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Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid

• rcdwealth 4y ago
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• leetrout 4y ago
  It seems pointless, difficult and dangerous all at the same time to try to police our speech and writing. Some things have benign usage that is not harming anyone or any group of people and convey the intended meaning better than alternative words.
  • bheadmaster 4y ago
    I think there's a difference between police-ing speech, and clarifying it. Language is hard, and misunderstandings are surprisingly common, and many world's evils comes from pure misunderstanding. Most misunderstandings arise from people having different understanding of same words - so approaching agreement on the meaning of words is important to reduce misunderstandings. The problem is the language is self-manifesting - the word gains the meaning from the way people use it, even when the meaning differs from the original (perhaps academic or technical) meaning. So one side has to stand back - either academia (in this case, psychiatry), or the general population. Since academia largely relies on solid, defined meanings of words, while the general population relies on "how other people are currently using it", it's supposed to be easier to change the usage by the general population. Although it's pretty hard to do both ways. Otherwise, we end up with words having two distinct meanings, one professional, and other layman.
    • mantas 4y ago
      • harimau777 4y ago
        Due to the second law of thermodynamics, all work is neverending wack-a-mole. That in of itself doesn't mean that the work is useless.
      • eckza 4y ago
        On some level I agree; however, this article in particular is not a collection of virtue signals. If I have failed to see how this is not the case, I would appreciate some examples.
      • astrange 4y ago
        Virtue signalling is a good thing and an essential part of leadership.
        • bheadmaster 4y ago
          Why do you see virtue signalling as a good thing? What good comes from empty posturing?
          • astrange 4y ago
            Leaders obviously aren’t required to personally do the things they ask you to do. An army where the general dies in battle isn’t a good army.
            • bheadmaster 4y ago
              I extremely disagree. Leaders that don't lead by example aren't real leaders, but demagouges and deceivers. To become a general, you must first be a soldier.
              • astrange 4y ago
                That's not how generals work, they go to officer school, don't they? Actually I don't think "virtue signalling" implies "doesn't do it themselves". Vegans who go around telling everyone they're vegan generally don't secretly eat meat.
  • ebiester 4y ago
    However, this is a list for students, teachers, and researchers, and within that context, precision is important. This group of terms in the article is not about policing - something like "crazy" or "schizophrenic". It's about technical terminology within that particular context. It also was a good article about the problems behind the mental model.
    • leetrout 4y ago
      To pick one example, I don't think expanding the use of fetish to include an obsessive and fanatic interest of things outside sexual desire is bad. But I also do not write academic / published papers.
  • lofatdairy 4y ago
    Did you read the article? Because even with a cursory scroll would you find that it's clearly not about policing speech. For example: > (22) p = 0.000. Even though this statistical expression, used in over 97,000 manuscripts according to Google Scholar, makes regular cameo appearances in our computer printouts, we should assiduously avoid inserting it in our Results sections. This expression implies erroneously that there is a zero probability that the investigators have committed a Type I error Oh no. Big bad PC culture is stopping us from stating fallacious statistical conclusions. Please don't dilute the quality of discussions on this site by posting reactionary nonsense before even reading something to which you're responding.
    • annyeonghada 4y ago
      Your comment diluted the "discourse" more that the "reactionary nonsense" given that the first thing you do is using snark to signal that yiu are in the "cool tribe".
• deleted 4y ago
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• raxxorraxor 4y ago
  Looks like Psychologists came up with something as complicated as the human mind. I found this very strange: Symptom: (under Oxymorons) (41) Observable symptom. This term, which appears in nearly 700 manuscripts according to Google Scholar, conflates signs with symptoms. Signs are observable features of a disorder; symptoms are unobservable features of a disorder that can only be reported by patients (Lilienfeld et al., 2013; Kraft and Keeley, 2015). Symptoms are by definition unobservable. I am surprised that English medicine seems to differentiate observability here since I never heard it expressed in that way. Seems to make sense to differentiate though, psychologists probably know best why this data maybe needs a different evaluation.
  • tantalor 4y ago
    This has nothing to do with psychology. It's standard terminology used in medicine. > Symptoms cannot be seen and do not show up on medical tests. Some examples of symptoms are headache, fatigue, nausea, and pain. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/symptom https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-term...
    • raxxorraxor 4y ago
      Yes, I meant it in contrast to other languages and general language usage.
      • deleted 4y ago
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    • adrian_b 4y ago
      It is a standard terminology that is recent and only in English. It has nothing to do with the original meanings of the words "symptom" and "sign" in English and other languages (where "symptom" is any sign of a disease, while "sign" is any sign of anything). The standard medical terminology in other languages is "subjective symptoms" and "objective symptoms". In my opinion, whoever has chosen these artificial and arbitrary meanings for the words "symptom" and "sign", both words being widespread in many European languages, where they are used with their old meanings, has made a very bad choice. Someone who wants new words should invent them, not change the traditional meanings of other words. I wonder if this "sign" and "symptom" terminology is common for British English and American English, or it is used only in American English.
• deleted 4y ago
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• mistrial9 4y ago
  there are three pillars of communication in action at once here, it seems.. one is the accepted technical language of the trained, credentialed specialist; second is the common language used daily to navigate our personal lives; third might be the language used in public discourse, in the media, and in a classroom to non-specialists.. The high-effort piece of writing adds citation-based examples of semi-specialist wording.. like someone that is a credentialed school counselor, but is not in the health professions per-se. Well guess what, you now have religious schools and also splinter educational environments to deal with as your audience.. good luck with that, Science is not going to settle cultural commitments in all cases. nor should it, I will argue. Psychology has always been seen as a pseudo-science in some corners, unlike hard sciences backed by math. This well-intentioned and somewhat urgent writing tries to corral the "three pillars of communication" listed above, and as usual, will only get so far IMHO ..
  • photochemsyn 4y ago
    I wouldn't call psychology a 'pseudo-science', more that it's at a level of development comparable to 19th century medicine, when the concept of infectious disease being due to transmittable microbes or viruses was not understood. Most 'psychological disorders' today are not diagnosed based on specific physical-chemical tests, i.e. one can say with high certainty that a patient has drug-resistant tuberculosis using a PCR test. In contrast, there are no definitive tests for everything from ADHD to schizophrenia to bipolar disorder to depression, although more diagnoses lead to more pharma drug sales...
    • jrm4 4y ago
      Interesting. This implies that psychology is strongly likely to "get better," like out of it's 19th century phase? I see no reason to believe that?
