On 19 Nov 2009 at 11:02, Paul Brandon wrote: > > Since I was talking primarily about my own behavior, I find it > strange to be accused of being judgmental.
I said Paul was judgemental because he was, meaning he reached a judgement, or conclusion, about Harris' work. His conclusion was this, and he was not talking about himself: "I think that Joan has a valid point about Harris' failure [in her book] to address a considerable behavioral literature in the past 20 years showing the effects of parental actions on child behavior" . What I questioned was how he could come to this judgement when he admitted that he had not read her book. Not having read it, how could he possibly know whether Harris had or had not addressed a considerable behavioral literature? > I'll simply ask you one specific question (if I had a copy of the > book available I'd answer it myself ;-): how many recent studies > (the past 20 years ) from the behavioral literature did she cite? Always eager to help, I went at it. It was a long and boring task, as there are about 800 references in her book (remember when Joan said there were none?). Almost all fall within the period of the previous 20 years from publication in 1998. I looked only at the titles of her entries. I'm not sure what Paul wanted by specifying "behavioral literature" but I took it to mean any study which involved socialization in some way, which is what our discussion was about. This included, for example, self-esteem, which is not a behaviour. Studies which seemed concerned only with genetics were omitted, as were citations which were not studies (e.g. magazine articles), and I left out anything which I wasn't sure how to categorize. I counted 200 citations. Maybe that's not what Paul wanted. Perhaps he wanted "parental actions on child behavior". OK, as above but counting only studies using such words as "attachment", "parents", "rearing", "mothers", "fathers", "maltreatment", "divorce", etc., this time I get 83 studies. Also remember, as I said in a previous post, that Harris pointed out that many such studies are flawed in failing to consider a genetic interpretation of their results. So there would be no point for her to review them. Doesn't that sound as though she had "addressed a considerable behavioral literature"? Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: [email protected] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
