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> Johann Hari A man whose professional experience is journalist and has no science, medical, public health, or psychotherapy background... and he’s trying to s

> Johann Hari A man whose professional experience is journalist and has no science, medical, public health, or psychotherapy background... and he’s trying to sell a book. Is this too harsh a take? Is there a reason I should be taking his opinion seriously?

ghthor 6y ago
Because it's a novel opinion, and novel opinions are what a good scientist needs to make major breakthroughs. I sure people were saying the same things about Galileo as there were of the women from Alexandria before him, etc.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I like this, as scientists need hypotheses to test and often those can come from non-scientists. I wonder how many of our scientific discoveries have come from suggestions (or bold statements) from people in other fields. Sure, many may prove to be false, but I like how you've framed it as a novel opinion that could spur further research into a topic. What is science, if not a never-ending quest to learn more about the universe?
  - Donthatme 6y ago
    > I like this, as scientists need hypotheses to test and often those can come from non-scientists. Bold claim, or tortured use of often. > I wonder how many of our scientific discoveries have come from suggestions (or bold statements) from people in other fields. A lot of academic fields are fairly siloed from others. One example is presentations at a conference from a subfield that is just slightly oblique from yours is hard to follow because they use different jargon than you. It is getting a little better with some emphasis on interdisciplinary research. > Sure, many may prove to be false, but I like how you've framed it as a novel opinion that could spur further research into a topic. From my experience with being blasted by spam ideas just because my contact information is in a university's physics directory, a lot of/most 'novel opinion' is noise.
    - jimkleiber 6y ago
      > Bold claim, or tortured use of often. Fair point, it may not be that often. > A lot of academic fields are fairly siloed from others. One example is presentations at a conference from a subfield that is just slightly oblique from yours is hard to follow because they use different jargon than you. It is getting a little better with some emphasis on interdisciplinary research. True, jargon and other aspects can draw divisions really fast. I left the electrical and computer engineering department at my university to pursue international studies because it was interdisciplinary and I could basically build my own major from economics, intl business, anthropology, political science, and other areas. So I'm probably biased towards interdisciplinary stuff and maybe see more of it than there may be. > From my experience with being blasted by spam ideas just because my contact information is in a university's physics directory, a lot of/most 'novel opinion' is noise. I can only imagine how many novel theories of the universe you receive and how few have relevance. I still think sometimes we can see patterns in the odd/wrong suggestions they provide and come to hypotheses about things, but maybe more so in some fields than others, and maybe much less directly than I had postulated. Anyway, really appreciate the back and forth dialogue :-)
- peteretep 6y ago
  > novel opinions are what a good scientist needs to make major breakthroughs I wonder how frequently those opinions come from journalists trying to hawk books on fairly facile premisses tho
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    Hard to know...partially because I feel a bit embarrassed to admit, but I don't feel 100% confident I understand what "facile premises" means. What do you mean by it?
moneywoes 6y ago
Thank you for bringing that up. I often forget to validate sources prior to looking at their viewpoint.
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic (or ironic?), as I think about HN being a platform where we present our viewpoints with few of our identities able to be validated. However, I can see value in both.
jimkleiber 6y ago
I mean, you don't have to take his opinion seriously, or more importantly, as a final answer to the issue of addiction. I personally don't think that just because he's a journalist without those backgrounds, that he's not capable of learning and presenting truth in those spaces—I see a lot of value in journalistic skills of investigation and interdisciplinary exploration. That being said, it doesn't necessarily mean he's right or that he's not exaggerating or oversimplifying. I found the podcast episode to be quite compelling to get me more interested in looking up other sources to see whether they agree with him, or if they differ, and in which ways. Even you posting this, questioning his credibility, inspired me to search a bit of what people with more experience in directly related scientific fields have said. Some have questioned whether the studies done with rats extrapolate to humans, some have questioned his seeming disapproval of antidepressants, and more. I guess it just depends on who and what you trust to give you the truth about this issue. I found the interview illuminating, but that doesn't mean you would or should.
- nonissue 6y ago
  I don't know anything about him, but based on his wikipedia article, I wouldn't put any stock at all in his journalistic skills. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    That's OK. Admittedly, if I had read that before, I may have seen his work more skeptically but I would still probably have engaged. With a lot of journalists reporting on science, if I can, I try to dig deeper into the studies they quote and go to the primary sources. Other times I probably just judge what they're saying based on my gut and intuition, trying to take shortcuts and hoping it's right :-)
stordoff 6y ago
Also a known plagiarist[1] and someone who has had his book's presentation of mental health/healthcare challenged[2]. It's an interesting (albeit I think too sweeping) opinion, but using him as a source just makes me question it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Plagiarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Plagiarism [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2018/jan/08/is-everything-johann-hari-knows-about-depression-wrong-lost-connections https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2018/jan/...
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  I didn't know about the plagiarism or the editing of his critics' Wikipedia pages to portray them in a more negative light. I find the plagiarism to be concerning for trusting what he has done, and yet I think in this case, I would find fabrication worse than quoting someone from another conversation. About the Wiki edits, I see it as petty and yet not detracting too much from what I quoted, but again, maybe I'm just sticking to it because I like the argument he made, unwilling to dig deeper. On the second point, I think it would be hard to find a book talking about mental health/healthcare that weren't challenged, but I could be wildly wrong on this. I just get the impression that there are many many takes on mental health, especially coming from a variety of fields—psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, social work, sociology, criminology, etc.—and that I personally believe we still have a lot to learn in this space. I agree the opinion is probably too sweeping, as I like to qualify most of my statements and some people, especially authors and politicians, often exaggerate theirs. > Your comment reminds me of an episode of Joe Rogan with Johann Hari [1], talking about what really causes addiction and the failures of the "war on drugs." I guess I'm a bit confused at such pushback on Hari, but maybe by putting "really" in my statement, with such confidence in the statement, I invited such a challenge.