      • mcBesse 4y ago
        I doubt psychology will ever change like alchemy into chemistry, but perhaps advancements in our understanding of the mind will take a different form?
• photochemsyn 4y ago
  Looking at the headline, one might think this is another tedious guide to what (arguably) constitutes politically correct language in modern society (case example: "use 'unhoused' in favor of 'homeless'"), but it's actually a collection of well-researched and documented examples of misuse of technical terms. For example: > "Chemical imbalance. Thanks in part to the success of direct-to-consumer marketing campaigns by drug companies, the notion that major depression and allied disorders are caused by a 'chemical imbalance' of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and norepinephrine, has become a virtual truism in the eyes of the public... There is no known 'optimal' level of neurotransmitters in the brain, so it is unclear what would constitute an 'imbalance.' Nor is there evidence for an optimal ratio among different neurotransmitter levels." They also discourage the use of the term 'brainwashing' (introduced in the 1950s during the Korean War by the US government), although I'd argue that 'operant conditioning' is an acceptable and well-researched concept, particularly when it is applied steadily from a young age through to adulthood: https://www.thoughtco.com/operant-conditioning-definition-examples-4491210 https://www.thoughtco.com/operant-conditioning-definition-ex...
  • lupire 4y ago
    I don't see the difference. Both "Politically Correct" and "Psychiatrically Correct" are addressing the same concern of misconceptions due to inaccurate or misleading language. You can be houseless but not homeless, and still need help with your housing.
    • feet 4y ago
      It sounds like there are some misconceptions about "political correctness"
    • ltbarcly3 4y ago
      This is not the case. Often the "politically correct" version is not actually more correct, but is replacing some common phrase that is declared obnoxious by some very small unrepresentative minority of people who coincidentally make their living as activists. Yes you can be houseless but not homeless, but you can also be homeless and not houseless. It's an utterly stupid distinction predicated on an intentionally incorrect, close, and literal minded reading of the term, done for political reasons.
• andsoitis 4y ago
  What do others here think about casual use of the word "crazy" in a work setting. For instance, "that's a crazy idea" or "they're crazy to think ...."
  • alexb_ 4y ago
    I think it's crazy that we spend time thinking about minor bs like this instead of spending that effort trying to solve actual problems. This type of stuff is great for people who want to feel like they have made a positive change without actually having accomplished anything of value.
    • jamesrcole 4y ago
      I think it’s worse than that. It makes people have to police their own thought about what they’re going to say, to avoid stumbling over one of the linguistic trip wires. I think that’s antithetical to creative thought.
      • whythre 4y ago
        It also gives power to bad actors who can take advantage of such ‘linguistic tripwires’ to invalidate or abuse others.
      • scubbo 4y ago
        Counterpoint - mindfully reviewing and examining your thoughts and speech is an effective way to improve clarity and to identify unexamined (and perhaps unfounded) assumptions.
        • poszlem 4y ago
          Cool, as long as it's your thoughts and not mine. I have no problem with other people policing their own speech and thoughts. My problem starts when they start to enforce what they found on other people.
          • 4y ago
• jrm4 4y ago
  If anything, I find this to be a, perhaps unintentional, damning indictment of psychology and psychiatry in general. If your discipline cannot clearly define things in a reasonably concrete and provable way, such that it is readily apparent to the patients and the public at large, and also such that the language effectively clarifies itself out of necessity, then much of what you do needs to be strongly questioned -- and often not taken too seriously. I'm reminded of e.g. the term "neurodivergent." It's a good thing to look at, but how do you falsify it? Who can stand up and say "I'm definitely not neurodivergent?" If you can't do that, the term is not very helpful.
  • lvass 4y ago
    The data is pretty clear that psychology and psychiatry sucks at doing it's job. But it's a hell of a tough job, and using more meaningful words probably doesn't hurt.
    • jrm4 4y ago
      Exactly: "Meaningful." Precisely, it feels like there's a lot of "activity" and "named ideas" chasing things that may not meaningfully exist? This is of course symptomatic of "publish or perish" et al, but I suppose one of the difficulties here is that the paper is like "here are some bad ideas and trends (fair) so here are some more to counteract that." It really just gives the impression of "wow, these people are wasting time if they can't even decide on what relatively accessible words even mean?" E.g. The bit on "symptoms" is crazy sounding.
  • hunter2_ 4y ago
    I think all disciplines could have a damning list like this. For example, in software development, we could say "pull request" is to be avoided in favor of "merge request" (some progress has definitely been made toward this state, but there is more to do).
  • 2devnull 4y ago
    It’s more common to hear these terms of misunderstanding in main stream medicine. Psychologists know there isn’t a “chemical imbalance” which “causes depression.” Overworked GPs and others without better training are the ideal audience for this piece.
• _8j50 4y ago
  > Furthermore, there are ample reasons to doubt whether “brainwashing” permanently alters beliefs This person needs to look at interviews of mk-ultra experiment survivors. Brainwashing is very real and permanent.
  • blacksmith_tb 4y ago
    It also doesn't quite make sense, even if these techniques aren't any more serious than other kinds of indoctrination, we have abundant examples of indoctrination permanently altering beliefs - religious conversions, ideological movements, etc.
    • Kranar 4y ago
      Indoctrination is not the same as brainwashing though. If what you mean is indoctrination then use that term. Brainwashing is the idea that it's possible for a specific agent to forcefully gain significant control over someone's mind. Indoctrination is not forced on a person by a specific agent but rather is the result of passive exposure over long periods of time. As a social species we are all indoctrinated to some degree by our culture, our parents, friends, profession etc... but that is not the same as a specific person having significant control over our beliefs or actions.
      • MikePlacid 4y ago
        > Indoctrination is not forced on a person by a specific agent but rather is the result of passive exposure over long periods of time. I do not think that indoctrination is being done by passive exposure only. This 1970 book: https://www.amazon.com/Canvassing-Peace-manual-volunteers-pages/dp/B0015OCYOU https://www.amazon.com/Canvassing-Peace-manual-volunteers-pa... (and yes, this is the Zimbardo of Stanford experiment) describes the tactic that was successful in starting the piece movement. The first step Zimbardo recommends when going from home to home - is to ask to sign some document that almost nobody will refuse to sign. Not “Stop the war now”, but more like “Investigate reports of war crimes”. Who will refuse to sign under such a noble request? What? Do you support war crimes?? A lot of signatures was collected. But there was no need to send these collective signatures anywhere. Zimbardo states (as a scientific fact, lol) that after a person signed something in support of some (anti-war in this case) position - the person’s perception changes. He will become a little bit more receptive to anti-war arguments than to pro-war ones. (Other purpose of this first canvassing was to find people who already are passionate about your cause and sign them on as volunteers). As I can see this tactic - not passive indoctrination, but active involvement via small first steps - is used rather widely on our planet these days. The most cynical variant is “give some little money to our noble cause!” - those being indoctrinated are financing the indoctrination campaign themselves. That is, if Zimbardo is right.
