-By Warner Todd Huston
OK, let me get this straight. The bulk of the “research” that the so-called sciences mentioned in the headline above are done in university labs. There they conduct these “experiments” mostly, not exclusively, but mostly, on grad students and other students willing to go to the lab and take surveys, answer questions, and participate in the “experiments,” often for money.
The “results” of these hackneyed “experiments” are then used as “proof” of an often politically motivated concept, like “why are conservatives filled with fear,” or “why are the religious so hateful and full of fear,” or “why are Republicans so hateful and full of crap?,” of “why are gays and lesbians so cool”? You know, important questions like that.
Now, I remind you who the participants are in these pseudo experiments: college students.
Yeah, the same college students that we sent to college because they have heads full of mush that college is supposed to help form and educate. The same college students that are often high or drunk out of their gourds. The same college students that have no responsibilities, no families to temper their decision making, and no careers to consider in their thought processes.
Then these “sciences” take these “results” and assume they are representative of whole segments of the populace, the whole nation itself, the two genders, or even all of humanity, on those very people that society thinks are unformed, inexperienced and not quite ready for prime time (hence why they are in school in the first place, to attain those attributes).
So we are basing results on the half formed of our populace and then claiming that “science” has proven what “people” think, how they act or how they react to stimuli, real life situations, or decisions and choices?
We call that science?
It’s like purposefully screening out the smart rats and putting the stupid ones in a maze and then concluding that rats are incapable of running mazes!
And we are basing “science” on this idiocy? We are claiming that disciplines that use this sort of data are “sciences”?
Worse, we now have a president that is heavily influenced by this crap and is basing government policy on it! This scary truth was brought out in excruciating detail by the Weekly Standard’s Andrew Ferguson in a recent piece on the ideas of “Nudging” the economy in the direction that left wingers want it to go.
For a long time I’ve maintained that psychology and psychiatry are not science. I’ve also laughed at the conceit that social science is as advertised. But oh, it was all just humorous wastes of education money until I read Ferguson’s discouraging piece.
Now we have politically motivated, pseudo science forming the basis for policy!
This is yet one more example of the folly that is this man-child in the White House. He is truly one of the most dangerous presidents in history.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.
He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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This Administration continues to provide classic examples of redefinition of terms to take us to realms previously unthought of.
Your point about the nature of the subjects for many of these studies is also well taken. Good psychological studies randomize across demographics, including ages, gender, etc., etc. except where the purpose of the study has to do with behaviors of a particular segment of society that is limited by one of those variables.