ghthor 6y ago

Because it's a novel opinion, and novel opinions are what a good scientist needs to make major breakthroughs. I sure people were saying the same things about Galileo as there were of the women from Alexandria before him, etc.

jimkleiber 6y ago
I like this, as scientists need hypotheses to test and often those can come from non-scientists. I wonder how many of our scientific discoveries have come from suggestions (or bold statements) from people in other fields. Sure, many may prove to be false, but I like how you've framed it as a novel opinion that could spur further research into a topic. What is science, if not a never-ending quest to learn more about the universe?
- Donthatme 6y ago
  > I like this, as scientists need hypotheses to test and often those can come from non-scientists. Bold claim, or tortured use of often. > I wonder how many of our scientific discoveries have come from suggestions (or bold statements) from people in other fields. A lot of academic fields are fairly siloed from others. One example is presentations at a conference from a subfield that is just slightly oblique from yours is hard to follow because they use different jargon than you. It is getting a little better with some emphasis on interdisciplinary research. > Sure, many may prove to be false, but I like how you've framed it as a novel opinion that could spur further research into a topic. From my experience with being blasted by spam ideas just because my contact information is in a university's physics directory, a lot of/most 'novel opinion' is noise.
  - jimkleiber 6y ago
    > Bold claim, or tortured use of often. Fair point, it may not be that often. > A lot of academic fields are fairly siloed from others. One example is presentations at a conference from a subfield that is just slightly oblique from yours is hard to follow because they use different jargon than you. It is getting a little better with some emphasis on interdisciplinary research. True, jargon and other aspects can draw divisions really fast. I left the electrical and computer engineering department at my university to pursue international studies because it was interdisciplinary and I could basically build my own major from economics, intl business, anthropology, political science, and other areas. So I'm probably biased towards interdisciplinary stuff and maybe see more of it than there may be. > From my experience with being blasted by spam ideas just because my contact information is in a university's physics directory, a lot of/most 'novel opinion' is noise. I can only imagine how many novel theories of the universe you receive and how few have relevance. I still think sometimes we can see patterns in the odd/wrong suggestions they provide and come to hypotheses about things, but maybe more so in some fields than others, and maybe much less directly than I had postulated. Anyway, really appreciate the back and forth dialogue :-)
peteretep 6y ago
> novel opinions are what a good scientist needs to make major breakthroughs I wonder how frequently those opinions come from journalists trying to hawk books on fairly facile premisses tho
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  Hard to know...partially because I feel a bit embarrassed to admit, but I don't feel 100% confident I understand what "facile premises" means. What do you mean by it?

