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Brian Hughes (2018): Psychology in Crisis

Discussion in 'Psychosomatic research - ME/CFS and Long Covid' started by MSEsperanza, Aug 29, 2018.

  1. Snowdrop

    Snowdrop Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  2. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  3. Roy S

    Roy S Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  4. Judee

    Judee Established Member

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    The tweets regarding this symposium make me cry but in a good, relieved way. I'm so happy that we are making some progress. The author's words are also a balm. Thank you for posting this!!!!
     
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  5. MSEsperanza

    MSEsperanza Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  6. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Merged thread

    https://twitter.com/user/status/1043132821546704896


    very short. no reference to the PACE content but I think the ship might be;)

    https://davidfmarks.com/2018/09/21/psychology-in-crisis/
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 21, 2018
    inox, Indigophoton, Inara and 20 others like this.
  7. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

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    Not sure if you can influence this, or even care, @Brian Hughes but Google Books views your book as being in the Self-Help genre.

    Screen Shot 2018-11-03 at 17.51.55.png
     
  8. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I suppose it depends who reads it; if say any of the PACE trial authors read it could be regarded as self-help:D
     
  9. Brian Hughes

    Brian Hughes Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I think this results from what is referred to as "machine intelligence". Not sure if it can easily be changed, but I'll alert the publisher...
     
  10. Andy

    Andy Committee Member

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    That thought did occur to me, perhaps I'm thinking about this in too small a way, perhaps the book is a self-help manual for all of psychology. :)
     
  11. MSEsperanza

    MSEsperanza Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I forgot to tell you that I received a positive reply on my request to one of the two nearest libraries.(*)

    Now one of the largest libraries in Central Europe has Brian Hughes' new book. Or soon will have it again when I will have returned it ;-)

    I have read most parts, found it convincing and a pleasure to read. Regarding the subchapters on the thePACE trial I am not as qualified as other forum members to judge them. If I saw it properly all forum members who contributed to the Journal of Health Psychology's special issue are being quoted. So I think it is not only convincing to me, but also objectively should be quite sound.

    The PACE trial is dealt with in two subchapters of the chapter "exaggeration crisis" and does not appear on the table of contents. The title of the subchapter introducing the criticism of the PACE trial is "Chronic fatigue Syndrome", not put in quotation marks, but within the text the term "Myalgic Encephalomyelitis", "CFS/ME" or ME is used, and to me it seems that ME is the term preferred by the author.

    I hope I soon someday will be able to write on some content-related aspects I found interesting.

    Brian Hughes himself provides a good summary on Psychology Today:

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/homeostasis-disruptor/201809/psychology-is-still-in-crisis

    Independent from ME related psychological research, I find the paradigm crisis most relevant. If the theoretical premises of an entire science are that muddled, how can any sound empirical research emerge in this field?

    (*) For those who want to practice Business German, here is the reply:
     
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2019
  12. MSEsperanza

    MSEsperanza Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    (Only physically the book is a bit difficult to handle for me. I use a reading stand when I read books lying in bed because I am not able to hold a book for a satisfying amount of time. However, on the reading stand the pages are cambered to such an extent that the text near the binding is not entirely visible without additional pressure on the fold. Many paperbacks bear this problem. It then is helpful when the text layout has bigger inner margins.)
     

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  13. Kalliope

    Kalliope Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    One new thing I learned from the chapter on PACE in Psychology in Crisis, is that not only was the PACE trial the largest trial so far within CFS/ME, but also one of the largest within psychology, which is a much more established research field. That was a surprise to me.
     
  14. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    I have similar problems holding books for long, MS Esperanza. I have even been known to slice a fat novel into sections with a sharp knife! Or buy another copy for my e-reader!
     
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  15. MSEsperanza

    MSEsperanza Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I'm afraid the library will not appreciate this special service for their customers. ;)
     
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  16. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  17. Kalliope

    Kalliope Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  18. Daysailer

    Daysailer Established Member

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    @Brian Hughes
    Only a few years ago, a team of physicists were researching the properties of neutrinos, and they recorded a measurement that seemed to show that a signal had travelled faster than the speed of light. After they checked and rechecked all their equipment they repeated the experiment and got the same result. So they published it.

    This set off a frenzy of interest amongst theoretical physicists the world over. Was this the first evidence of travel through one of the extra dimensions of spacetime necessary for theories of super-symmetry and quantum gravity? Sadly, not. An independent team set up the same experiment and repeated it without finding any breach of the 'old' physics. When the original team re-examined their equipment they found a hairline crack in a long fibre optic cable which had marginally delayed the signal running along it.

    I mention this not to cast scorn on physicists, but as an example of empirical science working as it should. The touchstone is 'can it be replicated'? If it can't, why should we believe it?

    This is a point Brian Hughes hammers home throughout his book. With reasons why most psychological 'research' is not replicable, but still gets published. And delightfully chosen examples which were my chief joy in reading this book. Wherein the PACE trial is shown to be no more reliable than the finding that female hurricanes are more deadly than male hurricanes.

    The example of PACE comes naturally quite late in the book, when it serves as an example of many of the mushy ideas and dodgy practices which have already been exposed.

    This book was, for me, a non-scientist, a delight to read, even though it left me amazed, incredulous and angry.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 7, 2019
  19. Inara

    Inara Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    What a wonderful summary @Daysailer, thank you!
     
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  20. MSEsperanza

    MSEsperanza Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Stewart, L.G. (2019). Psychology in Crisis.[Review of the book]. International Journal of Educational Psychology, 8(1),105-107, http://dx.doi.org/10.17583/ijep.2019.4065

    http://hipatiapress.com/hpjournals/index.php/ijep/article/view/4065/Stewart

     
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