July 3, 2018
# Stay Special
I listed some psychological research yesterday for claims that child/ parent separation has lasting, harmful effects. We might as well continue with psychology for the rest of the week, offering what I hope are a few interesting psychological tidbits.
My sister and I have an ongoing joke between us that refers to my childhood desire to be a famous Hollywood star rather than holding any number of other potentially interesting roles in life. Man, did I miss the bus. That aside, what is it about that longing to be famous? My best speculation has to do with my lifelong preoccupation with mortality, a preoccupation I have surely earned, given the frequent encounters with that crap starting at an early age. That, or a deep streak of narcissism….
If mortality concerns you, you want to have something that lasts beyond your mere existence, I guess. Fame, in other words. And so, any time I get a photo into an exhibit, my beloved sister exclaims:”NOW you are famous! You can rest!”
As a scientist, and a person living in an environment where science is under daily assault, one might want to remember how you put a claim to a test. Is it factually true? Is the evidence weak and ambiguous or indisputable? How precisely must a hypothesis be worded, to make it testable? All matter if we want to be able to trust findings.
Consider the claim “No matter what day of the year you pick, a famous photographer was born on that day.” A search on Google reveals, for sake of argument, that Friderike Heuer is the only photographer born on March 19. Does this observation support the initial claim, because Heuer is famous? (After all, hundreds of people have seen her art or read her blog.) Or does it contradict the claim, because Heuer isn’t famous? (After all, most people have never heard of her.) Both of these positions seem plausible, and so your “test” of this claim about birthdays turns out to depend on opinion, not fact: If you hold the opinion that Heuer is famous, then the evidence about the March 19 birthday confirms the claim; if you hold the opposite opinion, the same evidence doesn’t confirm the claim. As a result, this claim is not testable—there’s no way to say with certainty whether it fits with the facts or not since an essential element in your claim lacked precision – fame had to be defined. (Note that I did not ask to evaluate the hypothesis that Heuer IS famous – you didn’t think I’d be going there, would you now?)
Many feel that scientific facts, even if derived with the appropriate processes, no longer matter, in a political world that has moved beyond facts. Some argue that trying to use facts to convince those who adhere to lies is even counterproductive – see the attached below.
It is certainly a huge burden for the scientific community who did and does worry about getting the facts right to now having to think about ways of overcoming public resistance to those very facts (although not for the first time in history.) Figuring out how to do that is obviously essential for subsequent action that protects our and the world’s well-being, whether we think environmental harm, or disease control, resource distribution or multiple other areas. Maybe someone famous will figure it out.
Martha Ullman West
La plus ca change, la plus c’est la meme chose, oui? In the late Fifties anthropologists Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux did a study of how American school children viewed scientists (those who practice science in other words) and as far as I can recall, many thought of scientists as “mad geniuses, and or malevolent geniuses” but geniuses nevertheless. I think Americans have been suspicious, leery, wary of science for generations, but the strength of the denial, particularly re climate change, takes it to a new level. Friderike, define fame. I was trying to define it myself only last night when a friend, a much younger friend, told me as she walked me down to Nel Centro for a drink, that I am famous. I’ll settle for infamous, thanks. cheers.