Psychology is pseudo science

13

Comments

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    From what I've seen, Peterson basically parlayed one classroom dispute over gender-pronouns into a series of interviews and then into a career as a "wizard in general practice", to borrow H.L. Mencken's dismissive description of Ezra Pound's political phase.

    Peterson's political commentary pretty much just consists of recycling culture-war talking points, using non-technical phrases like "postmodern marxism", which are actually nonsensical. Plus, he somehow managed to get a side-gig going with self-help books. (Which were even selling in Korea for awhile.)

    Can't say I'm either particularly enamoured or outraged by anything Peterson does. There was an amusing incident a few months back in my home province, where some teacher was accused of making anti-gay comments in class, and he showed up for his disciplinary hearing with some unpublished life-improvement manual he'd written. Apparently he thought he could emulate JP's exact career trajectory!
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    I want to go back to the earlier comment about the way that psychoactive drugs have been discovered in practice, from the way in which drugs developed for other things have been observed operating on the psyches of those taking them. I would suggest holding all forms of therapy up to the same light. Lacan wrote of psychotherapy as rewriting the patient's self- narrative, and if the process is healing and helps the patient to live a fuller life in less distress (the last is more objective as a measure, but I think the first is also important - the value of a distress-free life at the price of total inactivity and intertness is surely questionable), then I don't see why the psychoanalyitical approach is any less proven to be effective than the psychoactive drug. As for the results of therapy not being reproduceable - so what? Do we dismiss chisels as tools because not everyone can liberate Michaeangelo's David from a block of stone? There are control effects in every form of therapy, including drug therapy, but that does not make them ineffective. To me, a mythological structure that heals those who allow themselves to be rewritten by it is validly as powerful as a drug that cures or helps those who agree to swallow it.

    Nice analogy. Aye, until the science steps up (give us another century or ten), it's all we got. Retelling stories.

    But telling stories is the beginning and the end. I don't think there is any other way of encountering someone, and therapy is that.

    I agree completely, how could I not?
  • That was the split for Freud and Jung, or part of it. Freud hated mythology, although he had his own, and was horrified by Jung's going into the "occult", as F called it. Apart from that, F is a terrific writer, J turgid. But also an oedipal struggle went on between them, F feared being killed by a younger son.

    He was killed by his nephew instead.

    Very good.

    Not his friend Schur?
  • I read that it was indeed Dr Schur, possibly assisted by Dr Josephine Schoss for the final dose of morphine, who helped Freud out of the agony of this world.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    I read that it was indeed Dr Schur, possibly assisted by Dr Josephine Schoss for the final dose of morphine, who helped Freud out of the agony of this world.

    I thought Freud refused painkillers on his deathbed.

    (Not saying you're wrong, neccessarily, just that it doesn't match what I've read elsewhere.)
  • I find it odd that so often people talk about psychology in terms of Freud and Jung, rather than figures like Aaron T Beck, Anthony Ryle or B F Skinner. It’s like taking about physics as if nothing has happened since Einstein.
  • I find it odd that so often people talk about psychology in terms of Freud and Jung, rather than figures like Aaron T Beck, Anthony Ryle or B F Skinner. It’s like taking about physics as if nothing has happened since Einstein.

    Except that theories in psychology have as much to do with fashions and stylistic preferences as they do with empirical evidence. In that sense it's more like history or economics than real science.

    I would note, however, that Maxwell, Newton, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Galileo and Curie all still loom over modern physics. The difference is that this is because their theories and discoveries continue to hold true, at least within certain situations.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    I find it odd that so often people talk about psychology in terms of Freud and Jung, rather than figures like Aaron T Beck, Anthony Ryle or B F Skinner. It’s like taking about physics as if nothing has happened since Einstein.

    Well, Freud and Jung talked about cooler stuff than the Behaviourists or the cognitive whatever guys.

    I mean, just look at movies: Freud gave us how many trains going through tunnels, and the Bates Motel is an entire cultural industry unto itself. Meanwhile Jung is supposedly responsible for the entire Dune series, plus every Star Wars flick from Empire Strikes Back onward.

