(May 14, 2021 at 10:09 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 14, 2021 at 8:17 am)polymath257 Wrote: "Tade-offs in Choice' and 'The Cultural Foundation of Human Memory', and 'The Origins and Psychology of Human Cooperation' are the most likely candidates based on the abstracts. The one you mention seems to be the least alchemic.

My next question would be, what about them seemed pseudoscientific to you? And I suppose we could narrow down on the one Nudger linked to if you want to be specific.

I don't think he's going to answer this. The studies may or may not be good ones, but based just on the abstracts there's no reason to call them pseudoscientific. They aren't going to be as quantifiable and as cut-and-dried as some areas of science, but that doesn't mean they're pseudo. 

The analogy to alchemy is too simple, and breaks down pretty much immediately. Alchemy is used here just as a symbol for the thing that came before the thing we like. It was supposedly based on bad methods, while the thing we like is based on good methods. That's a caricature. 

I don't think we can make any judgement about the papers in that journal until we see the methodologies used. That's what determines whether they're sufficiently scientific or not. Not the abstract or the fact that they seem to be dealing with unquantifiable topics. 

And insulting the one about the cultural foundations of human memory is particularly narrow-minded. We all know that memory is extremely unreliable, edited and constructed over time. We can remember things that never happened or forget things that did. And all of this is -- to a large degree -- influenced by what our culture teaches us. So that is a fascinating and probably important field of research. I'm sure the paper doesn't settle anything big about the issue once and for all, but very few scientific papers do that in any field. Perhaps certain purists will insist that until researchers can explain memory completely through chemistry and physics no research about it will be valuable, but I think that's a category error, as well as incurious.

(May 14, 2021 at 10:09 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(May 14, 2021 at 8:17 am)polymath257 Wrote: "Tade-offs in Choice' and 'The Cultural Foundation of Human Memory', and 'The Origins and Psychology of Human Cooperation' are the most likely candidates based on the abstracts. The one you mention seems to be the least alchemic.

My next question would be, what about them seemed pseudoscientific to you? And I suppose we could narrow down on the one Nudger linked to if you want to be specific.

Not so much pseudoscientific, but pre-scientific. There is an important data collecting aspect and the beginnings of theorizing, but it seems like there is little actual testing and rejection of hypotheses based on those tests.

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(May 16, 2021 at 5:19 am)Belacqua Wrote:

(May 14, 2021 at 10:09 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: My next question would be, what about them seemed pseudoscientific to you? And I suppose we could narrow down on the one Nudger linked to if you want to be specific.

I don't think he's going to answer this. The studies may or may not be good ones, but based just on the abstracts there's no reason to call them pseudoscientific. They aren't going to be as quantifiable and as cut-and-dried as some areas of science, but that doesn't mean they're pseudo. 

The analogy to alchemy is too simple, and breaks down pretty much immediately. Alchemy is used here just as a symbol for the thing that came before the thing we like. It was supposedly based on bad methods, while the thing we like is based on good methods. That's a caricature. 

I don't think we can make any judgement about the papers in that journal until we see the methodologies used. That's what determines whether they're sufficiently scientific or not. Not the abstract or the fact that they seem to be dealing with unquantifiable topics. 

And insulting the one about the cultural foundations of human memory is particularly narrow-minded. We all know that memory is extremely unreliable, edited and constructed over time. We can remember things that never happened or forget things that did. And all of this is -- to a large degree -- influenced by what our culture teaches us. So that is a fascinating and probably important field of research. I'm sure the paper doesn't settle anything big about the issue once and for all, but very few scientific papers do that in any field. Perhaps certain purists will insist that until researchers can explain memory completely through chemistry and physics no research about it will be valuable, but I think that's a category error, as well as incurious.

The stage of alchemy was when a LOT of basic methods were developed and new instruments were formed. A tremendous amount of data was collected and even a fair amount of theorizing. But it was ultimately not scientific because it didn't rely on the testing of its hypotheses and using those tests to modify theories as needed.

it isn't just the religious mumbo jumbo that made alchemy pre-scientific.

