I avoid the “Self Check-Out” at Kroger for two reasons: 1. I have never been able to complete my transaction out without a “Please notify the attendant” malfunction. (Note, yet again, The Great Fallacy of Individualism.) 2. I need the time in the “Check-Out With Other People” lines to read OK!, Star, Us, and, People. Who doesn’t love a good controversy?
Controversy! might as well have been the name for our entire semester, not just tomorrow’s class. Tracking the fault lines of our discipline has provided an exciting and incredibly useful kind of map, one that will be an excellent tool for the rest of graduate school. One thing I’ve learned along the way is that I find some controversies juicier than others.
As far as I’m concerned, whether or not to use empirically supported treatments, scientific evidence, and actuarial judgments is one controversy that should be put to bed. Baker, McFall, and Shoham’s editorial in the Washington Post brings it home when they report that “the practice of psychology—which includes psychotherapy—is akin to medicine as it was practiced a century ago” (italics mine), largely because psychologists fail to collect and scrutinize evidence. Psychologist’s tendency “to use their own insights and experience” to treat patients, instead of using those that have been rigorously scientifically tested, seems to me like obvious malpractice. I’m hoping that there are enough people in the field who agree with me because this is not necessarily an argument I want to have. It’s boring. Look at the question being asked: should you use treatments that are known to help a lot of people when you’re trying to help people? It’s both rhetorical and tautological.
I much prefer questions like, “Can you implant repressed memories?” Or, one I’m working on: “Can teachers indirectly make friends for students?” These are non-obvious questions about people’s experience. They may be counter-intuitive, but they are not counter-logical (the way disagreements about scientific evidence may be). As Jim’s narrative illustrates, the kind of controversies these research questions can spark can be just as incendiary, but I feel these arguments can be more productive, if only after well-designed, well-executed scientific evidence comes to light. I would be absolutely thrilled if, one day, a study of mine evokes as much contempt as Jim’s and Dr. Loftus’ did. I’d know that I was really getting at something deeply ingrained in a culture. I’d much rather argue with somebody who was grappling with a deeply felt conviction, than somebody with an ego so big that they’d claim their own intuition and experience is superior to scientific evidence.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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Great post. I've felt the same way about the "empirical or not" debate. It's boring. I have a nasty habit of doing research that gets people upset. Perhaps that's because I too want to keep the ! in controversy!
ReplyDeleteWould your post come out differently if its preamble concerned the self-checkout line at Harris Tweeter, instead of at Kroger? Now that is a boring question.
ReplyDeleteI, too, would put the reliance-on-scientific-evidence controversy to bed, but only if those in the non-reliance camp are absolutists.