4 ms·

"the minimum ratio of positive-to-negative emotions humans need over time to “flourish” to be 2.9013" "It reflects the highest positivity ratio (observed ratio

"the minimum ratio of positive-to-negative emotions humans need over time to “flourish” to be 2.9013" "It reflects the highest positivity ratio (observed ratio = 5.6) and the broadest range of inquiry and advocacy. It is also the most generative and flexible. Mathematically, its trajectory in phase space never duplicates itself, representing maximal degrees of freedom and behavioral flexibility. In the terms of physics and mathematics, this is a chaotic attractor.”" They needed someone to write a paper to point out this was pseudoscientific BS? Not only that, but the paper was cited over 1000 times?! Absolutely terrifying.

99052882514569 7y ago
Some people will read this and say to themselves: "I'm in the wrong field". Others will say to themselves: "I'm sure glad I'm not in that field".
luckylion 7y ago
> Not only that, but the paper was cited over 1000 times?! With a bit of mining, you could probably identify other likely BS papers by looking at what they cite. Has that been done before?
- richmarr 7y ago
  > With a bit of mining, you could probably identify other likely BS papers by looking at what they cite. Has that been done before? Yep. http://www.citnetexplorer.nl/ http://www.citnetexplorer.nl/
bartread 7y ago
> Absolutely terrifying. Indeed. We seem to be increasingly awash with evidence that the standards of rigour in academic journals across a number of fields are... quite poor. Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose set out to demonstrate this in the field of grievance studies by submitting and, in some cases, successfully publishing a series of fake papers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg I mean, in some sense this is highly entertaining for the rest of us, but it is also utterly horrifying.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  That's not the first time fake papers have been published and even cited. No researcher has the time to read all the papers published in their field. There are no penalties for publishing bad science, and no rewards for debunking it. Recent moves to stop p-hacking by removing the need to show statistical significance will (if they get through) only make this worse. Something has to change.
all_blue_chucks 7y ago
I honestly don't think there is anyone who would claim that the current standards in social sciences meet the same degree if scientific rigor found in the physical sciences.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  I can't find it now, but I read a crticism of recent physics papers that analyse partical collisions, because partical collisions are not deterministic and therefore have to be analysed with statistics. The criticism is that the manipulation of statistics to p-hack results is creeping into physics.
Chlorus 7y ago
> Mathematically, its trajectory in phase space never duplicates itself, representing maximal degrees of freedom and behavioral flexibility. In the terms of physics and mathematics, this is a chaotic attractor.”" Someone at Paramount is kicking themselves for not putting that in a Star Trek script.
Bartweiss 7y ago
I expected bad execution and missed confounders here. I also expected an impossibly-high effect size, the same way random priming effects were claimed to override basically all other factors in our lives. I didn't expect outright gibberish.

99052882514569 7y ago

Some people will read this and say to themselves: "I'm in the wrong field". Others will say to themselves: "I'm sure glad I'm not in that field".

luckylion 7y ago

> Not only that, but the paper was cited over 1000 times?! With a bit of mining, you could probably identify other likely BS papers by looking at what they cite. Has that been done before?

richmarr 7y ago
> With a bit of mining, you could probably identify other likely BS papers by looking at what they cite. Has that been done before? Yep. http://www.citnetexplorer.nl/ http://www.citnetexplorer.nl/

bartread 7y ago

> Absolutely terrifying. Indeed. We seem to be increasingly awash with evidence that the standards of rigour in academic journals across a number of fields are... quite poor. Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose set out to demonstrate this in the field of grievance studies by submitting and, in some cases, successfully publishing a series of fake papers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZZNvT1vaJg I mean, in some sense this is highly entertaining for the rest of us, but it is also utterly horrifying.

marcus_holmes 7y ago
That's not the first time fake papers have been published and even cited. No researcher has the time to read all the papers published in their field. There are no penalties for publishing bad science, and no rewards for debunking it. Recent moves to stop p-hacking by removing the need to show statistical significance will (if they get through) only make this worse. Something has to change.

all_blue_chucks 7y ago

I honestly don't think there is anyone who would claim that the current standards in social sciences meet the same degree if scientific rigor found in the physical sciences.

marcus_holmes 7y ago
I can't find it now, but I read a crticism of recent physics papers that analyse partical collisions, because partical collisions are not deterministic and therefore have to be analysed with statistics. The criticism is that the manipulation of statistics to p-hack results is creeping into physics.

Chlorus 7y ago

> Mathematically, its trajectory in phase space never duplicates itself, representing maximal degrees of freedom and behavioral flexibility. In the terms of physics and mathematics, this is a chaotic attractor.”" Someone at Paramount is kicking themselves for not putting that in a Star Trek script.

Bartweiss 7y ago

I expected bad execution and missed confounders here. I also expected an impossibly-high effect size, the same way random priming effects were claimed to override basically all other factors in our lives. I didn't expect outright gibberish.