    Don't think there are too many movies about Skinner's pigeons. Usually the only time you see Behaviourist motifs used in a book or film is when it's the set-up for some sort of dystopian future.
  • Yes, it's glamour.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Psychology has come a lonnnnng way from the 'theories' of Freud but has a way to go before it is as scientific as physics. Neuroscience is helping.

    The physicist in me has a certain amount of time for the claim that if it ends in -ology it's not a real science. ;)

    Like virology?
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Psychology has come a lonnnnng way from the 'theories' of Freud but has a way to go before it is as scientific as physics. Neuroscience is helping.

    The physicist in me has a certain amount of time for the claim that if it ends in -ology it's not a real science. ;)

    Like virology?

    I think Arethosemyfeet was just being funny?

    SPOILER...

    Since "physicist" doesn't end in -ology, he as a physicist has a bias against those sciences which do.

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    The stereotypical attitude of physicists to other scientists is summed up by Ernest Rutherford's alleged division of science into physics and stamp collecting. (The root idea is that physics explains what is really going, and everything else is just describing what happens. Chemists have a similar attitude towards biologists, biologists towards psychologists, psychologists towards sociologists, and sociologists think everything is culturally constructed.)
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited February 21
    stetson wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Psychology has come a lonnnnng way from the 'theories' of Freud but has a way to go before it is as scientific as physics. Neuroscience is helping.

    The physicist in me has a certain amount of time for the claim that if it ends in -ology it's not a real science. ;)

    Like virology?

    I think Arethosemyfeet was just being funny?

    SPOILER...

    Since "physicist" doesn't end in -ology, he as a physicist has a bias against those sciences which do.

    No!! Really??
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited February 21
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    There might be a slight aspect of snobbishness among Peterson's left-wing critics: I personally have met leftists who use the term "blue collar" as a pejorative, so it wouldn't be surprising if some academic progressives are just disdainful of any one of their caste who has a following among hoi poloi.

    For the most, part, though, I think the antipathy towards Peterson is just that people disagree with what he's saying. Maybe also a bit of alarm that he's managed to find such acclaim with the general public, though in his absence, I doubt that too many of his followers would be embracing feminism and transpositivism anyway.
  • stetson wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    There might be a slight aspect of snobbishness among Peterson's left-wing critics: I personally have met leftists who use the term "blue collar" as a pejorative, so it wouldn't be surprising if some academic progressives are just disdainful of any one of their caste who has a following among hoi poloi.

    For the most, part, though, I think the antipathy towards Peterson is just that people disagree with what he's saying. Maybe also a bit of alarm that he's managed to find such acclaim with the general public, though in his absence, I doubt that too many of his followers would be embracing feminism and transpositivism anyway.

    And universities are notoriously left wing?
  • stetson wrote: »
    I read that it was indeed Dr Schur, possibly assisted by Dr Josephine Schoss for the final dose of morphine, who helped Freud out of the agony of this world.

    I thought Freud refused painkillers on his deathbed.

    (Not saying you're wrong, neccessarily, just that it doesn't match what I've read elsewhere.)

    /tangent alert/

    What I've read suggests that Freud (who had cancer of the jaw) was so fed up with the pain that he asked Dr Schur to put an end to it by euthanising him.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Shipmate
    edited February 21
    I find it odd that so often people talk about psychology in terms of Freud and Jung, rather than figures like Aaron T Beck, Anthony Ryle or B F Skinner. It’s like taking about physics as if nothing has happened since Einstein.

    Except that theories in psychology have as much to do with fashions and stylistic preferences as they do with empirical evidence. In that sense it's more like history or economics than real science.

    I would note, however, that Maxwell, Newton, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Galileo and Curie all still loom over modern physics. The difference is that this is because their theories and discoveries continue to hold true, at least within certain situations.

    Behavioural theories of learning have been in constant use for nearly a century. Cognitive behavioural theories of mental process have become so well recognised they have entered everyday speech - this is where the idea of a vicious cycle comes from. Understanding of human attachment patterns underpins parental assessment and interventions. The fact the government is even thinking about the psychological impact of lockdown, the impact of social isolation is in part because psychological ideas have gone mainstream.

