Mike it’s awful, and it’s a problem that infects almost the entirety of psychological “research” and much of physiology as well. Researchers have become intent on demonstrating a hypothesis and studiously avoid demonstrating the null. And the media laps up the flawed or hyped conclusions. And clients bear the brunt of stupid, useless, or harmful strategies that arise as a result of the whole mess.
Absolutely. We in the social sciences have to contend with so many factors influencing human behavior, many unknown, that we often get pitiful R-values of 0.20 or less (typical of teen social media use and depression effect sizes), which may be "statistically significant" for large samples but amount to near-zero effects. Instead of honestly admitting that limitation, we too often issue alarmist, sensational press releases. We might get good press and invited to do TED talks and legislative testimony, but public policy and millions of people often suffer from such shoddy non-science. It's long past time for social science to adopt rigorous standards: no more junk "findings."
I don’t know how we do it Mike. A lot of us push back on this every day and just get flamed for our efforts, even by health professionals who should know better. It doesn’t help that their professional associations often endorse this crap. And then there’s the flawed perception that their clients benefit from it, instead of attributing the therapeutic liaison, the passing of time, other false attribution, error of judgement, or plain delusion.
I have seen a real narrowing in social sciences, media, and other institutions over the last 20 years. Only standard views useful to one side or the other are permitted and repeated over and over, even if poorly documented; nothing unusual or challenging is allowed, even if well documented.
Mike it’s awful, and it’s a problem that infects almost the entirety of psychological “research” and much of physiology as well. Researchers have become intent on demonstrating a hypothesis and studiously avoid demonstrating the null. And the media laps up the flawed or hyped conclusions. And clients bear the brunt of stupid, useless, or harmful strategies that arise as a result of the whole mess.
Absolutely. We in the social sciences have to contend with so many factors influencing human behavior, many unknown, that we often get pitiful R-values of 0.20 or less (typical of teen social media use and depression effect sizes), which may be "statistically significant" for large samples but amount to near-zero effects. Instead of honestly admitting that limitation, we too often issue alarmist, sensational press releases. We might get good press and invited to do TED talks and legislative testimony, but public policy and millions of people often suffer from such shoddy non-science. It's long past time for social science to adopt rigorous standards: no more junk "findings."
I don’t know how we do it Mike. A lot of us push back on this every day and just get flamed for our efforts, even by health professionals who should know better. It doesn’t help that their professional associations often endorse this crap. And then there’s the flawed perception that their clients benefit from it, instead of attributing the therapeutic liaison, the passing of time, other false attribution, error of judgement, or plain delusion.
I have seen a real narrowing in social sciences, media, and other institutions over the last 20 years. Only standard views useful to one side or the other are permitted and repeated over and over, even if poorly documented; nothing unusual or challenging is allowed, even if well documented.