5 ms·

It happened already 50 years ago, it just doesn't get any press. Pretty much everything I've been reading in the past few years (Kahneman, Baumeister, Baron, St

It happened already 50 years ago, it just doesn't get any press. Pretty much everything I've been reading in the past few years (Kahneman, Baumeister, Baron, Stanovich, Wilson for example) will pass this with flying colors. It is true however that psychology requires a bit more intellectual honesty then other fields. Mistakes are more subtle and easier to cover up, samples are smaller and there's always the excuse of different cultures. I'm really curious what this project will uncover.

bane 15y ago
I hope so, I've seen some work on building typical models of the mind with averages of cat scans etc. "and there's always the excuse of different cultures" That's a good point. Related to this are the fascinating Culture-bound syndromes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-bound_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-bound_syndrome
neilk 15y ago
Kahneman's getting a little more press lately, with a bestseller on the shelves. His story is interesting - he was given a lot of responsibility at a young age, because he was doing officer evaluation for the newly-formed Israeli army. He has to produce real, repeatable results, and has a wealth of data to test his earlier conclusions, and perhaps the sheer newness of the entire enterprise makes it safer for him to be honest. In a few years he realizes the vacuity of his own psychological results, and by implication, many of the methods he's been taught. That's what kicks off his whole program of investigating sources of bias and error. Would this have ever happened in a standard academic setting?
- radu_floricica 15y ago
  Quite possibly. Roy Baumeister has possibly the best thinking process I've ever met. He had the gall to approach a subject like this, and do it with flawless rigor: http://www.amazon.com/Meanings-Life-Roy-F-Baumeister/dp/0898625319 http://www.amazon.com/Meanings-Life-Roy-F-Baumeister/dp/0898... Too bad his latest book (Willpower) is coauthored with a professional writer... I miss his style.

bane 15y ago

I hope so, I've seen some work on building typical models of the mind with averages of cat scans etc. "and there's always the excuse of different cultures" That's a good point. Related to this are the fascinating Culture-bound syndromes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-bound_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-bound_syndrome

neilk 15y ago

Kahneman's getting a little more press lately, with a bestseller on the shelves. His story is interesting - he was given a lot of responsibility at a young age, because he was doing officer evaluation for the newly-formed Israeli army. He has to produce real, repeatable results, and has a wealth of data to test his earlier conclusions, and perhaps the sheer newness of the entire enterprise makes it safer for him to be honest. In a few years he realizes the vacuity of his own psychological results, and by implication, many of the methods he's been taught. That's what kicks off his whole program of investigating sources of bias and error. Would this have ever happened in a standard academic setting?

radu_floricica 15y ago
Quite possibly. Roy Baumeister has possibly the best thinking process I've ever met. He had the gall to approach a subject like this, and do it with flawless rigor: http://www.amazon.com/Meanings-Life-Roy-F-Baumeister/dp/0898625319 http://www.amazon.com/Meanings-Life-Roy-F-Baumeister/dp/0898... Too bad his latest book (Willpower) is coauthored with a professional writer... I miss his style.