    The understanding of how autism and adhd manifest in peoples lives and how to support them also arise from psychological science.

    Also, if you think “hard science” is not subject to fashion and stylistic preferences Thomas Kunn and Karl Popper would like a word.
  • stetson wrote: »
    Peterson's political commentary pretty much just consists of recycling culture-war talking points, using non-technical phrases like "postmodern marxism", which are actually nonsensical.

    Stetson, I think it might have been you who introduced me to these comics here on the ship; if so, I acknowledge a debt.

  • stetson wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    There might be a slight aspect of snobbishness among Peterson's left-wing critics: I personally have met leftists who use the term "blue collar" as a pejorative, so it wouldn't be surprising if some academic progressives are just disdainful of any one of their caste who has a following among hoi poloi.

    For the most, part, though, I think the antipathy towards Peterson is just that people disagree with what he's saying. Maybe also a bit of alarm that he's managed to find such acclaim with the general public, though in his absence, I doubt that too many of his followers would be embracing feminism and transpositivism anyway.

    And universities are notoriously left wing?

    Notorious on the far right, anyway. You don't find many left wingers in the average business school, economics department, management school. What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.
    That, and historians pointing out that the UK wasn't always a bastion of sweetness and light in its foreign or domestic policy.

  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Arethosemyfeet What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.

    For me the question is how one establishes who are the experts in gender studies and sociology. The 'experts' and practitioners appear to be divided into hostile camps whose differences are ideological in character and cannot be resolved by scientific investigation. The nature versus nurture argument and discussions re the nature of gender are but two examples.
  • stetson wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    There might be a slight aspect of snobbishness among Peterson's left-wing critics: I personally have met leftists who use the term "blue collar" as a pejorative, so it wouldn't be surprising if some academic progressives are just disdainful of any one of their caste who has a following among hoi poloi.

    For the most, part, though, I think the antipathy towards Peterson is just that people disagree with what he's saying. Maybe also a bit of alarm that he's managed to find such acclaim with the general public, though in his absence, I doubt that too many of his followers would be embracing feminism and transpositivism anyway.

    And universities are notoriously left wing?

    Notorious on the far right, anyway. You don't find many left wingers in the average business school, economics department, management school. What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.

    The left are better at outrage though. Oops. Don't want to there.
  • But who stirred the pot before JP? He was/is a pioneer though.
    He woke a lot of people up whether you agree with him or not.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 21
    Forced to choose between anger at prejudice and anger against having those prejudices challenged, though, I'm not inclined to think the choice should be made simply on the apparent strength of feeling. Do I side with the transwoman who is very angry that she's being told she doesn't exist, or the transphobe (my apologies, gender critic) who's a bit cross that he's being asked to use a woman's actual name and pronouns?

    So difficult. The former seems so angry.

    Hmm. Let's try another. Do I side with the parent incandescent with rage that her daughter has just been chased home by a group shouting about her being a Dirty Paki, or the guy who's a bit cross because he struggled a bit with the bus driver's accent?

    So hard when some people get so outraged isn't it?
  • stetson wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Psychology has come a lonnnnng way from the 'theories' of Freud but has a way to go before it is as scientific as physics. Neuroscience is helping.

    The physicist in me has a certain amount of time for the claim that if it ends in -ology it's not a real science. ;)

    Like virology?

    I think Arethosemyfeet was just being funny?

    It's that damned lack of an irony font conjoined with my inability to read minds. Gets me every time.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Forced to choose between anger at prejudice and anger against having those prejudices challenged, though, I'm not inclined to think the choice should be made simply on the apparent strength of feeling. Do I side with the transwoman who is very angry that she's being told she doesn't exist, or the transphobe (my apologies, gender critic) who's a bit cross that he's being asked to use a woman's actual name and pronouns?

    So difficult. The former seems so angry.

    Hmm. Let's try another. Do I side with the parent incandescent with rage that her daughter has just been chased home by a group shouting about her being a Dirty Paki, or the guy who's a bit cross because he struggled a bit with the bus driver's accent?

    So hard when some people get so outraged isn't it?

