Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The American Psychological Association: heirs of the Soviet method

Psychology and Global Climate Change:

Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges

A Report by the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change
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[Wolf's post summarizes some of the ways in which the data has been distorted and notes that global warming, excuse me climate change, research has been conducted contrary to the spirit and methodology of science:

This really is a travesty. But what I find most breathtaking is people calling themselves "scientists" while refusing to release their methodology and, now, complicit in hiding even the raw data. Such people should be stripped of their tenure and accreditation. Perhaps then some of the problems of politicized science that are now so bedeviling us would disappear.]

The Psychologists of the APA, who insist that they are scientists, accept the premise and construct a 230 page report detailing ways in which the people are failing in their understanding of the risks of "Climate Change", the necessity of the dissenters learning to accept the wisdom of those who know better than they do, and ways in which the public can be induced to accept the necessity of stringent measures to fight the menace
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The report has an entire section devoted to explaining "Which Psychological Barriers Limit Climate Change Action?" (pps 123-132) Nowhere does the report include a recognition that the science of climatology is still in its infancy, that the global cooling for the last 10 years had not been predicted by any of the computer models, and that there may well be many more immediate problems that have a higher claim on our concern. No, to the APA, Anthropogenic Climate Change is a privileged "fact" which has become unquestionable.
Read the whole damn thing, and wonder just how many 'elites' like the sound of this crap.

2 comments:

Keith said...

SWMBO has more psychology degrees than I can wave a shitty stick at (she's a bit of an eternal student).

She is very critical of "theory first then find supporting evidence" political based pseudo science. Also of the Character assassination practiced by certain celebrity leftist psychologists / phobosophers, whenever someone actually applies some science in what they regard as their personal territory.

I think i commented a couple of weeks back that her first few lessons with a new batch of students aims to teach them what the scientific method is, how it is inevitably "value laden" and that all scientific knowledge is provisional, and to be replaced when a better explanation of the observations can be demonstrated and reliably repeated.

For most of her students this is a major revelation!

Firehand said...

You did indeed tell about that; sounds like a fine teacher.

Years ago I remember reading a piece about a physicist who said something like "The 'laws of nature' aren't; they're simply our understanding of how things work based on current knowledge, and thus are subject to change at any time when new information is found. And a lot of scientists just don't want to admit that." A lot of people, even in the hard sciences, get so tied into a theory or belief that they want to screw with facts to make them fit theory, instead of the other way around; and, just like the psychiatrists playing this game, it really messes with things. And betrays a very unscientific way of thinking.