Posted on 08/27/2015 11:41:03 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Don’t trust everything you read in the psychology literature. In fact, two thirds of it should probably be distrusted.
In the biggest project of its kind, Brian Nosek, a social psychologist and head of the Center for Open Science in Charlottesville, Virginia, and 269 co-authors repeated work reported in 98 original papers from three psychology journals, to see if they independently came up with the same results.
The studies they took on ranged from whether expressing insecurities perpetuates them to differences in how children and adults respond to fear stimuli, to effective ways to teach arithmetic.
According to the replicators' qualitative assessments, as previously reported by Nature, only 39 of the 100 replication attempts were successful. (There were 100 completed replication attempts on the 98 papers, as in two cases replication efforts were duplicated by separate teams.)
...
The work is part of the Reproducibility Project, launched in 2011 amid high-profile reports of fraud and faulty statistical analysis that led to an identity crisis in psychology.
John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist at Stanford University in California, says that the true replication-failure rate could exceed 80%, even higher than Nosek's study suggests. This is because the Reproducibility Project targeted work in highly respected journals, the original scientists worked closely with the replicators, and replicating teams generally opted for papers employing relatively easy methods — all things that should have made replication easier.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
What’s the rule, that under the most tightly controlled conditions the subject does what it jolly well wishes?
What about Global Warming theory?
So does human caused global warming, so does string theory. Much junk science out there these days.
It’s all subjective.
In fact, arguments exist as to whether or not psychology is even a science at all.
If only 39% of studies were reproducible, that essentially means that ALL psychological studies should be mistrusted.
Psychology is all in your mind.
If you can't replicate results I say if definitely is not. How many psychological "studies" are based on survey data? That's about as reliable as a Magic 8 Ball.
Psychologist are like Emily Litella, “Never mind”.
Well into the realm of ‘soft sciences’, as in marshmallow soft, air-puff soft.
Would love to dig a statistic - are most psychologists liberal Democrats? Remember that is how Charles Krauthammer started in the Carter campaign!
If you can’t replicate results I say if definitely is not. How many psychological “studies” are based on survey data? That’s about as reliable as a Magic 8 Ball.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/13/the-truth-wears-off
... The problem of selective reporting is rooted in a fundamental cognitive flaw, which is that we like proving ourselves right and hate being wrong. “It feels good to validate a hypothesis,” Ioannidis said. “It feels even better when you’ve got a financial interest in the idea or your career depends upon it. And that’s why, even after a claim has been systematically disproven”—he cites, for instance, the early work on hormone replacement therapy, or claims involving various vitamins—“you still see some stubborn researchers citing the first few studies that show a strong effect. They really want to believe that it’s true.”
A survey of social science professionals found that 1 in 100 to 1 in 300 was a conservative, versus 40% of the average population.
They often start studies with a radical bias and cherry pick data to fit the agenda, readily suppress studies that contradict their version of reality, regularly promote interpretations that don’t reflect the minor trends or correlations of the study and ignore the left wing bias of results generated by samples of their own studies.
And then there is their overwhelming view of conservatives as either immoral, stupid or evil - and the studies that have that as a built in assumption.
Just think what that does to megastudies!
In school, I got know a large number of pysch students (my roommate was trying to become a psychologist).
All of them had several personal issues that they were hoping to resolve. I don’t me just plain odd, I mean bat crap crazy issues.
In that school, at that time, all of my roommates classmates that he brought home went into pysch to fix themselves.
As an engineer, that troubles me.
“Neutrinos pass through anything, no matter how dense.”
Psychology - pseudo science.
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