    Precious
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    I'm all for being real, especially about masculinity and fascism. Don't push it, with PC-authoritarianism. Subvert it like all power imbalances. ITTWACW? As in, I'm assuming you have a Christian angle in this? My apologies if not. But if so, he has nothing to say apart from identifying a significant minority of humanity as bull rhinos who need careful handling while protecting the rest of the herd. It's up to Christians in particular and other humanists to include them in the herd.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    <snip>
    The left are better at outrage though. Oops. Don't want to there.
    <snip>

    Precious

    Host hat on
    @Insanely humble, posts like this do not look as though they are engaging with the issues, or a contribution to serious discussion. They look as if they are simply intended to provoke. If that is not your intention you need to reflect and amend your posting style. If it is your intention you need to consider the Ship’s Ten Commandments with special reference to 5, 3 and 1 and change your behaviour. I am drawing this post to the attention of the Ship’s Admins.
    Host hat off
    BroJames, Purgatory Host
  • Simon ToadSimon Toad Shipmate
    edited February 21
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Motivates especially young men to get their act together and stop blaming the world for their problems.
    One reason I like him is he likes books and writers I like. Such as Dostoyevsky
    Nobody respectable in Dostoyevsky gets their act together. Only people like Luzhin do that. Respectable people in Dostoyevsky spend all their worldly goods on prostitutes with hearts of gold before running naked into the street crying, I am guilty before everybody, out of universal love.
    (Dostoyevsky is great.)

    rofl
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    Some people here are academics, but mostly we are average people with an interest in exploring ideas and arguing in a forum where the rules are enforced. I've found in my time here (maybe 5 years posting and reading regularly) that our characteristic Australian directness and willingness to have a bit of a poke at people rubs some up the wrong way. I'm not talking about Martin here, or anyone in particular. Its just that when you read other people's responses to stuff, you have to keep that in mind as an Aussie. We walk on people's toes without noticing sometimes.
    Dafyd wrote: »
    What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.
    That, and historians pointing out that the UK wasn't always a bastion of sweetness and light in its foreign or domestic policy.

    or that the petty pommie mini-empire was mostly rubbish :tongue:
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    I'm all for being real, especially about masculinity and fascism. Don't push it, with PC-authoritarianism. Subvert it like all power imbalances. ITTWACW? As in, I'm assuming you have a Christian angle in this? My apologies if not. But if so, he has nothing to say apart from identifying a significant minority of humanity as bull rhinos who need careful handling while protecting the rest of the herd. It's up to Christians in particular and other humanists to include them in the herd.

    I struggle to understand several posts on this forum, including this one of yours. I'm used to being the most well read person in the room on a forum whose members only read the Bible.
    So forgive me for not responding accurately to every post.
    My prejudice towards academia is they sometimes choose a more difficult word, when they could use an easier one.
    At least learn from Peterson here.
    I am being influenced by all of you though. And probably will change my view gradually on Peterson. He is biased after all. I know that. You could say I have been brainwashed him . But then you could say that about Series and Foccault fans.
    I'm here to learn. So whilst I disagree with you now I am evolving.....but I refuse to become pompous in the process.
  • BroJames wrote: »
    <snip>
    The left are better at outrage though. Oops. Don't want to there.
    <snip>

    Precious

    Host hat on
    @Insanely humble, posts like this do not look as though they are engaging with the issues, or a contribution to serious discussion. They look as if they are simply intended to provoke. If that is not your intention you need to reflect and amend your posting style. If it is your intention you need to consider the Ship’s Ten Commandments with special reference to 5, 3 and 1 and change your behaviour. I am drawing this post to the attention of the Ship’s Admins.
    Host hat off
    BroJames, Purgatory Host

    Hope you picked up in the provocations before my post. Subtle digs.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Motivates especially young men to get their act together and stop blaming the world for their problems.
    One reason I like him is he likes books and writers I like. Such as Dostoyevsky
    Nobody respectable in Dostoyevsky gets their act together. Only people like Luzhin do that. Respectable people in Dostoyevsky spend all their worldly goods on prostitutes with hearts of gold before running naked into the street crying, I am guilty before everybody, out of universal love.
    (Dostoyevsky is great.)