• BrainVirus 4y ago
  >Nevertheless, the attitude-change techniques used by so-called “brainwashers” are no different than standard persuasive methods identified by social psychologists, such as encouraging commitment to goals, manufacturing source credibility, forging an illusion of group consensus, and vivid testimonials Ok, let me get this straight. You openly admit that brainwashing techniques are now routinely and knowingly used in "casual" settings, but you want me to stop using the term, because it's so routine and because it never was never long-term effective. Faulty reasoning at best, manipulative bullshit at worst.
  • raxxorraxor 4y ago
    I think in most cases the argument of precision is warranted, but this might indeed be a bit much. Especially since psychology and clinical psychology needs accountability and the author used the weakest meaning of brain washing, a term quite precise for the worst deeds of the profession.
  • chairhairair 4y ago
    In my experience if someone uses the term “brainwashing” they are not trying to have a real conversation, they are trying to avoid any nuanced conversation actually.
  • P_I_Staker 4y ago
    Welcome to psychiatry, these people are master manipulators and scumbags.
• MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > Nevertheless, the attitude-change techniques used by so-called “brainwashers” are no different than standard persuasive methods identified by social psychologists, such as encouraging commitment to goals, manufacturing source credibility, forging an illusion of group consensus, and vivid testimonials The brainwashing techniques used by various cults, criminal gangs and regimes go far beyond these gentle methods. Particularly, I sure hope social psychologists don't use torture. (Social isolation, food deprivation, and much worse.)
  • hobs 4y ago
    Depends on if they put you in a mental institution, because then they definitely do, also physical torture if you act up enough!
  • cbsmith 4y ago
    > I sure hope social psychologists don't use torture. The phrasing was very specific: " standard persuasive methods identified by social psychologists". You don't need to use a method just because you've identified it.
  • runarberg 4y ago
    > I sure hope social psychologists don't use torture. Read up on psychologist’s participation in the Guantanamo prison camp torture program. Indeed many psychologists did use torture, and it is something of a really dark spot in the history of the American Psychology Association.
    • marginalia_nu 4y ago
      The broader history of psychiatry has so many dark spots one might confuse it for a dalmatian.
      • enneff 4y ago
        The broader history of almost any profession/industry is similarly checkered. Engineering, farming, medicine, charity/aid… humans will do bad things whatever field they’re in.
• nonrandomstring 4y ago
  The fine article begins with this rather humble aim that; > The goal of this article is to promote clear thinking and clear writing among students and teachers of psychological science How many published papers, or even undergraduate essays contain such simplifications and misunderstandings? I rather think the piece is aimed elsewhere, to the press, science jornalists, politicians, mid-ranking deciders, mass media, and pundits whose language is awash with this stuff.
  • lofatdairy 4y ago
    Some of these terms are indeed likely to be aimed at researchers, though I agree that journalism and politicians and charlatans seem to love pulling from shoddy psychology and making it even worse with their poor understandings of the field. For example, they give a number of papers that cite a p=0.0000 number, which is clearly absurd. p-hacking and dubious misuse of statistical testing aside, it shows a clear lack of understanding of what the p-value even is, and what it tells you, and this is obviously more relevant to researchers than reporters. I can also speak towards personal experience regarding "comorbidity", for a while I knew a grad student who accidentally attached a completely new, incorrect definition to the term by assuming it mean risk-factor. It's certainly a blend of really subtle, interesting mistakes that I can easily see a researcher unfamiliar with the history and philosophy of science making, and some pretty common tropes that are probably more often just stereotypes from the "science" section of popular magazines.
  • karencarits 4y ago
    It would probably be difficult publish in a scientific journal if it was not aimed at other academics - and if it was not published in a scientific journal, the authors would not get citations
• tacitusarc 4y ago
  I disagree with the "steep learning curve" point. The X axis is acquired knowledge, and the Y axis is the effort required. I don't know why people assume the X axis is time. Not all graphs are temporal.
  • falseprofit 4y ago
    It's standard practice to plot independent variables on the x-axis and dependent on the y. To my knowledge, this is how learning curves are typically plotted as well, and the use of "steep" is usually a misnomer. Is there a reason you believe people have this unintuitive plot in mind, rather than simply conflating with the difficulty of physically scaling a steep slope?
    • a1369209993 4y ago
      The independent variable is how good you're trying to get, and the dependent variable is how much effort it costs. > a reason you believe people have this [...] plot in mind Sample size N += 1, HTH, HAND.
  • I_complete_me 4y ago
    Does the steepness of the curve happen earlier or later in the timeline? I imagine that one could spend a long time learning the fundamentals before getting to a stage where the proficiency escalates quickly i.e. where the steepness occurs. But the long time getting there is what the term "steep learning curve" is about. Like the opposite of taking a long run at jumping off a cliff. I'm sure that this is easier to show with a graph.
  • tsumnia 4y ago
    I disagreed at first, but realized what they were trying to convey. Specifically "learning curve" is a defined term in learning theory that represents the accumulation of knowledge. Like the the "forgetting curve" [1], the use of "curve" represents at each learning opportunity (or forgetting). "Learning curve" between intervals would be more akin to "learning gains". So a "learning curve" that is "steep" implies that learning occurs rapidly; a "forgetting curve" that is "steep" would be "in one ear and out the other". Super pedantic and I don't plan to change my use of steep learning curve, but I get where the intention is coming from. [1] https://www.psychestudy.com/cognitive/memory/ebbinghaus-forgetting-curve https://www.psychestudy.com/cognitive/memory/ebbinghaus-forg...
• eimrine 4y ago
  Isn't Psychology another term to avoid if we are havind a Neurophysiplogy term?
  • weego 4y ago
    Yes. The DSM 5 provides Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD, not to he confused as ASD which is autism). It's more commonly referred to as Sociopathy. Psychopathy is not an 'official' condition
• apienx 4y ago
  "Passive aggressive" is another very often misused term IMHO.
