On 2003-11-23 20:35:00, Antigen wrote:
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On 2003-11-23 19:25:00, Anonymous wrote:
That's how we did our literature searches in college for our research projects. If you haven't had a course in psychological statistics, psychologial testing, and the college freshman introductory series of psychology courses, it's likely to be Greek to you, so expect it to be hard going wading through it.
Ah yes! The sacred science. The seer stones of the loaded language. You must approach the inner sanctum of knowledge and understaning either through an enlightened cleric or by way of years of sacrifice and dedication. You may not simply think and understand for yourself.
Please! :roll:
Where's the causual effect? We know, for example, that people who are grieving the loss of a loved one or some other tragedy completely outside of the influence of either genetics or biological disease or injury will also test out low on serotonin (unless, of course, it's a traditional Rastafarian or Arcadian wake). And PET scans on avid football fans at touchdown will show the same rapid pattern differences as in a clinically manic or depressed patient.
Where's the evidence to support a causative effect?
In laymen's terms:
A wet sidewalk
Don't really bring the rain
And the rooster's crow
Won't bring out the Sun again
Do you see how you might be falling for Program style slight of mind? Whenever I see a policy or sales advocate with a PET scan, I'm reminded of a Partnership for a Drug Free America ad that got pulled from circulation not long after NORML forced a peer review and subsiquent suit against the government agency that provided funding for it.
They held up two brain scans; one all bright and cheery yellows, oranges and reds and the other a dark hole with a little blue and grey. The healthy brain, they said, was drug free while the dead looking one was that of a pot smoker. Technically, it was. However, they neglected to mention that the pot smoker had been in a coma at the time of the test, having been hit by a truck.
I wish I could have your faith that most professionals are trustworthy and above deceptive marketing and politicing. But I'd have to discard out of hand a whole lot of my own experiences and observations about how human beings operate in order to accept that basic premis.
Is there such a thing as inherited and/or biological brain disease? I'm positive of it. Not so sure modern science has any concept of where to draw the line between individuality and dysfunction. But I'm sure there are people with poorly functioning brains due to heredity and injury.
But is most, or even quite a lot, of what we now call mental illness organic in origin? I doubt it very seriously. If it is, it's got the most peculiar means of propagation ever. It seems to selectively afflict the socially weaker in any human relationship, regardless of any other factors.
It's a common thread. Is the kid defficient in his ability to pay attention? Or are the teacher and curriculum just mind numbingly boring? Is the kid afflicted because she's sad? Or is she living in a sad world? Is the kid learning disabled? Or has he just got better things to do with his mind than what somebody else has in mind for him?
I think the vast majority of what we call mental illness is nothing but scapegoating the victim. Cause that's just how people tend to behave, given the power over others to do so.
What kind of humanism expresses its reluctance to sacrifice military casualties by devastating the civilian economy of its adversary for decades to come?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684855674/circlofmiamithem' target='_new'> Henry Kissinger
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Ginger, evaluating the research to see if it is well or poorly done, and whether, if well done, it actually does prove what the researcher *says* it proves IS thinking for yourself.
You just have to develop the competence to understand what the hell you're looking at before you can do that.
And, of course, causality is part of the whole question---and to understand if it's proven, you have to understand what kind of research and data provides support to the theory that A causes B, and what kind of research and data is not capable of providing information about causality.
And a literature search is how you get the information about which to think for yourself. Because if you don't have data, then you're just building a priori castles in the air like Des Cartes. Anti-empiricism ultimately boils down to solipsism. It's a philosophical dead end.
It sounds like you're accusing me of making an argument from authority. If so, then you don't understand my argument. I'm arguing that the scientific method, applied correctly, *works*----and that you have no right to make broad sweeping claims about what "nobody" has seen when you haven't even bothered to apply that "thinking for yourself" to the body of collected data by going out and doing a literature search.
What you appear to mean by "thinking for yourself" is that reasoning from anecdotes in the wilfull absence of actual data (and no, the plural of anecdote is not "data") and conclusions arrived at therefrom is the equal or superior of reasoning from a careful evaluation of actual data from the body of experimental evidence from the body of experiments where sound scientific methods were actually correctly followed.
Garbage.
Reasoning from anecdotes leads people to all kinds of incorrect conclusions, systematically, when and where the anecdotes differ systematically from the real underlying phenomena---as they frequently do.
Reasoning from anecdotes is fine in a pinch when you don't have the actual data and you've got to make a decision *now*. But an opinion formed from reasoning from anecdotes is *substantially* inferior to one formed from correct reasoning based on soundly-gathered data from well-designed experiments and studies.
Look, if you don't want to *bother* doing a literature search or learning how to evaluate that information FINE.
NOBODY has time to go do a literature search on everything, and unless you really have a jones for understanding some particular thing, bothering to do so can seriously get in the way of having a life.
The only thing I'm bitching about is the arrogance of saying "nobody" has seen the research when you *haven't* bothered to go do a literature search and look at it.
I generally like you, but that is colossally arrogant.
I don't have a problem with "I'm not convinced, and I really don't care enough to take the time to pursue it."
I have a *real* problem with saying "nobody's seen it" about some body of research (ANY body of research on ANY topic) when the REASON some particular person "hasn't seen it," IF they haven't, is that they're too intellectually lazy to GO LOOK.
"I'm not convinced"---FINE
"It doesn't jibe with my life experience"---FINE
"Nobody's seen it"---NOT FINE. How DARE you say "nobody's seen it" when you HAVEN'T LOOKED!!!!
Sorry, that just floors me.
And what floors me about it has nothing to do with the particular topic under discussion---we could be discussing ANY area of knowledge science has explored and I'd be having the same reaction, and don't you dare accuse me of "not thinking for myself" because I look at science----Because on the issues I care about enough to do a literature search I am NOT arguing from the "authority" of guys in white lab coats, I'm arguing from knowing damned well how to decide for myself if a particular piece of research is well done or a pile of crap and whether it proves what the researcher says it proves----and I've rejected the conclusions of *plenty* of published studies from "scientists" with pretty credentials because the research methodology or analysis methods were a load of crap or because the experimental results did NOT in fact prove what the researcher with the pretty credentials said they proved. And not all the research I've rejected as flawed crap has been drawing conclusions I disagreed with (although I disagreed that that piece of research supported those conclusions), and not all the research I've accepted as sound has been drawing conclusions I agreed with.
What I'm upset about here has nothing to do with who's right on their view of a particular issue---it's the whole arrogance of "nobody's seen it" when you HAVEN'T LOOKED.
Program thinking my eye.
I like you, but you're better than this.