    rofl
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    Some people here are academics, but mostly we are average people with an interest in exploring ideas and arguing in a forum where the rules are enforced. I've found in my time here (maybe 5 years posting and reading regularly) that our characteristic Australian directness and willingness to have a bit of a poke at people rubs some up the wrong way. I'm not talking about Martin here, or anyone in particular. Its just that when you read other people's responses to stuff, you have to keep that in mind as an Aussie. We walk on people's toes without noticing sometimes.
    Dafyd wrote: »
    What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.
    That, and historians pointing out that the UK wasn't always a bastion of sweetness and light in its foreign or domestic policy.

    or that the petty pommie mini-empire was mostly rubbish :tongue:

    Don't think people will like me having a dig back is the problem. New kid on the block?
  • Martin54Martin54 Shipmate
    edited February 21
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    I'm all for being real, especially about masculinity and fascism. Don't push it, with PC-authoritarianism. Subvert it like all power imbalances. ITTWACW? As in, I'm assuming you have a Christian angle in this? My apologies if not. But if so, he has nothing to say apart from identifying a significant minority of humanity as bull rhinos who need careful handling while protecting the rest of the herd. It's up to Christians in particular and other humanists to include them in the herd.

    I struggle to understand several posts on this forum, including this one of yours. I'm used to being the most well read person in the room on a forum whose members only read the Bible.
    So forgive me for not responding accurately to every post.
    My prejudice towards academia is they sometimes choose a more difficult word, when they could use an easier one.
    At least learn from Peterson here.
    I am being influenced by all of you though. And probably will change my view gradually on Peterson. He is biased after all. I know that. You could say I have been brainwashed him . But then you could say that about Series and Foccault fans.
    I'm here to learn. So whilst I disagree with you now I am evolving.....but I refuse to become pompous in the process.

    Learn from the Host. Academia is like scientific Latin and Greek species names and medical terms; universal, but more so. What do you disagree with me on?
  • Hope you picked up in the provocations before my post. Subtle digs.

    Okay, you're new here. One of the conventions is that if you want to comment on and/or argue with an official Hostly ruling, you start a new thread in Styx and do it there - not here, where it disrupts the conversation (such as it might be). The only exception to this is an acknowledgement that you've seen the Hostpost, coupled with an apology for making them do extra work.

    Doc Tor
    SoF Admin
  • Doc Tor wrote: »
    Hope you picked up in the provocations before my post. Subtle digs.

    Okay, you're new here. One of the conventions is that if you want to comment on and/or argue with an official Hostly ruling, you start a new thread in Styx and do it there - not here, where it disrupts the conversation (such as it might be). The only exception to this is an acknowledgement that you've seen the Hostpost, coupled with an apology for making them do extra work.

    Doc Tor
    SoF Admin

    Ok
    Insanely humbly sorry
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    I'm all for being real, especially about masculinity and fascism. Don't push it, with PC-authoritarianism. Subvert it like all power imbalances. ITTWACW? As in, I'm assuming you have a Christian angle in this? My apologies if not. But if so, he has nothing to say apart from identifying a significant minority of humanity as bull rhinos who need careful handling while protecting the rest of the herd. It's up to Christians in particular and other humanists to include them in the herd.

    I struggle to understand several posts on this forum, including this one of yours. I'm used to being the most well read person in the room on a forum whose members only read the Bible.
    So forgive me for not responding accurately to every post.
    My prejudice towards academia is they sometimes choose a more difficult word, when they could use an easier one.
    At least learn from Peterson here.
    I am being influenced by all of you though. And probably will change my view gradually on Peterson. He is biased after all. I know that. You could say I have been brainwashed him . But then you could say that about Series and Foccault fans.
    I'm here to learn. So whilst I disagree with you now I am evolving.....but I refuse to become pompous in the process.

    Learn from the Host. Academia is like scientific Latin and Greek species names and medical terms; universal, but more so. What do you disagree with me on?

    I can't remember. I've forgotten.
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    I'm all for being real, especially about masculinity and fascism. Don't push it, with PC-authoritarianism. Subvert it like all power imbalances. ITTWACW? As in, I'm assuming you have a Christian angle in this? My apologies if not. But if so, he has nothing to say apart from identifying a significant minority of humanity as bull rhinos who need careful handling while protecting the rest of the herd. It's up to Christians in particular and other humanists to include them in the herd.