  • yamazakiwi 4y ago
    Is the misuse because often people use that descriptor for someone who is aware they're expressing negative feelings indirectly?
    • astura 4y ago
      It's misused as a descriptor for just plain aggressive behavior. I was telling someone my roommate was outside yelling at our neighbor about a car crash they caused a few days ago. He replied with "That's passive-aggressive." I said "No it's not! Which part of what he's doing is passive?" He agreed with me when I pointed it out.
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    That would seem to fall into the pop-psych exclusion mentioned at the start of the article.
• ndr 4y ago
  > (27) The scientific method. Many science textbooks, including those in psychology, present science as a monolithic “method.” [...] Contrary to what most scientists themselves appear to believe, science is not a method; it is an approach to knowledge (Stanovich, 2012). Specifically, it is an approach that strives to better approximate the state of nature by reducing errors in inferences. Mmmh is this Psychology opting out of the scientific method?
  • eckza 4y ago
    What about the rest of this, that you didn't quote, do you take issue with?
    • malfist 4y ago
      What about it?
  • dmerks 4y ago
    Probably refers to epistemology, a branch of philosophy related to theories of knowledge
  • mcBesse 4y ago
    The article doesn't suggest that at all, as far as I can tell. None of what you quoted indicates that is.
  • typon 4y ago
    See absolutely nothing wrong with this quote. The "scientific method" is almost a meaningless term because it means different things to different branches of study - discouraging its use for more accurate terminology makes perfect sense.
    • some_random 4y ago
      The trouble is that Psychology as a field has had serious problems with reproducibility since it's inception.
  • 4y ago
• light_hue_1 4y ago
  > (19) No difference between groups. ... Authors are instead advised to write “no significant difference between groups” or “no significant correlation between variables.” This is terrible advice. To the public, and often even to experts, "significant" doesn't mean "statistically significant" it means "big". We need to abolish this use of "significant" not promote it. Way too many papers show "significant" (statistically significant) results that are not significant (so minor as to be irrelevant). This is the #1 source of misleading headlines.
  • dredmorbius 4y ago
    There's been strong pushback against the term "statistical significance", though I don't seem to find a widely-accepted alternative. See e.g., "Moving to a World Beyond “p < 0.05”" Ronald L. Wasserstein, Allen L. Schirm, & Nicole A. Lazar. Pages 1-19 | Published online: 20 Mar 2019 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00031305.2019.1583913 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00031305.2019.1... "Statistically measurable" or "statistically determinable" come to mind though I can't find a cite. The originally intended ... significance ... of the term was that a difference was capable of being shown using statistical methods. Not that its size or context was itself significant in some semantic, practical, or other sense.
  • xmddmx 4y ago
    You are correct - this is terrible advice. The main issue is that the word "significance" is overloaded with two meanings in research & stats: "Large and important" (e.g. "clinical significance", often given as an effect size, or some benefit/cost tradeoff) "P value below alpha" (e.g "statistical significance", Probabilty of rejecting H0, which is roughly equivalent to "if the true effect size were zero, what's the chance I could see this effect size in my data given random fluctuactions [and a bunch of other assumptions]"
• light_hue_1 4y ago
  > (47) Empirical data. “Empirical” means based on observation or experience. As a consequence, with the possible exception of information derived from archival sources, all psychological data are empirical (what would “non-empirical” psychological data look like?). Nonsense. There are plenty of types of data that are not empirical. For example, data from simulations is not empirical data.
  • uxp100 4y ago
    Can you elaborate on what type of psychological data simulations you are thinking of?
    • 1970-01-01 4y ago
      Isn't fiction an overall non-empirical simulation? Science fiction books are not strictly based on historical events or even facts. Yet we still gain valuable psychological knowledge from them.
• strogonoff 4y ago
  It is good to see awareness being raised of accidental philosophical positions, sometimes unwittingly assumed through word choice. For example, I was starting to doubt whether anyone realizes that they make a leap whenever they imply physiology/biology is the cause of what happens in our consciousness (or indeed causes consciousness to happen), but entry 29 reassured me not all hope is lost (emphasis mine): > Nevertheless, conceptualizing biological functioning as inherently more “fundamental” than (that is, causally prior to) psychological functioning, such as cognitive and emotional functioning, is misleading (Miller, 1996). The relation between biological variables and other variables is virtually always bidirectional. For example, although the magnitude of the P300 event-related potential tends to be diminished among individuals with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) compared with other individuals (Costa et al., 2000), this finding does not necessarily mean that the P300 deficit precedes, let alone plays a causal role in, ASPD. It is at least equally plausible that the personality dispositions associated with ASPD, such as inattention, low motivation, and poor impulse control, contribute to smaller P300 magnitudes (Lilienfeld, 2014). I believe the equal likelihood of such reverse causality and its implications are severely underexplored in modern medicine. Similarly appreciated the warning against accidentally assuming mind-body dualism (entry 40) and a fundamental point about natural sciences—that there is never definitive proof, only limited to various degrees models (entry 45).
  • matheusmoreira 4y ago
    This uncertainty stems from the lack of rigorous proof. Medicine these days is all about statistics and correlation. It's "we gave drug A to people with B and we observed effects C occurring D% of the time". In way too many cases there is no exact model or understanding of how things actually work, just inferences from observed effects.
    • wwtrv 4y ago
      That might still be preferable to coming up with theories explaining mechanisms we don't fully understand and then looking for data which might prove it. That might become especially problematic when scientists stake their entire careers on it. We might end up with situations similar the amyloid hypothesis which likely tuned out to be a dead end a huge waste time & resources.
• lisper 4y ago
  Another term to avoid IMHO: "jingle jangle fallacy". It's catchy, but both the word "jingle" and the word "jangle" have established meanings in English neither of which has anything to do with what is being referred to here. To say nothing of the fact that the "jingle jangle fallacy" is not a fallacy, it's just bad choice of terminology. Much better words than "jingle jangle fallacy" are "ambiguous" (for one word that has multiple meanings) and "redundant" (for multiple words that have the same meaning) terminology. (I find it supremely ironic that this needs to be pointed out in an article whose central thesis is that wise choice of terminology is important.)
  • scubbo 4y ago
    This is the first time I've heard of the word "jangle" existing independently of the onomatopoeiac phrase "jingle jangle"! That said, I definitely agree that this is an ironically-poor choice of name due the lack of relation between the name and the referent.
