Wishful Thinking Rears Its Ugly Head- The Troubling Trend of Research Bias in Psychology

I have noticed a peculiar bent as of late in the anthropology-related fields.  This is more strong evidence of the trend that people see what they want to see.

I have come upon a curious and very disturbing trend in popular psychology in recent days.  Any crackpot, cockamamie theory can be presented as "science" if the predicators are adamant enough in their marketing of it to the mass populace.

Even though there is plenty of evidence contradicting a theory, effectively rendering it nonexistent, this is evidently not a point of consideration for behavioral biology.  A frequent culprit and violator of common sense is the field of so-called "evolutionary psychology."

Evolutionary psychologists are usually able to find ample so-called evidence for their theories.  The reason they are able to do this is that, after five hundred thousand years of existence of the human species and its ancestry, probability is on the researchers' side.  Statistically speaking, there is bound to be some evidence buried in there somewhere that cements the evpsychs' expectations.

In the vast cosm of the existence of the human species in its entirety, everything has happened.  Every sort of imaginable gruesome crime against humanity -- slavery, violence, murder, r---, infanticide, genocide, all of that and more has happened, including the existence of sick individuals that have tried to justify these acts with some sort of excuse.  The chances are great of some sort of evidence coming up in the researchers' favor, some sort of data and information that supports their hypothesis. 

And this little bit of evidence is enough for them to gain credibility and respect in the scientific community.  In five hundred thousand years of existence of the human species, if there is one hundred years' worth of evidence to support any given hypothesis, this is sufficient to present in a peer-reviewed psychology journal to be approved of by other like-minded individuals that are fond of breaching common decency.

What do I mean when I write, "one hundred years' worth of evidence?"  This can be measured in the form of historical events, recurring human behavior, social and cultural trends.  An event that is submitted as evidence can be graded for the amount of time it occupied.  A war can last ten years.  A famine can last thirty years.  Over a period of one year, there are numerous muggings and violent assualts.  Each of these assaults takes up a little bit of time on its own.  Combined, they total a few months.  Any given human being generally lives less than one hundred years.   Therefore, one hundred years' worth of evidence is often enough to sway their opinion as well as their world view in favor of those researchers of evolutionary psychology.

Even though there is also plenty of evidence that proves the opposite of their theories, they can still manage to dish up sufficient support for whatever already exists in their heads.  Looking at these studies carefully, it seems that proponents of these theories have an already-existing agenda that they, whether purposely or subconsciously, wish to promote.  They therefore gather all evidence from which their already-existing conclusion can be deduced.

They do this while simultaneously ignoring all the evidence that points to the contrary.  They manage to completely ignore mountains of observation, logic, rationality, reasoning, and common sense that demonstrates that the results are actually null.

If the evpsychs are not necessarily fabricating evidence, they are in fact fabricating a conclusion deriving from this evidence.  Unfortunately, in the grand scheme of human existence, said conclusion can appear to have ample support dug up in favor of it.

But the thing is, the exact same thing can be said of those mountains of conflicting data that might very well be good-hearted and logical -- that there is plenty of it, but plenty of evidence exists to the contrary of even that.

**A good example is the two-sides-of-a-coin that are the claim that this country was founded on Christian beliefs, and the claim that this country was not founded on Christian beliefs.

Well, what exactly is meant when someone utters the phrase "founded this country?"  Do you mean the first European settlers that came to the New World in escape from religious persecution of a sort back in western Europe?

They established colonies that each had a central governing body, at least one church, and a judiciary system of sorts.  These were fully-functioning, though sporadic settlements.  These pilgrims came here so that they could practice their sect of Christianity that they were most comfortable with, which they were not allowed to practice in Britain and elsewhere.  And they also pillaged and ransacked the Native Americans.  Their descendents eventually led to the country being founded and developed into what it is today.  Does this count as the founding of this country?

Or do you mean the Founding Fathers, the original drafters of the Declaration of Independence, along with the other fathers of our country, all that good stuff?  The forefathers, who were mostly nondenominational deist, officially began declaring this a sovereign nation about a hundred fifty years after the first pilgrims arrived.  They also wrote the Constitution which more or less recognized the white-dominated settlements all as one unified governed entity.  Does this count as the founding of this country?

As you can see, there is plenty of evidence supporting both arguments.