moneywoes 6y ago

Thank you for bringing that up. I often forget to validate sources prior to looking at their viewpoint.

jimkleiber 6y ago
I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic (or ironic?), as I think about HN being a platform where we present our viewpoints with few of our identities able to be validated. However, I can see value in both.

jimkleiber 6y ago

I mean, you don't have to take his opinion seriously, or more importantly, as a final answer to the issue of addiction. I personally don't think that just because he's a journalist without those backgrounds, that he's not capable of learning and presenting truth in those spaces—I see a lot of value in journalistic skills of investigation and interdisciplinary exploration. That being said, it doesn't necessarily mean he's right or that he's not exaggerating or oversimplifying. I found the podcast episode to be quite compelling to get me more interested in looking up other sources to see whether they agree with him, or if they differ, and in which ways. Even you posting this, questioning his credibility, inspired me to search a bit of what people with more experience in directly related scientific fields have said. Some have questioned whether the studies done with rats extrapolate to humans, some have questioned his seeming disapproval of antidepressants, and more. I guess it just depends on who and what you trust to give you the truth about this issue. I found the interview illuminating, but that doesn't mean you would or should.

nonissue 6y ago
I don't know anything about him, but based on his wikipedia article, I wouldn't put any stock at all in his journalistic skills. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari
- jimkleiber 6y ago
  That's OK. Admittedly, if I had read that before, I may have seen his work more skeptically but I would still probably have engaged. With a lot of journalists reporting on science, if I can, I try to dig deeper into the studies they quote and go to the primary sources. Other times I probably just judge what they're saying based on my gut and intuition, trying to take shortcuts and hoping it's right :-)

stordoff 6y ago

Also a known plagiarist[1] and someone who has had his book's presentation of mental health/healthcare challenged[2]. It's an interesting (albeit I think too sweeping) opinion, but using him as a source just makes me question it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Plagiarism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari#Plagiarism [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2018/jan/08/is-everything-johann-hari-knows-about-depression-wrong-lost-connections https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2018/jan/...

jimkleiber 6y ago
I didn't know about the plagiarism or the editing of his critics' Wikipedia pages to portray them in a more negative light. I find the plagiarism to be concerning for trusting what he has done, and yet I think in this case, I would find fabrication worse than quoting someone from another conversation. About the Wiki edits, I see it as petty and yet not detracting too much from what I quoted, but again, maybe I'm just sticking to it because I like the argument he made, unwilling to dig deeper. On the second point, I think it would be hard to find a book talking about mental health/healthcare that weren't challenged, but I could be wildly wrong on this. I just get the impression that there are many many takes on mental health, especially coming from a variety of fields—psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, social work, sociology, criminology, etc.—and that I personally believe we still have a lot to learn in this space. I agree the opinion is probably too sweeping, as I like to qualify most of my statements and some people, especially authors and politicians, often exaggerate theirs. > Your comment reminds me of an episode of Joe Rogan with Johann Hari [1], talking about what really causes addiction and the failures of the "war on drugs." I guess I'm a bit confused at such pushback on Hari, but maybe by putting "really" in my statement, with such confidence in the statement, I invited such a challenge.