  • runarberg 4y ago
    The authors seem to use the term them selfs in this very article, they apparently don’t see it as a problem. > Psychology has long struggled with problems of terminology (Stanovich, 2012). For example, numerous scholars have warned of the jingle and jangle fallacies, the former being the error of referring to different constructs by the same name and the latter the error of referring to the same construct by different names (Kelley, 1927; Block, 1995; Markon, 2009).
• jefc1111 4y ago
  Anyone have any comments about the term "highly sensitive person"? tia
  • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    Your comment made me cry.
    • jefc1111 4y ago
      Shit, sorry.
  • skim_milk 4y ago
    No respectable author uses that term so it doesn't deserve a mention. It's on the same pop-psych wavelength as "supernova empath" or "twin flame".
    • stared 4y ago
      It is a way too harsh statement. While indeed HSP is not a psychological term, it makes sense for self-description. Unless you are a kind of person that cringes at people saying they are "coffee lovers" or "morning persons" with "it is not a proper psychological term!". :)
• kbos87 4y ago
  This isn’t used in medical circles anymore but I’m shocked that it’s still acceptable to label something or someone as “hysterical”, which I believe implies erratic behavior that ties back to having a uterus.
  • herghost 4y ago
    I've heard 'testerical' used as a synonym. Possibly in a tongue-in-cheek way.
  • babypuncher 4y ago
    I would wager that 99% of people using the word "hysterical" have no clue about that history. I'm in my 30s and this is a little fact I just learned today.
  • Tenoke 4y ago
    Why wouldn't it be? Clearly people don't mean anything sexist by it, given that most don't know about it, and nobody as far as I know is offended. Who do you want to ban the word for?
    • kbos87 4y ago
      To be clear I think intent matters more than anything else, and I’m not an advocate for “banning” terms or shunning people for unknowingly using a term like this - but the history and what it implies is questionable to the point where it’s probably best not to use it personally
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • golemiprague 4y ago
  • bluescrn 4y ago
    Are there any really good synonyms for 'hysteria' though, to describe a sort of crazed panic around a certain subject?
• stewbrew 4y ago
  How about "subconscious"? It's interesting to see how some statements are based on wrong translations and misunderstanding.
  • runarberg 4y ago
    Can you elaborate, I always assumed subconscious to mean something like blindsight, that is blind individuals that have functioning eyes (i.e. their blindness is caused by brain damage in the visual processing organs), are able to evade an object being thrown at them despite never being able to consciously see it. That is the stimuli of an approaching object is indeed subconscious. However maybe that is an outdated term, and a better one exists. It has been a minute since I read up on the literature.
    • stewbrew 4y ago
      There is a more or less fine line between unconscious and subconscious (its slightly hysterical cousin). The term might be somewhat outdated but it's still in use and also cognitive scientists make respective assertions - even though they might call it differently when talking about human consciousness.
• tboyd47 4y ago
  > (3) Autism epidemic. How breathtakingly insulting to the 100,000s of parents and caregivers of autistic children over the past 30 years, who have sacrificed 1,000s of hours, $MM of lost revenue, their own health, their own goals, and even attention that could have been paid to their other children and their community, exerting heroic efforts and sparing no expense to reach into a single child's mind to teach him or her basic skills and share some kind of human connection, starting from zero with no answers, no training, and sometimes not even family or a support network. Unlike these scientists, most of these parents and caregivers will not be thanked or applauded for their work by society, but they only did it because it happened to be their child. Let's not acknowledge that that their efforts correspond to a real event-- instead, let's dismiss all of the potential links uncovered and directions for future research, and wave it all away, feeling self-assured that we are being skeptical and rigorous while eating up taxpayer money from these same parents who still have no answers.
  • killjoywashere 4y ago
    My wife is a pediatric occupational therapist and I'm a physician in government. I'm still not sure which direction your comment is pointing: is it insulting that the term Autism epidemic is exists, or that this paper suggests it should be avoided?
    • tboyd47 4y ago
      Excuse me if that wasn't clear. It's insulting that the paper suggests that the epidemic is not real.
      • Kranar 4y ago
        Then you went on a very angry and incoherent rant for nothing. You seem to be angry because you don't understand what the word epidemic means. In the spirit of this article, epidemic means something specific; the rapid spread of a disease over a short period of time in a specific region. The article is not saying that autism isn't real or that people aren't suffering from it, the article is saying that it's not an epidemic. The article is saying there is no rapid increase in autism over a specific region but rather there's been a change in how it's diagnosed, people's awareness of the disease and that if these factors had been held constant, autism rates would also have been constant.
• nilslindemann 4y ago
  This was an amazing read. Bookmarked it to have it available the next time someone talks about 'cults' who 'brainwash' their members. Have a nice day, dear members of this cult :-)
  • marton78 4y ago
    Please also make them watch this: https://youtu.be/lp2vGAD-BGw https://youtu.be/lp2vGAD-BGw
• 1970-01-01 4y ago
  I'm confused about (47). Isn't "empirical data" based on observation or experiment. Is this a typo? And non-empirical data is defined as an observation that one cannot formally measure, e.g. "I love/hate it." (47) Empirical data. “Empirical” means based on observation or experience. As a consequence, with the possible exception of information derived from archival sources, all psychological data are empirical (what would “non-empirical” psychological data look like?). Some of the confusion probably stems from the erroneous equation of “empirical” with “experimental” or “quantitative.” Data derived from informal observations, such as non-quantified impressions collected during a psychotherapy session, are also empirical. If writers wish to distinguish numerical data from other sources of data, they should simply call them “quantified data.”
  • travisjungroth 4y ago
    It's erroneous to equate "empirical" with "experimental" or "quantitative". Those terms don't have a relationship like 4 = 4.0. Your example in your second sentence is an example of equating empirical with quantitative. Empirical makes more sense when you contrast empiricism with rationalism. It's a split between things you observe and things you think. If you're doing chemistry calculations, that's not empirical but it is quantitative. If you're pouring stuff into beakers and writing down what you see, it is empirical and quantitative.
  • xmddmx 4y ago
    In context, it's top-down vs. bottom-up: Theory driven: "I think anxiety and depression are fundamentaly different, because of writings of Freud, Foo, and Bar" Empirical: factor analysis of test data suggests anxiety and depression may actually be a single factor, perhaps there is a single biological mechanism underlying both?"
• excitom 4y ago
  Whelp, that's about all of them.
• FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  (2) Antidepressant medication. "Moreover, some authors argue that these medications are considerably less efficacious than commonly claimed, and are beneficial for only severe, but not mild or moderate, depression, rendering the label of “antidepressant” potentially misleading" Love it! (7) Chemical imbalance. Hate it! Of course there is such a thing as a chemical imbalance. I would say serotonin syndrome is a good example. That is way too much serotonin. And when I am manic, I am sure I have a chemical imbalance (glutamate).
• NickM 4y ago
  Glad to see "chemical imbalance" make the list. It is very common to see people use terms like "dopamine hit", "endorphin rush", "low serotonin", etc. in ways that don't make scientific sense. I assume people do it to sound knowledgeable or to make it sound like their ideas are backed by science, but neurotransmitters are vastly more complicated and subtle in their effects than is implied by these kinds of usages, and emotions and behaviors are tremendously more complex than the "my neurotransmitters made me do it/feel it" narrative would suggest.
  • quickthrower2 4y ago
    At the same time we have a need to make sense of things. And having a rough relatable framework can be part of the therapy. I can also see why it might be dangerous “e.g. dopamine hit good, what foods/drugs will give me that”
    • avgcorrection 4y ago
      What becomes clearer by labeling things with neurotransmitters? Did you just not know your own habitual motivations? In that case some technical jargon won’t make you wiser or smarter.
      • matheusmoreira 4y ago
        > What becomes clearer by labeling things with neurotransmitters? The relation with addiction.
        • quickthrower2 4y ago
          For example why most of the value of a todo list is the writing down and ticking off. And tiny todos (fill water bottle) give the same kick as big ones. Now if you understand that the it motivates you to have todo lists, use them and craft them well and build a chain of success. Having a mental model of why something works for me at least is a big motivator. The laws of thermodynamics don’t help you lose weight but they sure make it clear it is possible (or if your body absolutely cannot burn fat, you die).
• vvpan 4y ago
  For the sake of the Hacker News audience I wish "introvert" was its own category and not under "Personality Type". It is baseless pseudo-science but comes up in tech-related circles all too often.
  • thyrsus 4y ago
    As (43) states, introversion is on a scale (a matter of degree) rather than a type (i.e. not like char vs. float). That it is persistent in a probabilistic sense is well established.
    • astura 4y ago
      Well established by who? A persistent is always claimed but my experience is very much to the contrary, both personal and observed in others.
      • thyrsus 4y ago
        https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-real-science-of-introversion-and-the-rest-of-personality/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/the-rea... ...and my experience as a varyingly persistent introvert :-)
• ironmagma 4y ago
  A few of these seem like they are somewhere between harmless and inevitable... what's supposed to replace "the scientific method" or "steep learning curve"?
  • denton-scratch 4y ago
    Shallow Learning Curve?
    • ironmagma 4y ago
      Except everyone currently understands that to mean the opposite of what it means.
      • denton-scratch 4y ago
        Just because everyone understands "literally" to mean "not literally", that doesn't make everyone right.
        • ironmagma 4y ago
          It does however make it infeasible to redefine.
• denton-scratch 4y ago
  I enjoyed "Steep Learning Curve": if the curve is steep, that means that you are learning quickly and easily.
  • snapcaster 4y ago
    I always took it to mean that your personal learning curve must be steep or you will fail to enjoy the activity/game
    • lamontcg 4y ago
      I always figured the labels were effort on the y-axis vs. learning on the x-axis, not learning on the y-axis and time/effort on the x-axis.
  • danem 4y ago
    Many (most?) people understand "learning curve" as a hiking analogy. A steep learning curve would mean a difficult climb. This is understandable as most people aren't data literate, and "steep" generally has negative connotations.
• kensai 4y ago
  I am surprised there is no mention of the word "histrionic" which is completely out-of-date and insulting to women.
  • FeteCommuniste 4y ago
    How so? "Histrionic" has no relation to "hysterical."
    • astrange 4y ago
      If two words aren't related it can still be a problem if people think they are, and language evolution will start treating them as if they are (backformation).
      • Veen 4y ago
        That’s true, but few people know the origins of hysterical, let alone histrionic. You could just as well argue that the average speaker doesn’t know that hysterical was once a gendered, misogynist term and that therefore it’s no longer problematic.
  • Veen 4y ago
    'Histrionic' originates in the Latin 'histrionica,' which refers to actors and acting, supposedly because actors first came from the Greek colony of Histria on the Black Sea. I'm not sure why any of that is insulting to women.
    • matheusmoreira 4y ago
      He probably means hysterical, that which is plagued by hysteria, excessive emotion. The word originates from hystera, greek for uterus. No longer in clinical use but certainly in popular usage despite its unfortunate history.
  • xmddmx 4y ago
    This article was written in 2015, not 1960 is why. Academic psychological research has been making great attempts to remove biased / inaccurate terms from the lexicon, and I encourage you to find a cite from the last 10 years that uses this term, other than in a historical sense. (Not saying it's impossible, just unlikely)
• Slava_Propanei 4y ago
• zug_zug 4y ago
  > (3) Autism epidemic. Uh, I'm having more and more trouble believing this is just an increase in diagnosis rates. That's what we said 13 years ago when I was graduating college, and yet the rates have actually increased very dramatically even since 2010 (from 1/68 to 1/44) a 54% increase. I appreciate that it's useful to consider alternative explanations of data, but presuming an alternative explanation is valid for over 20 years without hard data? Really?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • SoftAnnaLee 4y ago
    Increased understanding of autism on a societal level. 20 years ago autism was just, 'weird savant kid who screams and everybody can't understand why they can't <XYZ>,' disease. 10 years ago, we saw depictions of autism that were less stereotypical in mainstream entertainment; which prompted some to see themselves reflected in these characters, and self-reflect if they're autistic too. In the years since, autism communities on the internet and the psychological community have come together to help folks realize that there is a wider spectrum of how autism manifests. And the increased visibility of autism, and increased societal understanding of the nuances involved with autism, have led to folks who previously thought of themselves as neurotypical as realizing they are autistic too. Who then inform their family and friends, who may come to realize that they (or their friends, coworkers, or children) too might be autistic as well. It's not an epidemic, it's merely language and labels being more accurately used within society.
    • zug_zug 4y ago
      > It's not an epidemic, it's merely language and labels being more accurately used within society. You can't possibly know that. And shame on you for speaking so authoritatively on such an important and open scientific question.
