brown_betty

Y'know when I read a story which involves a peer reviewed aggregation involving multiple scientific disciplines, and does not contain a sentence like "The study subjected 200 college students to personality tests..." and actually interrogates the methodology, then I will give credence to headlines like "Why women really do love self-obsessed psychopaths". Until then it's science adjacent reporting.

Ugh. Someone in one of the posts says something like "But uh, this isn't demonstrated, it's just a stereotype" and Robin Hanson says "But stereotypes happen because they're TRUE."

Wow, good thing he's OVERCOMING BIAS SCIENTIFICALLY, eh?

[colbert-vox] "What you ladies seem to forget is the key part of science is the ability to make your pronouncements in a deep resonating tone. SCIENCE! Let's face it, the only reason Marie Curie is known is she got throat cancer which made her sound like a dude." [/colbert-vox]

Man, I find Colbert hits my embarrassment squick with his guests, so I don't watch as often as I might, but that's awesome. SCIENCE: Brought to you by DUDES!

That's just my pale imitation. I'm sure he'd have something even wittier. I do find the Colbertian voice is a handy one. I should use it more, but I'm too sincere.

Wow. As a psychologist who does in fact study human behavior scientifically and even, on occasion, uses psychometrically sound personality measures to do so, I roll my eyes at being lumped in with the pseudoscientific ravings of the Overcoming Bias asshat. Thanks for that. Fist bump of solidarity.

All of humanity, or at least the media, rather owes you and your colleagues an apology for letting idiots like the Overcoming Bias Asshat besmirch your good name. I get frustrated wheenever I see that happen, and I'm just a friend of science; I can't even imagine how frustrated you must be.

Incredibly frustrating, yes- it causes me to snark on the internet :)

Honestly, I get that with all of the pop psychology and pseudoscience that proliferates in this society that the average joe has a hard time differentiating the wheat from the chaff. But ultimately, who do you* think is doing the research that, collectively, challenges and disproves asshats like the Overcoming Bias dude? Who is it that studies cognitions and stereotypes scientifically? Psychologists and sociologists. Who studies gender scientifically? Psychologists and sociologists. And though that research often *begins* with 200 college student subjects (because who else is lining up to participate in research, honestly), it doesn't end there. Science is building up evidence slowly using good methodology and variations in sampling to increase generalizability We're doing it in peer reviewed journals using multiple sound methodologies and research syntheses are the method du jour for some of our top journals.

I'm sorry for splooging all over you, but it really bugs me when I see people who are presumably allies throwing the very research that aids their arguments under the bus because there's some misguided stereotype that psychology isn't a real science.

Whew :) Thanks for the support!

*you being the general you.

Believe me, I hear you. I totally understand the rant you've unleashed. :)

Science-adjacent reporting! Fabulous phrase.

Bad science reporting is a pet peeve of mine and I'm not even a scientist (unless you count applied linguistics, but anyway).

OH LOOK, THERE'S MY FEMINIST RAGE FOR THE DAY.

"Overcoming Bias" is lame. *throws rocks at it*

Dude has some sort of issues against women and believes that he's always right. Hell, I don't need to go to the internet to see that, I can find it all over the place. :-P

*throws more rocks at them*

ETA: That guy showed up in the LJ scientists community not too long ago with the same "rape is a good thing" argument. I got bored with it really fast.

I hope LJ scientists threw rocks at him too. OXFORD. Bah.

It took me awhile to find the discussion (procrastinate much?), but here it is: http://community.livejournal.com/_scientists_/782749.html. I don't believe it's friends-locked....

Really, I think more stones could have been thrown!

Oh, btw, Robin Whatshisface is actually an economics prof at George Mason Univ in Virginia. He's just involved with Oxford via this blog and the "institute" in the philosophy dept that sponsors it. I couldn't help but notice that he's a "theoretical scientist" and has never done any benchtop work.

Those of us who actually have to support hypotheses with DATA for a living look down on "scientists" like him.

I am glad to know that, it puts a punctuation mark into my otherwise undisturbed looking-down-upon of him.

Oh good grief--yeah, I stumbled over Mr. Robin a few weeks ago, via mswyrr brilliant post--posted myself, let me know if you want the link--because, yeah, it's.....just special.

See, the important bias is that which keeps us from seeing objective truth not irrelevant moral issues like fairness *snorts*. Two of them explained that to me very carefully. Both male.

And one of the editors over there is pretty big on the fact that he is Jewish and has NEVER experiences discrimination. So therefore it apparently doesn't exist.

I saw you in there fighting the good fight, and I was rather impressed (and intimidated!) by your bibliographic recommendations. I took the low road, as you can see.

I took the low road

And hilariously so!

*heh* I'm always ready with a bibliography.

See, I evolved this theory: a big bibliography is an aca-penis.

