; not the USA. To be precise, as I already noted, the jurisdiction is Scotland, which has always had its own legal system, and this was confirmed when a devolved Scottish Parliament was set up in 1998. This afternoon (2.30 UK time, 1.30 GMT) there will be a special session of the Scottish Parliament with a statement from the Secretary for Justice, followed by QA period: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/ From the beginning of MacAskell's statement it is clear that he sought out the views of all relevant people and groups, and took into account the advice from his legal team. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] The compassion of Braveheart
Paul Brandon wrote: At least some commentators have said that by Middle Eastern standards the welcome was muted -- that Libya could have turned out ten times the number of welcomers if it had wanted to. The Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill stated this afternoon that he made representations to the Libyan Government that there should not be an inappropriate reception for Megrahi when he was returned home, and that assurances were given to him to this effect. MacAskill stated that he regretted that these assurances were not adhered to. Given the nature of the Gaddafi regime, it was entirely possible for there to be have been no flag-waving crowd to welcome Megrahi when he arrived at the airport. In response to Scotland's compassionate release of Megrahi, the Gadaffi regime chose to show no compassion to those who still suffer from the loss of loved ones who died in the Lockerbie atrocity. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Palestinian and Islamic tipsters
On 24 August 2009 Michael Sylvester wrote: Fasting, denial, self-mortification, community sharing can all be construed as forms practices that can lead to happiness. Read Marcus Aurelius. I've dipped into Marcus Aurelius's *Meditations* on numerous occasions, and have just checked the Introduction discussing his ideas and practices, and can find nothing about fasting and self-mortification, etc, as means to happiness. Just for once, Michael, could we have a citation, otherwise I shall have to assume that you have mistaken Marcus Aurelius for someone else - an early (or not so early) Christian perhaps. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re:[tips] tips digest: August 21, 2009
��� I think that US and British officials *requested* a backdoor welcome. Obviously that request was not granted. It is always shocking to Americans when other countries really don't care what the U.S. thinks or requests. Marie -Original Message- From: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) digest tips@acsun.frostburg.edu To: tips digest recipients tips@acsun.frostburg.edu Sent: Sat, Aug 22, 2009 5:01 am Subject: tips digest: August 21, 2009 Subject: tips digest: August 21, 2009 From: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) digest tips@acsun.frostburg.edu Reply-To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@acsun.frostburg.edu Date: Sa t, 22 Aug 2009 00:01:35 -0400 TIPS Digest for Friday, August 21, 2009. 1. UFOs/British open minded 2. RE: The ten worst rock'n'roll career moves - 1 3. RE: UFOs/British open minded 4. The compassion of Braveheart 5. Eat, Pray, Love 6. What Does Tenure Protect? 7. The Rational Infant 2: The Response 8. Re: The compassion of Braveheart 9. Re: What Does Tenure Protect? 10. RE: What Does Tenure Protect? 11. Re: What Does Tenure Protect? 12. Re: The compassion of Braveheart 13. Drop the pants! 14. RE: Drop the pants! 15. Re: The compassion of Braveheart 16. RE: The compassion of Braveheart 17. RE: The compassion of Braveheart 18. RE: The compassion of Braveheart 19. =?iso-88 59-1?Q?lost-hiker_d=E9j=E0_vu?= 20. Re: The compassion of Braveheart 21. What Will We Be Talking About Next Week? 22. Re: The compassion of Braveheart 23. stats on iraq war vet suicides --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tipstext_mode=0lang=english Attached Message From: Allen Esterson allenester...@compuserve.com Subject: UFOs/British open minded Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:40:31 -0400 [tips] UFOs/British open minded On 19 August 209 Michael Sylvester wrote: The Brits have released 19 years of data collection on UFO and alien 20visitations.In contrast to the debunking of such alleged appearances in the U.S, the Brits appear open-minded to the possibility. I looked in vain for any citation relating to this assertion in this TIPS thread. Here is one, from The Guardian: This is the fourth batch of UFO files to be released since May last year and it indicates the MoD has been unwavering in its belief there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that intelligent life from outer space or alien spacecraft have landed on our planet. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/17/mod-report-ufo-sightings Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org -- --- michael sylvester Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:44:49 -0700 The Brits have released 19 years of data collection on UFO and alien visitations.In contrast to the debunking of such alleged appearances in the U.S,the Brits appear open-minded to the possibility. Michael Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida Attached Message From: Stuart McKelvie smcke...@ubishops.ca Subject: RE: The ten worst rock'n'roll career moves - 1 Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:05:10 -0400 Dear Tipsters, Chris issued a wee challenge. The Independent says: Expect to wince as a faux-moody, Howlin Wolf-esque version of Silent Night hits the charts this December, forcing Dylan loyalists, once again, to come to terms with their hero dismantling his recent artistic success. Or: To relish yet another music genre that presently includes folk, rock, rap, country, jazz, blues, gospel. Remember: Some people they tell me, I got the blood of the land in my voice. Bring it on, I say. Sincerely, Stuart _ Sent via Web Access Floreat Labore Recti cultus pectora roborant Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D., Phone: 819 822 9600 x 2402 Department of Psychology, Fax: 819 822 9661 Bishop's University, 2600 rue College, Sherbrooke, Québec J1M 1Z7, Canada. E-mail: stuart.mckel...@ubishops.ca (or smcke...@ubishops.ca) Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page: http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy Floreat Labore ___ From: Christopher D. Green [chri...@yorku.ca] Sent: 20 August 2009 22:22 To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] The ten worst rock'n'roll career moves - 1=0 D Was someone I know extolling the virtues of Bob Dylan? :-) The Independent is not amused. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-top-ten-disastrous-rocknroll-career-moves-1774270.html?action=Popup Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 chri...@yorku.camailto:chri...@yorku.ca http