      • larve 4y ago
        That's literally what the linked article is about. From its references: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/abs/epidemiology-and-global-burden-of-autism-spectrum-disorders/1F9C6FD6968D8B09231F2C35E70A46E8 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici... > After accounting for methodological variations, there was no clear evidence of a change in prevalence for autistic disorder or other ASDs between 1990 and 2010. Worldwide, there was little regional variation in the prevalence of ASDs.
• ispo 4y ago
  I wish there was a similar list about economics, but it will take 150 years more.
• yafbum 4y ago
  Comes across as unnecessary judgemental. Opportunity here: figure out how to be helpful rather than sanctimonious. Talk about what to use instead, rather than just about what to avoid.
• testfoobar 4y ago
  This is a hilariously passive aggressive attempt at gate keeping. Considering that nearly every term on this list has a range of uses: from the very precise with an attending list of up to date peer reviewed exceptions and footnotes to the the obviously false, manipulative, and reckless. In an attempt to reduce incidents of the latter, they are asking that everyone move to the former: "list of 50 commonly used terms in psychology, psychiatry, and allied fields that should be avoided, or at most used sparingly and with explicit caveats." Perhaps if this field of study did not suffer from a replication crisis, the language in use might have more meaning.
• thinkmcfly 4y ago
  I wonder if we could make some useful generalizations about hn populations by looking at what kind of psych articles they push to the top.
• l0b0 4y ago
  The "steep learning curve" entry is bizarre. Is it so difficult to envision that it's a straightforward analogue to real life? Climbing a steep mountain (that is, a steep slope or curve), if you manage (since a difficult traverse is going to turn away a lot of people, just like a steep learning curve), you are going to end up with a good view (or understanding of the field). It was never about a X=time, Y=distance mathematical curve.
  • cochne 4y ago
    Your disagreement with their assessment is exactly why they say it should not be used. There are two equally plausible interpretations, and as a technical term, theirs is correct, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_curve
    • l0b0 4y ago
      IMO, since they're not suggesting anything better they are not helping. It's like telling people "just don't do that if it's causing problems". Well, what's the alternative? We still have this concept we need to communicate effectively, of something that's hard but possible to learn if you spend a lot of energy on it, analogous to how you spend a lot of energy climbing a steep hill. Also, have you ever met anyone who thought "steep learning curve" was ambiguous? This seems like a controversy invented by some really literal-minded people who are not representative of the general population.
      • MikePlacid 4y ago
        > have you ever met anyone who thought "steep learning curve" was ambiguous? Yep, that’s me. When I first encountered this expression it seemed very strange to me (not exactly ambiguous since I guessed the meaning). I envisioned a plot, with a steep curve: x is time, but what’s on y? You see, there are no mountains where I’ve grown up… Eventually I’ve come to think of it: x is pleasure that you will be able to extract from the game, y is amount you have to learn to extract that pleasure. But now I do not think much when I hear the expression. “Steep learning curve?” - ok, I know what you mean. Changing the meaning to its opposite would cause me a great confusion, bigger than the first one.
• lofatdairy 4y ago
  Honestly, I'm a bit disappointed by the level of discourse this post has generated. I'm also an outspoken skeptic of findings in the field of psychology, but the article is quite well formed and well argued. If anything, accepting the nitpicking from a lot of these comments would result in psychology being _less_ rigorous and precise. A lot of psychology's problems comes from how readily available it seems to be to everyday experience. We're only 100 years from Lewis Terman and H. H. Goddard thinking they could measure intelligence by having people circle a face judged to be "more attractive", it's a young science and improving the rigor of how things are expressed is essential to advancement. Not only are a lot of these terms being used incorrectly, hence why this paper was even published, but because they carry a colloquial and historic baggage that don't reflect academic understandings, or even philosophical understandings of the epistemological concept of science. Words have definitions, and if two people don't share the same definition, then communication breaks down, research is misunderstood, and the field is worse off. This is for people operating within the field to consolidate knowledge, I don't know why people insist that lay understandings of language and a field of study need to be reflected in the terms of art. To put it in terms that engineers are more likely to appreciate, a lot of these terms would be like "man-hours". Man-hours is obviously a useless term because it 1) implies that increasing workers scales production linearly, 2) implies each individual produces at the same rate, 3) inherits from a factory mode of production that engineers typically don't believe fits their situation, and 4) generally results in poor estimations of cost and delivery times. Obviously if you're trying to be productive as an engineer, your managers only using man-hours as a term invites ambiguity and worse working conditions. Same goes for things like the lay understanding of attention vs its specific meaning as an implementation template within deep learning, or even AI more broadly vs specific neural network techniques.
  • ttpphd 4y ago
    I feel the same way and I think your comment hits it right on the head. We should always be curious about how our language misleads us.
  • 0xedd 4y ago
    What a load of nonsense. If one reads the article, one would find the absolute majority of the arguments are plain empty claims with little supporting evidence. Citing a single paper, usually over a decade old, is simply proving the opposite; as what they're saying is "out of the thousands of researches done on X (especially medicine), we only found one paper supporting our modern and liberal claim". And your example of manhours is utterly detached from reality. Only daft personnel think your points are axioms. Of course manhours are a rough estimate! Of course 9 women don't make a baby in a month. Unless you became an engineer last night, I can only assume you are a liberal warrior regurgitating favorable pieces. What's next, laws on how to think?
• pipeline_peak 4y ago
  Surprised I didn’t see gaslight or projecting mentioned
• zackmorris 4y ago
  Not sure if these are psych terms, but just wanted to add them to be used instead of the ones on the left: * Depressed -> struggling (places focus on society instead of individual) * Burned out -> exploited (places focus on employer instead of employee)
  • prawn 4y ago
    Is it fair to think that "burned out" isn't always coming from an employer-employee power imbalance? Startup types or small business owners burn out. Benign employers can have employees who burn themselves out. As a freelancer, I'm quite responsible for my work habits and workload; I sometimes burn out, but I'd never think of it as having been exploited.
    • zackmorris 4y ago
      No that's true, burnout has many causes, but I suppose that I'm thinking about it at a systems/societal level. The current era is much more difficult to survive in than when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. Because wealth inequality (high housing/healthcare/education costs, low wages) has come to dominate our lives. We're working twice as many hours for half as much buying power. We may not see it as much with our 6 figure incomes, but at least half the US is basically living hand to mouth in dead end jobs. No help is coming from the top, so until people wake up and realize that the power is in their labor and organizing power, nothing will change. That's why I think that framing and terminology are so important for progress. Also I define exploitation as receiving less than the lion's share of any income generated by a worker. So if a business bills someone out at $50/hr and pays them $15/hr, that's exploitive. Very few businesses bill less than that, but a huge number pay less than that. So exploitation has become the way that business is done in the US and any countries we exploit for our manufacturing needs. Selling shoes for $100 made by workers who are paid $1/hr, etc.