*nods*

Several women friends and I have joked about buying strap ons for use in our jobs: we figured, put them on the desk is a prominent position, carry them to meetings, slap them down on the table when the academic dick waving begins (it always does) at the committee or department meetings.

We've never done it (though I swear I might do it my last year), but we're tempted.

Symbolically, however, I figure the BIG LONG bibligraphy is the symbolic equivalent, so I'm always ready (was a bit frustrated to tell the truth because so much is not published online and it seems like many people prefer the immediate link).

Of course, it soon became clear Robin and His Ilk don't give a damn, but it's always good to get the names out there.

Of course, it soon became clear Robin and His Ilk don't give a damn, but it's always good to get the names out there.

It was a bit weird watching this all unfold, how Robin started out seeming dense, but intellectually honest, and degraded into raving lunacy, but going back into the archives, it's apparent that the raving lunacy has been present for a while.

OH I WANT TO HIT HIM HARD. WITH A STICK.

THAT WOULD AMUSE MY FEEBLE MIND.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Dear Oxford peers of this idiot, please do something; these muppets are shaming the academic community and the rest of the country.

Dear Robin Whatsyerface: STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD NOW PLEASE

...a little bit more explanation, so I don't end up reading filth before breakfast? Ugh.

Short Version: There is a blog called 'overcoming bias' which mswyrr happened upon asking the immortal question: "Why don't the ladies do rigorous science stuff like us?" So she attempted to straighten them out, which didn't work out so well, but upon further investigation they have been promulgating dodgy sexist ev-psych for several years.

Why don't nice guys like me get the girls?

That would be because he is not a nice guy.

And I just couldn't wade through all the comments to his rape post. Did anyone point out that 1) rape is not about sex, it's about power, or 2) the reason the hypothetical rapist can't get laid is because he has characteristics that females select against, and therefore the hypothetical rape would be a crime against Darwinian evolution as well as against the hypothetical victim?

(Sorry for all the "hypotheticals" there. It was the only way I could get around my triggers.)

Well, I don't know, but really, anyone who's all "Hey, why don't rapists get props for their clever satisficing?" is probably a) not someone worth talking to and b) taking up valuable oxygen.

Also, never apologize for finding rape horrible, please.

People did try to point out the power issue--but it was roundly denied because clearly that is wrong, wrong, wrong. All feminists are wrong you see: we are apparently biassed.

Quantitative research: ur doin it wrong. Typical pseudo-academic asshattery. *starts gathering rocks*

To be slightly less sweeping and reductionist, he is an 'associate researcher' for the FUTURE INSTITUTE which I like to write in all-caps, which seems — oh wait, cheez_ball explains here.

I hate Evolutionary psychologists. It's a branch of study that repulses me the more I look into its research methods. Ideal speculation becomes fact so quickly these days with news being churned out for the masses. Sound-byte culture plus Evolutionary psychologists = articles about women's inferiority coming up almost daily on my google page. Oh god, don't get me started. I'll start ranting about voodoo like Rodney McKay. :/

And he's not even a psychologist or a biologist of any kind, he's an economist, with training in physics! Good enough for spouting off, I guess.

And the thing is, the research data that supposedly supports evolutionary psychology for gender differences almost always can be interpreted to support the competing sociocultural theories as well. As a theory, I just don't find it to be uniformly and cleanly testable, which makes it a piss-poor theory.

Exactly

What gets me is when ev-psych is used to explain such eternal mysteries as "Why do the ladies like pink?" All they'd have to do is maybe leave their culture for fifteen minutes to find out that the ladies liking pink is a construction of twentieth century western civilization, but no, it's easier to babble about hunter-gatherers than to check your data.

OOO! let me guess!

It's because all the ladies back at the caves while the HUNTERS were out slaughtering mastadons and dinosaurs had to pick berries so we evolved to see PINK berries!

(Yeah, show em the ads from earlier in the century where PINK was the robust color for boy babies and wimpy blue was for weak little girls and watch their head go splodey!)

It's like you've been exposed to their bullshit before! (Quick guide to ev-psych: when in doubt, blame it on cave-men! No one knows what they were like, so you can say anything)

Have you read Chris Clark on the subject? He's a totally dreamboat, and I say that because I am evolutionarily predisposed to do so.

hahahahahahahahahahahah! I think I must subscribe to his feed!

Why can't some people just be struck by lightning for the good of humankind? Won't anyone think of the gene pool?

Among other things, correlation does not mean causation. *facapalms* I'm not a scientist and their scientific process makes me wince and I don't know anything about methodology and all that jazz.

To a certain extent, you can see him lose his logical faculties as these darn women keep on not yielding to his +8 Stick of Science. But then again, he didn't have mch in the way of logical faculties on that topic.

I want you to know that you are entirely to blame for the whiskey I just drank. ENTIRELY.

OMG, SORRY. Will it help if my next post is on obscure Canadian tv from the seventies?