Real banger from Sacred Cow BBQ on the problem of social sciences and humanities being largely immune to reality correction because there’s no feedback loop that penalizes people for being wrong. The incentive structure rather rewards people for intra-guild argumentative sophistication and coalition-building, which in many cases are ideological or actively reality-resistant. There are real reform efforts afoot, and that is good, though they’re largely happening outside of formal sites of academic knowledge production, e.g., Substack rather than academic journals. This one amply rewards your attention! kylesaunders.substack.com/p/…

Title says it all: Research on Microaggressions and Their Impact Assesses Neither Microaggressions nor Their Impacts. (now you do not need to read the paper, but in case you want the gory details, it is linked below). In a special issue of Current Opinion in Psychology on politicization of psychotherapy. Early draft appeared first at Unsafe Science.

1. Does drawing harder boundaries between science and "misinformation" increase or decrease public trust in science? In four studies conducted in the context of COVID-19, we tested this question by comparing different approaches to science communication. sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

Between 1985--2023, MIT's faculty grew 9%. Administrative staff grew 189%. 📈 Why? In new @PNASNews paper, we use dynamical system model to show administrative bloat can emerge without empire-building--just from well-intentioned problem-solving gone awry pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.25…

Review by @psychrabble and McNally of the empirical research on microaggressions concludes it exclusively addresses *perceptions* thereof, and assesses correlates of these perceptions without assessing the underlying causal processes: buff.ly/3HgjCwu

Research on microaggressions has made a mountain out of a molehill. We critically evaluate common claims about microaggressions. Despite 50 years of scholarship on microaggressions, the main claims about them have not been empirically demonstrated. Most studies address perceptions of microaggressions, not microaggressions per se. Much is known about subjective self-reported experiences as measured by dubious questionnaires of unknown validity that may or may not assess perceptions of “microaggressions,” and the correlates of these measures. The research has failed to demonstrate that behaviors claimed to microaggressions are frequently experienced. Moreover, despite claims to the contrary, research has not established that racism causes microaggressions nor that microaggressions adversely affect the well-being of those who perceive the . The research has failed to demonstrate that experiencing microaggressions has negative causal effects on the well-being of those who perceive them. Correlations do not demonstrate “impact.” No studies have attempted to assess whether racism causes the specific behaviors labeled as microaggressions by “experts” and advocates. Accordingly, after 50 years of scholarship on microaggressions, the central claims of proponents remain unsubstantiated. Whereas helping clients cope with experiences of bigotry is appropriate for therapy, leading clients to interpret ambiguous situations as manifestations of bigotry risks doing more harm than good. Rather than facilitating constructive social interactions, it is likely to induce anger and resentment. Microaggression scholarship often is framed as anti-racist. In this perspective, opposing anti-racism is racist, so that criticizing microaggression research is racist. Thus, microaggression scholarship has a peculiar form of insulation against refutation. Critiques of the theory, being “racist,” count as further support for the phenomenon.

Thanks. That was 2012. It went downhill from there.

Lee Jussim @PsychRabble in 2012 was ahead of the curve: "Some Privileges Enjoyed by Liberal Psychologists and Social Scientists 1. I can avoid spending time with colleagues who mistrust me because of my politics. 2. If I apply for a job, I can be confident my political views are more likely to be an asset than liability. 3. I can be confident that the political beliefs I hold and the political candidates I support will not be routinely mocked by my colleagues. 4. I can be pretty confident that, if I present results at colloquia and conferences that validate my political views, I will not be mocked or insulted by my colleagues. 5. I can be pretty sure that my students who share my political views and go on to academic jobs will be able to focus on being competent teachers and scientists and will not have to worry about hiding their politics from senior faculty. 6. I can paint caricature-like pictures based on the most extreme and irrational beliefs of those who differ from me ideologically without feeling any penalty for doing so. 7. I can criticize colleagues’ research that differs from mine on issues such as race, sex, or politics without fear of being accused of being an authoritarian, racist, or sexist. 8. I can systematically misinterpret, misrepresent, or ignore research in such a manner as to sustain my political views and be confident that such misinterpretations, misrepresentations, or oversights are unlikely to be recognized by my colleagues. 9. If I work in politically charged areas, such as race, gender, class, and politics and if my papers, grants, or symposia are rejected, I need not ask each time if political bias led to the rejection. 10. I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of my academic life. 11. I will not have to worry whether citations to and impact of my scholarship will be artificially diluted because most of my colleagues do not like its political implications. 12. I do not have to worry that reviewers and editors will require a higher standard to publish or fund my research than they require to publish or fund research with implications for the opposite ideology. 13. In order to publish my research demonstrating moral failures or cognitive biases among those with different ideological beliefs than mine, I will not need to consider camouflaging my results or sugar coating the conclusions to avoid offending the political sensitivities of reviewers. 14. I can be confident that vanishingly few of my colleagues will be publishing “scientific” articles claiming that people holding political beliefs like mine are particularly deficient in intelligence and morality." from Jussim (2012, p 504) journals.sagepub.com/doi/epu… I quote this as someone who is liberal, and was very liberal at the time of publication (2012). Nevertheless, even then there was fierce hellish competition in graduate school among those competing to be more ultra-liberal than others, and already critical theory narratives coming into psychological science (and being favoured). Absolutely sickening self promotiong and positioning, even before the woke revolution of 2017 to 2023.

When I used to attend commencement regularly as a faculty member, they’d announce each year that like 63% of the graduating class was women and a huge shout and applause would go up and I was always impressed by the enthusiasm for inequality.

This looks like an instant classic from @JConIdeas Intriguing articles by Alan #Sokal, @aytchellesse etc.