      • prawn 4y ago
        I've travelled a lot in the US and many parts feel like a developing country. The tent cities and begging and vehicle-dwelling and so on appear worse each time I go over. But people either don't vote or vote against their own interests. Maybe one risk of framing things as a societal issue mean that people are less likely to take individual action in voting or changing jobs (if possible)? Voter apathy in the US is quite remarkable, given the constant media furore. I'm in small business so I'm offering no comment on larger companies, but often here, I think an employee paid $x is expected to produce $3x as an old rule of thumb to cover overheads, taxes, etc. And I have sympathy for the brutal world of small business ownership: if an employee detests that $15/hr, go freelance at $40/hr and wear the downsides that come with it. Almost every business owner has taken a risk at some point to work unpaid or underpaid while getting off the ground, has covered wages during slow periods, etc. It's not always glamorous. An idea I find intriguing is in government or enterprise providing small businesses with as much boilerplate/scaffolding as possible to minimise the impact of wage theft or rostering struggles or anything else in that painful interface between the employer and employee. Without it, an employee is at the mercy of the foibles of the smalltime employer.
• irrational 4y ago
  It's strange that they don't offer "recommendations for preferable terms" for every term. Or, at least example sentences with the terms to avoid removed and replaced with more appropriate language. Clearly these terms are being used because authors find them useful. Without guidance on how to replace them, authors will probably keep using them.
  • enneff 4y ago
    A lot of the terms on this list describe things that simply don’t exist, so the implicit suggestion is to not make shit up. To, y’know, research what you’re writing about rather than just repeat mistruths.
  • analog31 4y ago
    An urban legend from physics is that Murray Gell-Mann deliberately chose whimsical terms for his ideas, such as "quark" and "up, down, charm, strange, truth, and beauty." The rationale was to prevent any possibly application of a familiar definition or social implications of the terms, such as was applied to "relativity."
  • soledades 4y ago
    >authors find them useful. main use is to mislead self an dothers
• yannk 4y ago
  Not on the list: "Oh, it's just my OCD" -- Either you have been diagnosed (and consequently suffer from OCD) or you have an obsessive personality (sometimes a quality). But OCD is a diagnosis, abusing it do describe a personality trait doesn't serve the many many people impacted by the disorder. -- From someone with an affected loved one.
  • enneff 4y ago
    There’s a great episode of the Australian TV series You Can’t Ask That which interviews a group of OCD sufferers about their lived experience. It really opened my eyes to just how appallingly cavalier it is to refer to one’s minor neuroses as “OCD”. An excerpt from the show: https://youtu.be/tkrFgKW5LvY https://youtu.be/tkrFgKW5LvY (Australians can stream it on iView)
    • yannk 4y ago
      Thanks for the link Andrew, it looks like a good show!
    • coldtea 4y ago
      Not all OCD is extreme though, even when diagnosed.
      • enneff 4y ago
        Agree but it’s an insult to people that actually have it when it’s used casually. Like “bipolar” or “schizophrenic” also.
        • coldtea 4y ago
          I see how it can be perceived this way, but I think it's because of the novelty of the condition (so people aren't used to it being casually used as much). For more established conditions, we don't really feel that way, e.g. like, how: "Turn the flashlight off, I'm going blind!" "This jump scare gave me a heart attack!" "Monday's make me depressed" Are not really considered an insult to the blind, people with heart conditions, and the clinically depressed...
• anotheraccount9 4y ago
  Really well written article. Personally, I will still use these expressions: Antidepressant medication Chemical imbalance Genetically determined
  • soledades 4y ago
    care to engage with the points being made?
• spinlock 4y ago
  Can’t believe they didn’t include “intimate partner violence”. OK, I can believe it but it’s the dumbest, least understood term I’ve ever come across. For nstance, IPV usually doesn’t involve “violence” or at least what normal people consider violence (ie Punchin, kicking, slapping, etc…). IPV is more often financial or mental abuse.
• viburnum 4y ago
  “Gold standard” is funny because gold standards have rarely worked and haven’t been used anywhere for years now.
• xmddmx 4y ago
  I think the aritcle is pretty good (I have a strong disiagreement with one of the 50 terms, but otherwise I think they did a good job). I'm relatively new here at HN, but as a psychologist (who also dabbles in hacking) some of the reactions do support, sadly, the stereoytype that computer/engineer-types suffer anoagnosia (the lack of knowledge of what you do not know). Some engineers do not understand that the world of human behavior is far more complex than the world of atoms, molecules, components, chips, software, etc. Behavioral and social scientists are, you may be surprised to learn, aware of this fact, and actually lead in scientific investigation of the difficulty, specifically: dealing with constructs, and figure out how to define and measure them. "Soft sciences" actually are much harder than "hard sciences" in many ways.
  • andirk 4y ago
    With no definitive right answer but still a clear outcome from choices made, yeah that's a moving target compared to the solid rock of most math and CS work.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • devwastaken 4y ago
    Some are working at making soft science more of actual testable, isolateable, repeatable, predictable science. To be in psychology requires you to accept the ideas and culture of the "soft sciences". The system of universities and higher education, largely aligning with political and financial interests. One cannot be against it and be apart of it. That is the grand filter that removes dissent. In current day all any diagnosis requires is a few 30 minute meetings and the right words in accordance with the dsm5. They'll get a diagnosis that's wrong, and be on their way with medications not proven effective. Ask me how I know. That's not science, it's a paycheck.
  • rayiner 4y ago
    > Soft sciences" actually are much harder than "hard sciences" in many ways Because of that complexity, the methodologies used in those fields can’t be called “science.”
• guywithahat 4y ago
  I must admit I looked through this and I'm a little confused as to why it's on hacker news
• guggalugalug 4y ago
  Not exactly related, a friend recently told me that calling someone a "spaz" who acts absurdly or with an excess of enthusiasm, is no longer (/ was never ?) appropriate. My boss and other boomer (ok technically gen-xer) coworkers use this term liberally, as does my boomer mother and myself and others of my cohort. I do not want to dwell on correctness of this term or of prescribing / proscribing language, only to share that this is the sort of the thing I had thought the article would be about.