***tie this in with the fact that I have noticed that reviewers and customers on Amazon.com tend to favor and lean towards their already-existing beliefs.***
I have noticed this with political leanings and sociopolitical opinions.  I have noticed this on message boards of news articles and political commentaries.

This can unfortunately be extended to the scientific and research community.  Now, remember that the hard sciences that sample and analyze the physical world are usually spared from this biased treatment.  This is because hard sciences must succumb to concrete distinct delineators that determine whether or not the experimental procedures follow academic protocol.

However, the more wishy-washy and abstract "sciences" of psychology and behavioral evolution are often prone to taint.  They are often subject to this sort of extreme, if possibly subconscious, personal bias.  This has very disturbing implications.  For example, some of the more gruesome "evolutionary" theories display these biased subconscious trends.

•• The infamous race and intelligence studies.
The notion that different races have different inherent intelligence capabilities.  Some studies have been done recently that controlled for environmental factors that affect performance on IQ tests.

I'll be honest with you, I love these IQ statistics because they make us Asians look good.  Who doesn't like to be scientifically proven to be better?  I am okay with these tests because in recent research undertakings, Asians have consistently come out on top for whatever reason.  And I am Asian.

Keep in mind that my approval does nothing to ensure the validity of this.  All that is assured is that I, like every human on the planet, like it because it agrees with my pre-conceived opinions as well as pride in my family ancestry.  See how deeply self-satisfying "science" goes?

The fact that I, an Asian, like this crap and am not really arguing against it demonstrates that bias colors everything.  (Even though I am South Asian and not East Asian, but goshdarnit we're from the same continent and I will stake my claim on this territory.). Personally I do feel that it is conclusive, but that follow-up needs to be done.

•• However, the mass response from most academics as well as the herd populace has also been unscientific.  Simply considering the possibility that behavior might be rooted in inherent intelligence, has been rendered verboten.  With their cries of, "Intelligence can't be measured, it is not quantifiable," and "Intelligence does not actually exist," "What is intelligence?," "There is no such thing as inherent intelligence," "Intelligence is a social construct," et al.

That feeling of distaste, nay disgust at encountering one of these studies that most likely prompted this mass response -- I get it, believe me, I get it.  Reading one of these reports when they go into unflinching detail about what low IQ implies...  At first one only feels indifference, oh huzzah another social science article.  But very quickly, it is nauseating, it is sickening, one feels ill reading one of these things.  Plus, James Watson is kind of an ahole.  He stole his so-called groundbreaking pioneering DNA research from Rosalind Franklin.  And now apparently in an effort to boost his low self-esteem from having no self-made accomplishments, he is trying to put other people down.

I feel ya.  But the sweeping blanket response from the scientific community has been an emotional one, not a rational one.  The logical approach would have been to say, "These are very serious allegations.  This might appear to be superficially racist, but perhaps we should not dismiss it so reflexively.  There does seem to be some merit in this hypothesis.  After all, look at the state of African Americans in this country even though there have been affirmative action, welfare, government housing subsidies, educational help, et al., all sorts of social programs for decades.  And that is nothing compared to the state of Africa.  Again, I know it is extremely offensive.  But the truth usually is."

•• At least these recent studies were conducted with much more empirical testing standards than the infamous "experiment" done by __ in the late 1800s.  In that one, ___scientist__  was filling deceased human craniums with cottonseed.  He would then measure how much cottonseed was used per brain, and he took the average for each race.  ...And then it turned out he had subconsciously been filling the craniums of deceased whites with more cottonseed than the craniums of deceased blacks.

However I do have questions about this that I would like answered.  How does lack of IQ points translate linearly into a penchant for violence?  Assault, violence against women, mugging.  Plus the long list of legal fiduciary crimes like skimming money from a corporation and calling this "capital gains."  I am not asking rhetorically, facetiously, ironically, etc.  I really do want to know.  What are the current theories in psychology?

Also, why would a drop in IQ points proportionately translate into increased violent urges?  What is the correlation?  Again, I am not asking to be sarcastic, sardonic, ironic, to put anyone in their place, etc.  I am truly curious.  There must be some neurological basis to this.  Some sort of brain chemistry that would offer some insight.

