4 ms·

I almost flagged this just for being from psychologytoday. This is to psychology as astrology is to astronomy. It's tabloid-level pop-psych drivel.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dwaltrip 6y ago
Can you critique the content? The article seemed reasonable to me, so I’d love to know if there is any robust science behind it or not. I found the idea of certainty being an emotional state especially interesting.
- pirocks 6y ago
  Not the op but sure. No sources for any of the many claims in the article. No references to studies. No number based claims such as "9 out of 10 times x happens"...
  - cbolton 6y ago
    The same can be said of most non-scientific articles, blog posts, and many other texts that are nonetheless valuable. Even for scientific papers, this is not a sufficient reason for dismissal. Here is Einstein's original paper on Special Relativity: http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1905_17_891-921.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... And the initial papers on General Relativity: http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1912_38_355-369.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1912_38_443-458.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... Number of references in these papers: 0.
    - carapace 6y ago
      There are equations unambiguously relating well-defined values with established physical interpretations or meaning.
- carapace 6y ago
  Sure, and thanks for asking. Start with the opening sentence: > Much of the emotional suffering in the world comes from the substitution of power for value. From a casual POV that sounds like a meaningful statement, but from a scientific POV it's meaningless: What's "emotional suffering"? How is it measured? What's "power" in this context? How is it measured? What's "value" in this context? How is it measured? How much is "much"? How is it measured? My point is that psychology is in an alchemical as opposed to chemical phase: people are telling themselves "just so" stories and then kinda-sorta dressing it up in pseudo-scientific verbiage. You might as well consult an astrologer or numerologist. They help a lot of people, and it's much easier to remember that their underlying theories are garbage. Next sentence: > The curse of our times is that so many people have developed the habit of seeking to feel temporarily more powerful when they feel devalued. Our "times" are not "cursed" as measured by an enormous number of metrics. (E.g. violent crime is down globally, education has never been greater, etc.) In re: "so many people have developed [a] habit", where is the poll data? How do you know someone has a habit "of seeking to feel temporarily more powerful when they feel devalued"? Again, how do you measure feeling "powerful" or "devalued"? Once "afflicted" with this "habit": > They grow alienated from their more humane values, which makes them feel progressively less valuable. Again, how is this measured? What's a "more humane value"? How does one "grow alienated" from a value? Is it a thing? MY whole point, again, is that all of this sounds good until you actually try to analyse what the author is actually saying, and you find there's nothing there that you can't also get from e.g. the Psychic Friends Network. This is not science, it's pop psychology. I know what the author is getting at: You let go of the "attachment" to the "correctness" or "certainty" or "rightness" or "need to be right" and suddenly you're getting along with people much better. That's an important and worthy thing to know. And we should do science to it. (But you're not getting a scientific treatment of it from TFA, and that's what I object to.) In re: "Certainty itself is an emotional state, not an intellectual one." A more accurate way of saying that is that the word "certainty" can refer to emotional states as well as intellectual ones, and often they are interconnected. That's still not science, but it's less linguistically muddled.
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    Thanks for the response. I agree psychological research and publications need much more rigor. I could pick a bone about how I don’t think it is quite as bad astrology , etc. (which literally has zero science behind), but I see your point. I suppose I found the article interesting and useful, even if we don’t yet have robust science to support all of the arguments it makes. Here’s to hoping future developments and research can make meaningful progress towards a deeper and robust understanding of what actually makes us tick :)
- everdrive 6y ago
  I know someone who is very empathetic. Not necessarily sympathetic, though. She feels other people’s emotions strongly (and internally). A big challenge for her growing up was to learn that someone else’s sense of certainty didn’t necessarily mean anything.
wolco 6y ago
So many buzzwords. Is it candycoat sugar infused explode your brain type pop-psych drivel or more of an empty vacuous endless void pop-psych drivel style?
valuearb 6y ago
To be fair, psychology is to science as astrology is to science. It’s been defrocked by the reproducibility crisis.
- kayodelycaon 6y ago
  That doesn’t mean all of psychology is wrong or not useful. There’s some amazing things that have come out of it. We know more about how to help people process trauma and developed therapy techniques that help people live better lives. Yes, there is a lot of questionable research and getting objective, repeatable results is extremely difficult. People don’t reduce to numbers easily. At the same time, we shouldn’t throwing out the enormous amount of progress in the treatment of mental health in the last fifty years.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  It's not quite as bad as you are portraying.
- dang 6y ago
  "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The reproducibility crisis is a thing, but there's no information here. Shallow dismissals that are also grandiose are particularly low-quality.
- mythrwy 6y ago
  You are being down-voted and even reprimanded I have to voice my agreement. I also don't believe psychology is an actual science (in the proper sense of the term) and is indeed more akin to religion or even astrology. (Not that that religion and astrology are not sometimes useful, they can be, as can psychology, just that they are something besides a science).
dang 6y ago
On HN we go by article quality, not site quality [1]. Mediocre sites can produce good articles, and we want those here. Pretty much every major media site is mediocre anyhow, because of the tradeoff between quality and quantity. Some are worse, of course, but even those can occasionally produce a good article. I can't vouch for the articles but PT submissions have led to high-quality HN discussions [2]. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%20%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=points%3E50%20psychologytoday.com&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- carapace 6y ago
  Sorry, I meant the article, but I didn't phrase it clearly enough. I apologize. I should have put a newline after the first sentence, and maybe elaborated a bit (as I now have in a sib comment.)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dwaltrip 6y ago