    I struggle to understand several posts on this forum, including this one of yours. I'm used to being the most well read person in the room on a forum whose members only read the Bible.
    So forgive me for not responding accurately to every post.
    My prejudice towards academia is they sometimes choose a more difficult word, when they could use an easier one.
    At least learn from Peterson here.
    I am being influenced by all of you though. And probably will change my view gradually on Peterson. He is biased after all. I know that. You could say I have been brainwashed him . But then you could say that about Series and Foccault fans.
    I'm here to learn. So whilst I disagree with you now I am evolving.....but I refuse to become pompous in the process.

    Learn from the Host. Academia is like scientific Latin and Greek species names and medical terms; universal, but more so. What do you disagree with me on?

    I can't remember. I've forgotten.

    Then might I suggest that you swim anadromously?
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Psychology has come a lonnnnng way from the 'theories' of Freud but has a way to go before it is as scientific as physics. Neuroscience is helping.

    The physicist in me has a certain amount of time for the claim that if it ends in -ology it's not a real science. ;)

    Like virology?

    I think Arethosemyfeet was just being funny?

    It's that damned lack of an irony font conjoined with my inability to read minds. Gets me every time.

    Well, there was also a winking emoji at the end of his comment, which to me anyway usually indicates irony, or at least humour.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited February 22
    stetson wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    There might be a slight aspect of snobbishness among Peterson's left-wing critics: I personally have met leftists who use the term "blue collar" as a pejorative, so it wouldn't be surprising if some academic progressives are just disdainful of any one of their caste who has a following among hoi poloi.

    For the most, part, though, I think the antipathy towards Peterson is just that people disagree with what he's saying. Maybe also a bit of alarm that he's managed to find such acclaim with the general public, though in his absence, I doubt that too many of his followers would be embracing feminism and transpositivism anyway.

    And universities are notoriously left wing?

    Notorious on the far right, anyway. You don't find many left wingers in the average business school, economics department, management school. What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.

    The left are better at outrage though.

    January 6: Hold my beer.

  • edited February 22
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Arethosemyfeet What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.

    For me the question is how one establishes who are the experts in gender studies and sociology. The 'experts' and practitioners appear to be divided into hostile camps whose differences are ideological in character and cannot be resolved by scientific investigation. The nature versus nurture argument and discussions re the nature of gender are but two examples.
    This is where I've got myself into trouble discussing transgender on the Ship. It's not about science. It's about human rights. Who is to say that science is the arbiter of truth when it comes to matters of personal identity and living one's life in peace? Except we have argued about children and when they actually know enough about themselves to make such life choices. My original training was developmental psychology before graduate school: there is something to argue about here, and science is only part of it.

    Re this psychology topic more generally:

    Re Freud: he decided that actually listening to people rather than treating mental health disorders as a physical brain problem was a good idea. He gets a bad press for his theories. he should get more credit for the process he invented.

    Re Jordan Peterson: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/after-misconduct-complaint-jordan-peterson-agrees-to-plan-for-clinical-improvement. Like many people who see a pathway to fame and money, science has little to do with it. It is quite possible to take anything about people and turn it away from the origins in science. Peterson had a point about post modernism, and then was seduced by it all. He became a guru, with feet of clay. He's not discussed much academically nor professionally.

    Re EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), which was raised above. This is another method which the originator parleyed into a money making enterprise. You have to take her courses to be certified in this method, which involves moving eyes back and forth (or other movements like alternative squeezing your hands) while being guided to think about the (usually) traumatic occurrences. The method does desensitize traumatic memories, but the eye movements are not required and have no actual confirmed science behind them. I've reviewed this method several times re funding specifically for it. Neuro-feedback is another where there is a theory that you can learn to control your brain activity and thereby directly change the physical aspects of brain function which underlies psychological distress. I raise this in the same paragraph because both are touted as treatments for PTSD.