It needs to be noted that IQ does not necessarily correlate with morality.  Just because someone has a high IQ doesn't automatically mean they are a good person who has respect for their fellow human beings.  Having good judgement in matters of how to treat people, politeness, respect for someone's right to bodily autonomy, someone's right to personal space.  High raw intelligence on a person -- ability to solve puzzles and brain teasers, ability to understand science and mathematics -- does not automatically preclude that same person from turning into an evil villain that wants to block the sun from the earth thereby forcing the human race to bend to his/her will.

Now, many people with high IQs *do* have a strong sense of morality.  But are the two things intrinsically tied together as a neurological trait?  These two facets of a person's being, how much do they have to do with each other?  How closely related are a person's innate intelligence and this same person's sense of right and wrong?

My note that high IQ does not automatically correlate with increased morality was not quite based on whole facts.  This was mostly anecdotal; you know, the Nazi "medical" experimenters that were an excuse to torture and maim people, and the atom bomb, and the hydrogen bomb.

Hmm...  Perhaps not so anecdotal, after all.  This is a very interesting population survey that was published in Gene Expression online.  This might be due to the possibility that smart kids are better at risk-assessment:  any possible temporary benefits of casual sex are far outweighed by the possible long-term consequences of casual sex.  This guy here has some good commentary on the article.  In biomedical research, higher testosterone levels are documented to lead to more risky behavior, including increased aggression, increased sexual urges, increased violent urges, lower IQ, less impulse control, less ability for risk assessment, and less capacity for self-control. 

Okay, I went of on a branch for a bit, since I do not consider this part of the titular "wishful thinking."  It was just a fascinating bit of statistics that I thought worth mentioning.

•• The notion that women are less intelligent than men.  [[[___study that compared brain mass in women to brain mass in men___]]]]]
this was carried out in the late 1800s___
This is mostly juvenile hogwash.
they left out a few key facts, though.  ^it is the mass ratio of brain-to-body that determines intelligence, not simply brain mass. 
The ratio of brain mass to body mass does in fact determine intelligence.  blue whales have larger brains than humans.  However, an average blue whale is ___ kg, or __ pounds.  Humans have the largest brain-to-body mass ratio of all animals.  This comparison spans the entire kingdom animalae, from blue whales to gorillas.  In addition, female humans, on average, are smaller in mass than male humans.
^Besides brain mass, there are a host of other factors that determine intelligence.  Good cholesterol for neuron sheaths, sodium electrolyte content, to name just a few.

•• One of the more laughable theories is the one that claimed that in humans, outward signs of female fertility has moved from the butt to the boobs.  I wish I were making this up.  Hopefully, this has already been discredited with a swift guffaw.

•• Different types of intelligence.  I suspect that this list was devised partly to counteract any politically incorrect conclusions that have been drawn from previous intelligence tests.  On this list are things such as empathy, musical intelligence, sports intelligence, and art intelligence.  Erm, ok, well, those things are important of course; it is always good to have extracurricular activities and hobbies.  But to call them forms of straight-up intelligence seems a bit silly.  And things like empathy are very important, no question about that, but these are character traits, not the same thing as intelligence.

Monikering all these different -- and admittedly very important -- abilities in a human being as "intelligence" seems like a saccharine ploy to appeal to irritating parents, to try to reassure them that their kid isn't stupid.  Intelligence is important, but it is not the most important thing that makes a noble human being, and it certainly is not the only.  And musical or athletic ability is not dictionary-defined "intelligence."
I kinda sorta feel it's just bending to the will of PC types as well as powerful PC social lobby groups, like bloggers and stuff.

•• Ranting, raving nutbags that have the gall to call themselves "radical feminists" claim that the family unit is destructive, oppressive, abusive.  And that we should disband the family unit altogether because having any connection to one's heritage and ancestral culture is bad for society or something like that.

Well, to be fair, I don't think this was ever presented as being actual science.  It is unfortunate that proponents of this, um, theory, call themselves feminists.  They make normal, sane feminists look bad.  The fact is that the majority of feminists do want to get married and have families.  They just want that their husbands be involved and invested in the family and children, as well.  Look at the majority of feminists in the public sphere.  Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Bev Perdue, Eleanor Roosevelt, Indira Ghandi, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Nafisa Sadik, Queen Noor of Jordan -- they are all feminists, and they all have families as well.