Re:[tips] The compassion of Braveheart
Sorry about my previous message. I'm using a friend's PC while savouring the delights of the gently rolling hills of Herefordshire (on the border with Wales), and something went wrong. On 21 August Rick Froman wrote: Are there also cultures that think it is a good idea to welcome a mass murderer of innocent people home with the equivalent of a ticker tape parade when they had agreed that they would basically bring him in through the back door so he could compassionately spend his final days with his family? To which Marie Helweg-Larsen responded: I think that US and British officials *requested* a backdoor welcome. Obviously that request was not granted. It is always shocking to Americans when other countries really don't care what the U.S. thinks or requests. Interesting that when the Libyans ignored a perfectly reasonable request from the British Prime Minister, and US Government, that a man found guilty of the terrorist murder of some hundreds of people should not be given a hero's welcome home (out of concern that terrorists should not celebrated, and no doubt, for the feelings of the bereaved close relatives), that Marie should still find a way of putting the Americans, and by implication the British government, in the wrong rather than the Libyan regime. It is particularly abhorrent that some in the welcoming crowd waved the Scottish flag. One might stop to consider what must have been the feelings of relatives of those that perished in Lockerbie on seeing their national flag besmirched in that way. Now there is something of a backlash at home too, largely because of the jubilant scenes in Tripoli when Mr al-Megrahi got home with crowds waving flags, including Scottish ones, and cheering. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/08/090821_lockerbie_nh_sl.shtml Downing Street has released the full text of the letter sent by Gordon Brown to Gaddafi, in which the Prime Minister wished the Libyan leader a happy Ramadan. The letter asked Gaddafi to 'act with sensitivity' over Megrahi's homecoming: A high-profile return would cause further unnecessary pain for the families of the Lockerbie victims. It would also undermine Libya's growing international reputation, Brown wrote. Chris Green wrote: On this particular case, I was astonished (well, not really) to hear many Americans (and a few Brits) ask rhetorically why this man should be shown any compassion because (if he indeed did it) he didn't show any compassion to those who were killed on the flight. Well, because I would think that we *want* to show more compassion than a cold-blooded mass murderer (even to a mass murderer), that's why. It seems quite bizarre that we would let our own moral sense be dictated by the moral sense of someone we have declared to be immoral. I agree with Chris. But in the case of relatives of the victims of the atrocity, I find myself unwilling to judge their anger at the decision by the devolved Scottish government, as I have not lost a loved one under such circumstances. Mike Smith wrote: I think we also need to remember that it wasn't Europeans or Brits or the Scots who wanted the guy released. It was a single misguided individual imposing his will on everyone involved. Another case of Judicial fiat by an irresponsible individual who no doubt thinks he can create a better world by forcing his opinion on everyone else. Mike, I presume you are referring to the Scottish Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill. He wasn't imposing his will on everyone involved, he came to decision that it was his responsibility to make on the basis of Scottish law and precedent. (I imagine that such an important decision having international repercussions would not have been made without consultation with the First Minister of the minority Scottish Nationalist administration.) Apparently the three other main parties in the Scottish parliament have expressed opposition to the decision: http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Lockerbie-bomber-Megrahi-is-free.5572026.jp Allen Esterson Former Lecturer Science Department Southward College, London www.esterson.org - - From: Christopher D. Green chri...@yorku.ca Subject: Re: The compassion of Braveheart Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:15:51 -0400 Partly it is because American public opinion has become increasingly out of step with the rest of the developed world on so many socio-political issues (education, government, crime, guns, drugs, abortion, welfare, health, etc.) over the past 30 years, that American attitudes are now just expected to be fairly alien and increasingly irrelevant to parallel debates in other countries. (This is not to say that American *should* line up with everyone else, just that they *don't*, and haven't for such a long time that it is regarded as a brute fact rather than
[tips] UFOs/British open minded
[tips] UFOs/British open minded On 19 August 209 Michael Sylvester wrote: The Brits have released 19 years of data collection on UFO and alien visitations.In contrast to the debunking of such alleged appearances in the U.S, the Brits appear open-minded to the possibility. I looked in vain for any citation relating to this assertion in this TIPS thread. Here is one, from The Guardian: This is the fourth batch of UFO files to be released since May last year and it indicates the MoD has been unwavering in its belief there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that intelligent life from outer space or alien spacecraft have landed on our planet. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/aug/17/mod-report-ufo-sightings Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org - michael sylvester Wed, 19 Aug 2009 21:44:49 -0700 The Brits have released 19 years of data collection on UFO and alien visitations.In contrast to the debunking of such alleged appearances in the U.S,the Brits appear open-minded to the possibility. Michael Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
Re: [tips] Why Do Single Women Go After Married Men?