    Re counselling and therapy. I'd use the first to describe providing something to people who don't meet criteria for a diagnosis, and therapy for those who do. Psychotherapy is an additional term, though I prefer "psychological therapy". In popular usage all the terms are interchanged.

    As noted above, I get myself into trouble by insisting on actual evidence and data to back up claims about psychology and about people. I have an MA and PhD in clinical-community psychology, starting as a provider in what was community mental health, before the business analysis methods (largely unquestioned for 40 years now) successfully interfered with publicly funded health schemes and, here, finally and completely pushed mental health firmly back into hospitals about 1990, from where it had gone into the community in the late 1960s here. Don't know how much of this intrudes in the UK scene, but it's a real problem here. The physician dominance of mental health will probably be reduced over time again, because I think Millenials won't tolerate it, and I notice talking to physicians in their 30s is quite different than talking to older ones, though others in my cohort, let's say circa ~65 years old and older were formed professionally earlier also understand things differently and I think are more like these younger folks. Time's cycle affects everything.

    I've had have some trouble accepting the manualization of the interpersonal situation of therapy, which is today mostly CBT. It lends itself to the easy tracking of process and outcomes, and matches well to the information processing world of computerization. It's been cited many times that the behaviour therapy methods proceeding this is an unconscious pre-computer era telegraph and telephone switch analogy, and the psychodynamic model one of hydraulics. We thought the interpersonal therapy models would supersede, and I think they do: people always talk about the feeling of being understood by their therapist and their relationship with the psychologist. But you cannot easily manualize relationship and the indirect persuasion and healing which comes with interpersonal psychotherapy.
  • I wonder sometimes how much of the success of the psych professions is really owing to somebody finally sitting down to give serious, ongoing attention to a hurting person. There's a lot of power in that.
  • no prophet said ;
    He became a guru, with feet of clay. He's not discussed much academically nor professionally.

    Don't think it bothers him (JP )or his fans.
  • stetson wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    stetson wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Psychology has come a lonnnnng way from the 'theories' of Freud but has a way to go before it is as scientific as physics. Neuroscience is helping.

    The physicist in me has a certain amount of time for the claim that if it ends in -ology it's not a real science. ;)

    Like virology?

    I think Arethosemyfeet was just being funny?

    It's that damned lack of an irony font conjoined with my inability to read minds. Gets me every time.

    Well, there was also a winking emoji at the end of his comment, which to me anyway usually indicates irony, or at least humour.

    I may have missed that.
  • stetson wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    There might be a slight aspect of snobbishness among Peterson's left-wing critics: I personally have met leftists who use the term "blue collar" as a pejorative, so it wouldn't be surprising if some academic progressives are just disdainful of any one of their caste who has a following among hoi poloi.

    For the most, part, though, I think the antipathy towards Peterson is just that people disagree with what he's saying. Maybe also a bit of alarm that he's managed to find such acclaim with the general public, though in his absence, I doubt that too many of his followers would be embracing feminism and transpositivism anyway.

    And universities are notoriously left wing?

    Notorious on the far right, anyway. You don't find many left wingers in the average business school, economics department, management school. What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.

    The left are better at outrage though. Oops. Don't want to there.

    I don't know how to measure quality of outrage, but the number of puffed up gammons and redcaps around the place fulminating about political correctness, immigrants, and SOVEREIGNTY certainly suggests the right are ahead in quantity.
  • @NOprophet_NØprofit 'Re Freud: he decided that actually listening to people rather than treating mental health disorders as a physical brain problem was a good idea. He gets a bad press for his theories. he should get more credit for the process he invented.' sums it up nicely.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Motivates especially young men to get their act together and stop blaming the world for their problems.
    One reason I like him is he likes books and writers I like. Such as Dostoyevsky
    Nobody respectable in Dostoyevsky gets their act together. Only people like Luzhin do that. Respectable people in Dostoyevsky spend all their worldly goods on prostitutes with hearts of gold before running naked into the street crying, I am guilty before everybody, out of universal love.
    (Dostoyevsky is great.)

    rofl
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    Psychology is to psychiatry as biology is to medicine. (Probably a simplification but I think it will do.)
    As noted, psychology has a problem with replication. People trying to repeat the results of famous studies have been unable to do so.