These are but a few examples.  True, there are women such as Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan who never married nor had children.  But they are still normal, and they aren't sitting there saying that society should do away with nuclear families altogether.  And the vast majority of feminists, believe it or not, have not said that family is evil.  The central dogma of feminism is that of a woman pursuing career vs. family.  Feminists are not saying that either one is worse or better.  As individual human beings they are simply trying to decide which one is more important to themselves in their lives -- a sense of family or a sense of accomplishment.


I'm just trying to do my civic duty in exposing pseudo-science, separating it from true science.  Like James Randi, or like these guys:
http://loveofallwisdom.com/2010/01/cross-cultural-anorexia/

All that bias existing in the social sciences is unfortunately possible because it does not truly take heed to rigorous scientific protocol.  It does not truly pass standards of scientific research, data collecting, experimental design.  Any abstract concept such as psychology is always at the mercy of the opinions, whims, and personal experiences of the people that dabble in the subject.  It is not a distinct cut-and-dry field such as any of the science, math, engineering, technology fields.  It is obviously fluid and open to interpretation, and therefore it can unfortunately be manipulated to suit the personal agendas of its proponents.

It's all just opinion and conjecture anyway.  From the vast epochs of human experience, it is not a difficult task to be able to draw samples that can support just about any hypothesis your pretty little head can think of.  It might take some time, but invariably, it is realistically possible.

No better than other hoaxes that have come before it.  We have more sophisticated instruments nowadays, such as 3-D simulating software that can reconstruct skulls and stuff like that.  This only allows us to fool more people, more effectively, more believably.
P.T. Barnum "A sucker is born every minute."
Piltdown man

**And I'm not the only one that thinks so.  Recall the hoax enacted by the guy who successfully got a bullspit article published in an academic peer-reviewed journal.  He veritably played a social experiment prank on social studies itself.  He was able to demonstrate that in academia, the cloudy areas of philosophy and psychology, sure enough, there is a lot of fog backing up the prodigal airwaves.  Wishful thinking and empty pomp are perpetrated on the gullible academic world all the time, and this eventually trickles down to the unsuspecting public.

I tried half-heartedly to get through his essay, but I didn't understand what the hell it was talking about.  Good god, it was chock full of a bunch of words that were pedagogical, epistemological, epistemically, philosogistic, logogistic.  (I got those words from Wikipedia, so I hope they are accurate as used here.)  All of which the author probably crammed in there on purpose.

Well, in the social scientists' defense, this is not a recent trend.  Social research bias has been going on for as long as there has been social research.

Academic journals that set research guidelines are also aware of this.  Research parameters for recording data__  That is why double-blind methods were established for conducting behavioral research.  Double-blind means that the research subjects, the ones being experimented on, are unaware of what the experiment is testing for, like usual.  But also the researchers themselves who are observing and collecting data are also unaware of what the experiment is testing for.

An example is the double-blind method often used in clinical trials of new medications before hitting the market.  These precautions were enacted to correct for possible selective observation carried out by the researchers themselves.  The researchers who record results might subconsciously notice only the behaviors displayed by the test subjects that jives with the forecasted behaviors that the researchers expected to see -- this is what the double-blind method corrects for.

Unfortunately, double-blind research methods are not always used, due to the usual suspects of time and money constraints.  In many instances, not using double-blind methods is understandable.  The sheer magnitude of available information is overwhelming, and furiously jotting down every single behavior displayed by test subjects is wasteful of resources and of time.

Social darwinism
Eugenics
Sure, they certainly would not describe _themselves_ as social Darwinists, no argument there.  Nobody ever identifies themselves as social Darwinists, just the same as how no one would ever describe themselves as racist, sexist, misogynistic, bigoted, homophobic, hypocritical, closed-minded, prejudiced, stuck-up, conceited, up on one's high horse, up on a soapbox.  People do not like to use negative terminology to describe themselves, even if they do exhibit all the defining behavior.  What's in a name, all that good stuff.

Just like how zodiacs, horoscopes, dowsing, other forms of radiesthesia are all pseudosciences.  Hey, I love reading the horoscopes every day, meself.  It's fun.

Things like visiting a fortune teller at a carnival, practicing mind-reading with card tricks, seeing performance of a stage hypnotist.  Most people agree that with things like this, we don't even need to bother calling them "pseudoscience."  Leave the "science" word out altogether.  Nobody in their right mind thinks of any of this as "science."  Although we do have fun with it anyway.  Just call it what it is -- entertainment.