Re Jeff Nagelbush�s posting on Lauren Slater's book: A Google search came up with a follow-up by Michael B. Miller (Assistant Professor, Division of Epidemiology and Institute of Human Genetics, University of Minnesota) to Ian Pitcher�s information about letters sent to Norton Publishers correcting various false quotations adduced by Slater in her book *Opening Skinner�s Box*:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psychiatry-research/message/5883 Extract from Michael Miller�s message: [�] Slater interviewed Robert Spitzer, Elizabeth Loftus, Jerome Kagan and Julie Vargas (BF Skinner's daughter) for her book, but all four of those interviewees have sent e-mails to Spitzer and others (and I have seen those e-mails) stating that Slater fabricated parts of their interviews and had attributed words to them that they hadn't uttered and ideas to them that they hadn't endorsed. She often presented these famous professors as if they were mean or crazy people. That's one problem. The second problem is probably more serious -- she is very inaccurate in her presentation of facts about the studies she describes. In fact, she invents experimental design features that were not included in the original studies. Scott Lilienfeld at Emory and Bob Spitzer at N.Y. State Psychiatric Institute have been finding many serious mistakes in Slater's description of the Rosenhan study. Lilienfeld also found egregious errors in Slater's account of the Milgram study. The third problem with Slater's book is that she claims to have conducted several difficult and/or ethically-questionable studies of her own -- a replication of Rosenhan, a 40-year follow-up of Milgram's subjects and self-experimentation with opiates. These reported studies present a problem because we have no means of determining if she actually conducted any of them. My guess, based on her reports of her findings and on other observations of her conduct, is that she fabricated all three of these studies. We don't know if Slater is so severely mentally ill that she can't distinguish reality from fantasy or right from wrong (she claims a long history of mental illness in her books) -- that's one possible explanation for her strange behavior. Another possible explanation is that she lies because it helps her to attract attention with spicier, more sensational stories. The attention helps her to sell books and to make money. She is a very important figure, according to the Village Voice, but would she have achieved so much acclaim if she had been honest and accurate? Mike ---------- An extract from Slater�s book in the 31 January 2004 issue of The Guardian is at: http://us.altnews.com.au/print.php?sid=6419 Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