    The other joke about it is that psychology is the study of the mind of students with time to participate in psychological studies; and child psychology is the study of the development of children whose parents work at a university.

    Ok..what do you think of JP then? Jordan Peterson? Is he overrated?

    I think he's a massive grifter and that even the averagely intelligent person should understand this after his very public failure to 'clean his room'. That his fans haven't seems to be a mixture of delusion and sunk cost fallacy.

    I don't mind admitting I'm still a fan. Even after his own mental breakdown. He's a motivator.
    One of his problems was he was too intense. He needed to chill more. Hes not a Messiah but he knows how to hold an audience.

    'Writing in Psychoanalysis, Politics and the Postmodern University, Daniel Burston argues that Peterson’s views on religion reflect a preoccupation with what Tillich calls the vertical or transcendent dimension of religious experience but demonstrates little or no familiarity with (or sympathy for) what Tillich termed the horizontal dimension of faith; which demands social justice in the tradition of the Biblical Prophets.'

    What's to be a fan of?

    Ok . Is this forum mostly for academics? Sense this is where he is most unpopular. Among his peers.
    He knows how to talk to the average punter without sounding pompous. That's a real gift. Maybe some of his peers envy him too.

    Some people here are academics, but mostly we are average people with an interest in exploring ideas and arguing in a forum where the rules are enforced. I've found in my time here (maybe 5 years posting and reading regularly) that our characteristic Australian directness and willingness to have a bit of a poke at people rubs some up the wrong way. I'm not talking about Martin here, or anyone in particular. Its just that when you read other people's responses to stuff, you have to keep that in mind as an Aussie. We walk on people's toes without noticing sometimes.
    Dafyd wrote: »
    What gets the right enraged/aroused (it's not always clear which) is usually experts in gender studies or sociology challenging their cherished prejudices.
    That, and historians pointing out that the UK wasn't always a bastion of sweetness and light in its foreign or domestic policy.

    or that the petty pommie mini-empire was mostly rubbish :tongue:

    Don't think people will like me having a dig back is the problem. New kid on the block?

    Am I the only one to make a fortuitous Freudian slip there?
  • When I was young, psychology was not a word heard on radio or by anyone we knew. When it started to be heard, adults I knew said, well, it's just common sense! During my eight years of married life, I had to work out for myself how to find the solution. Then I went to Teacher Training College and although, yes, I had certainly come across plenty of ideas and talk of psychology by then, the subject was obviously an important aspect of the course, Piaget being the main author whose words werre relied on. It was very interesting, but there were some ideas about which I thought, 'Well, I'm glad I didn't know that before having my children.' However, if I had known, I might have made a better job of their upbrining, but then, I wouldn't, as the saying goes, have started from where I did.

    In more recent years, on the two occasions when I have had occasion to spend an hour with a psychotherapist (= psychologist? I don't know), I have found that there were no questions I had not already thought of, and dealt with effectively, myself.

    I don't think I'd call psychology a pseudo-science but I do find it worrying when I see 'pseudo-sceptics' (which tends to happen on another forum), since, in myi opinion, some tortuous thinking is required to work out what that means!
  • I went from childhood to teenager years to pseudo adulthood.
    I never really made it to full adulthood. And now I'm back to childhood, which suits me best.
  • I wonder sometimes how much of the success of the psych professions is really owing to somebody finally sitting down to give serious, ongoing attention to a hurting person. There's a lot of power in that.

    This is the interpersonal relations context of psychotherapy. It's also why in my opinion that there's a lot of unconscious Christianity going on in this secular pursuit. Adding knowledge about people from science and statistical probability is gold. The putting therapy in to manuals may not speak to the caring, other centered helping relationship.

    I should note that nothing I know and have practiced have spared me and mine from suffering and needing help myself. This is, in my opinion, part of the truth that we're all fallen and disordered as part of our human condition.

    No psychology isn't a pseudo science, it's part science and part something else. Again, in my opinion, all human beings are psychologists and do the psychology of everyday life all the time.

    Re "ologists": oncologist, proctologist, anesthesiologist, there's quite a medical list.
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