Don Allen wrote: Marriage just seems to be another one of those fitness markers such as wealth or status that women use in mate selection. That reminds me of a trailer to a comedy programme I heard on BBC radio recently. One woman says to another, What you need is a husband. I can't recall the punch line in response, but within the context of this thread, it doesn't need one! Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE: [tips] Eurocentric/non-Eurocentric
���Michael Sylvester wrote: One way to look at a non-Eurocentric approach is to consider the example of intelligence. Intelligence to me is the ability to adapt to existing environments and should not be confined to what was deemed as intelligence by a few European based scholars. I agree with Michael that intelligence could well be defined as the ability to adapt to existing environments (though this would then make all manner of creepy crawlies and plants intelligent!). I have long felt that what is described as intelligence in many instances should actually be called cognitive intelligence, or some such. Not that I have much sympathy with Howard Gardner's notions of multiple i ntelligences, aka all shall have prizes. :-) Michael Smith wrote: But 'understanding' other people, cultures, etc? I'm not so sure. Perhaps one of Michael Sylvester's basic points is that in trying to 'understand' another culture one must do so within your own culture and so one can never really 'understand' the other one. Of course on similar grounds one can never 'understand' another person, though one does one's best (well, most people do some of the time :-) ). For example, the penchant of 'Western' culture is to quantify as Michael is pointing out. But this would fly in the face of lets say a culture based on Zen Buddhism which by its nature is on-quantifiable if you are g oing to 'understand' the culture. I think, with an open and questioning mind, it is *possible* to gain quite a lot of understanding of different cultures. The nearest to the kind of culture I think you might have in mind (i.e., one in which certain beliefs and practices having a similarity to Zen Bhuddism pervade the whole society) was Tibet. Of course one can never get 'inside' the culture if one is not born and bred within it, but that doesn't mean that one cannot get a sense of what the culture is like if one is prepared to be open-minded about it (and maybe experiment with their practices, eg, meditation). (It seems to me that two different things are involved here � 80� the propensity for Western 'scientific' psychology to quantify, and the degree to which we can 'understand' other cultures.) I think someone who accepts science-based medicine, as, eg, I'm sure Jon Kabat-Zinn does, can still make use of a well thought out system of meditative practices. I don't regard Kabat-Zinn's work as outside of scientific medicine, any more than a Japanese doctor using antibiotics is practising an alien medical culture. Reference: Jon Kabat-Zinn (1990). *Full Catastrophe Living: How to Cope with Stress, Pain and Illness Using Mindfulness Meditation*. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Seeds of contemplation
Michael Sylvester wrote: If scientific findings represent flawless objectivity, why do need replications? If you presuppose an erroneous premise as here, the question is redundant. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
RE: [tips] Eurocentric/non-Eurocentric
Michael Sylvester writes: This emphasis on quantification has really created the impression that without quantication other forms of intelligence may be suspect. Imteresting enough, there has been the non_Eurocentric of the notion of multiple intelligences de-emphasing quantification and placing more emphasis not how smart are you but how are you smart Since the multiple intelligences notion has been proposed within the context of Western psychology, why do you label it non-Eurocentric? It is by no means the case that Eurocentric science always emphasizes quantification. For instance, Darwinian evolutionary theory has been hailed as one the great accomplishments of scientific endeavour, but it was developed almost entirely without quantification. (Of course later, mathematical methods became part of the theory, but it is a theory that, unlike most of physics, say, can be explained and discussed in non-quantifiable terms.) The point, of course, of the use of quantitative methodology that frequently finds application in so-called Eurocentric science (why has such a supposedly alien methodology been whole-heartedly embraced by nations such as Japan and China?) is that it facilitates either refutation, or (at least tentative) verification, of theoretical notions. Perhaps Michael could point to some well-based notions in what he calls non-Eurocentric scientific fields that have sufficient validation to be widely accepted throughout the world. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
[tips] Apology to TIPS Digest readers
I must apologise to those TIPSters who received the Digest for Monday 10 August postings. My posting in the thread RE: [tips] Drop Kicking Malcolm Gladwell, continued was inordinately long. When I click Reply to a TIPS Digest email the whole Digest automatically goes into the reply. I thought I had deleted them, but several of them survived. Things were made worse by the fact that with my AOL/Compuserve software the copied message always has huge gaps between paragraphs! I must remember to use the TIPS address in my Contacts in future. Allen E. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