Can you critique the content? The article seemed reasonable to me, so I’d love to know if there is any robust science behind it or not. I found the idea of certainty being an emotional state especially interesting.

pirocks 6y ago
Not the op but sure. No sources for any of the many claims in the article. No references to studies. No number based claims such as "9 out of 10 times x happens"...
- cbolton 6y ago
  The same can be said of most non-scientific articles, blog posts, and many other texts that are nonetheless valuable. Even for scientific papers, this is not a sufficient reason for dismissal. Here is Einstein's original paper on Special Relativity: http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1905_17_891-921.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... And the initial papers on General Relativity: http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1912_38_355-369.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1912_38_443-458.pdf http://myweb.rz.uni-augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein... Number of references in these papers: 0.
  - carapace 6y ago
    There are equations unambiguously relating well-defined values with established physical interpretations or meaning.
carapace 6y ago
Sure, and thanks for asking. Start with the opening sentence: > Much of the emotional suffering in the world comes from the substitution of power for value. From a casual POV that sounds like a meaningful statement, but from a scientific POV it's meaningless: What's "emotional suffering"? How is it measured? What's "power" in this context? How is it measured? What's "value" in this context? How is it measured? How much is "much"? How is it measured? My point is that psychology is in an alchemical as opposed to chemical phase: people are telling themselves "just so" stories and then kinda-sorta dressing it up in pseudo-scientific verbiage. You might as well consult an astrologer or numerologist. They help a lot of people, and it's much easier to remember that their underlying theories are garbage. Next sentence: > The curse of our times is that so many people have developed the habit of seeking to feel temporarily more powerful when they feel devalued. Our "times" are not "cursed" as measured by an enormous number of metrics. (E.g. violent crime is down globally, education has never been greater, etc.) In re: "so many people have developed [a] habit", where is the poll data? How do you know someone has a habit "of seeking to feel temporarily more powerful when they feel devalued"? Again, how do you measure feeling "powerful" or "devalued"? Once "afflicted" with this "habit": > They grow alienated from their more humane values, which makes them feel progressively less valuable. Again, how is this measured? What's a "more humane value"? How does one "grow alienated" from a value? Is it a thing? MY whole point, again, is that all of this sounds good until you actually try to analyse what the author is actually saying, and you find there's nothing there that you can't also get from e.g. the Psychic Friends Network. This is not science, it's pop psychology. I know what the author is getting at: You let go of the "attachment" to the "correctness" or "certainty" or "rightness" or "need to be right" and suddenly you're getting along with people much better. That's an important and worthy thing to know. And we should do science to it. (But you're not getting a scientific treatment of it from TFA, and that's what I object to.) In re: "Certainty itself is an emotional state, not an intellectual one." A more accurate way of saying that is that the word "certainty" can refer to emotional states as well as intellectual ones, and often they are interconnected. That's still not science, but it's less linguistically muddled.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  Thanks for the response. I agree psychological research and publications need much more rigor. I could pick a bone about how I don’t think it is quite as bad astrology , etc. (which literally has zero science behind), but I see your point. I suppose I found the article interesting and useful, even if we don’t yet have robust science to support all of the arguments it makes. Here’s to hoping future developments and research can make meaningful progress towards a deeper and robust understanding of what actually makes us tick :)
everdrive 6y ago
I know someone who is very empathetic. Not necessarily sympathetic, though. She feels other people’s emotions strongly (and internally). A big challenge for her growing up was to learn that someone else’s sense of certainty didn’t necessarily mean anything.

wolco 6y ago

So many buzzwords. Is it candycoat sugar infused explode your brain type pop-psych drivel or more of an empty vacuous endless void pop-psych drivel style?

valuearb 6y ago

To be fair, psychology is to science as astrology is to science. It’s been defrocked by the reproducibility crisis.

kayodelycaon 6y ago
That doesn’t mean all of psychology is wrong or not useful. There’s some amazing things that have come out of it. We know more about how to help people process trauma and developed therapy techniques that help people live better lives. Yes, there is a lot of questionable research and getting objective, repeatable results is extremely difficult. People don’t reduce to numbers easily. At the same time, we shouldn’t throwing out the enormous amount of progress in the treatment of mental health in the last fifty years.
dwaltrip 6y ago
It's not quite as bad as you are portraying.
dang 6y ago
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html The reproducibility crisis is a thing, but there's no information here. Shallow dismissals that are also grandiose are particularly low-quality.
mythrwy 6y ago
You are being down-voted and even reprimanded I have to voice my agreement. I also don't believe psychology is an actual science (in the proper sense of the term) and is indeed more akin to religion or even astrology. (Not that that religion and astrology are not sometimes useful, they can be, as can psychology, just that they are something besides a science).

dang 6y ago

On HN we go by article quality, not site quality [1]. Mediocre sites can produce good articles, and we want those here. Pretty much every major media site is mediocre anyhow, because of the tradeoff between quality and quantity. Some are worse, of course, but even those can occasionally produce a good article. I can't vouch for the articles but PT submissions have led to high-quality HN discussions [2]. [1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%20%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... [2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=points%3E50%20psychologytoday.com&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

carapace 6y ago
Sorry, I meant the article, but I didn't phrase it clearly enough. I apologize. I should have put a newline after the first sentence, and maybe elaborated a bit (as I now have in a sib comment.)