In regard to the paper on cultural differences in memory, what actual methods were used? What data was collected to test which hypotheses? I can see the *topic* being very interesting, although close to impossible to collect the relevant data. it would also take a team of hopefully multilingual researchers collecting and tabulating the data across several different cultures to a precision that I doubt anyone can yet do in any single culture as yet. Given the scale of the described article, it is NOWHERE close to being able to even start to address the relevant issues *unless* it is picking up from another large scale study that covers that material.

Sort of like trying to do chemistry prior to having good methods for dealing with purity and measurements.

(May 16, 2021 at 8:31 pm)polymath257 Wrote: In regard to the paper on cultural differences in memory, what actual methods were used? What data was collected to test which hypotheses? 

It would be good to know the answers to these questions before passing judgment.

(May 16, 2021 at 8:31 pm)polymath257 Wrote: In regard to the paper on cultural differences in memory, what actual methods were used? What data was collected to test which hypotheses? I can see the *topic* being very interesting, although close to impossible to collect the relevant data.

I linked to the full paper above. And including one of the studies referenced in the article: "Attending holistically versus analytically."

Quote:It would also take a team of hopefully multilingual researchers collecting and tabulating the data across several different cultures to a precision that I doubt anyone can yet do in any single culture as yet.

Right, that's what psychologists are trained in. For example, in the "attending holistically vs analytically" study there were two researchers: Takahiko Masuda (Japanese) and Richard Nisbett (American). And their study contrasted recognition in American and Japanese participants.

Quote:Given the scale of the described article, it is NOWHERE close to being able to even start to address the relevant issues *unless* it is picking up from another large scale study that covers that material.

Yes, review articles are building on many other studies, such as the "attending holistically vs analytically" paper.

However, to be clear, a study only has to be as large as it needs to be so that it is adequately powered. Power refers to the probability that a study will give statistically significant results. And things like sample size, effect size, and significance level affect the power of a study. I say that because you seem to imply that only studies with the largest of scales will suffice, but psychologists already have ways of calculating how large the study needs to be.

(May 17, 2021 at 6:33 am)Belacqua Wrote: What I was thinking about in Japan was that in certain kinds of prescribed areas, eccentricity or individuality is accepted very easily. Maybe we can say it's a tight society, with pockets of looseness. The overall tightness means that how people respond to oddballs is also restricted, which makes them more secure. 

Yes, that's exactly right. I remember reading something about that in the book. Here's an excerpt:

"For example, even tight nations have select domains where anything goes—where citizens can let off normative steam. The looseness of these contexts tends to be carefully designated. Take Takeshita Street in Tokyo. Within the confines of this narrow pedestrian shopping street, Japan’s cultural demands for uniformity and order are completely suspended. On Takeshita Street, people stroll and preen in zany costumes, ranging from anime characters to sexy maids to punk musicians."

Quote:I had assumed that more always meant better, but maybe not. 

More is definitely better, but it isn't always significantly better. It might be analogous to increasing the resolution of an image; you get more clarity with more data but there isn't a sudden overhaul of information. Here's an excerpt form one of my textbooks:

"If you take a look at some studies on perception and memory, you will see that they include sample sizes of between 20 and 50 subjects per condition. However, if you are only collecting one measurement per subject or are asking subjects to complete surveys and questionnaires, you may need to include a larger sample. Many such studies include sample sizes in the hundreds. If you are sampling from a small population (e.g., autistic children), you may need to use a small sample of only 10 to 20 subjects due to lack of availability of individuals in this population and the difficulty you may have in recruiting such subjects."

Quote:Are you involved in any research of this type? Probably you don't want to be too specific in public here, but I'm curious if this is part of your grad school so far.

I'm not currently involved in research, but many people are, and I hope to be next year. So far my courses involve seminar discussions a final research proposal at the end of the course, in which you have to design or propose your own research/theory paper.