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Christopher Wanjeck lists the five biggest retractions of science in 2011. Some were honest errors, others were likely fraud. Here are the inaccurate findings that were later retracted: (a) Closing medical marijuana dispensaries increases crime (b) Butterflies once accidentally mated with worms, thereby creating caterpillars (c) Appendicitis should be treated with antibiotics rather than surgery [...]
Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category
January 1st, 2012
December 24th, 2011
An essay on moral and painterly perspective, round a great paintind by Piero della Francesca
December 15th, 2011
Category: Film, Psychology
In my post earlier today, I cited Paul Newman as an example of a successful artist who managed not to let all the ego-stroking go to his head. Later I remembered this very nice tribute by David Letterman that you will enjoy if you are a Newman fan. My favorite Newman quote: When he was [...]
December 15th, 2011
Category: Arts and Cultural Policy, Psychology
Alec Baldwin was recently thrown off an airplane because he considered his computer game important enough to delay everyone else on board from getting to their destination. These sorts of celebrity temper tantrums surprise no one. We are used to famous actors, writers and musicians behaving in extraordinarily selfish ways. It’s not just anecdata: Psychiatric [...]
December 2nd, 2011
Social psychologists have documented an intriguing phenomenon dubbed “outgroup homogeneity”. It is the tendency to assume that groups to which you do not belong are less diverse than they are (in contrast, we overestimate diversity within groups of which we are a part). I have described before how this cognitive error produced complete misunderstandings of [...]
October 27th, 2011
Category: Psychology
The last “award” a psychologist can win is to have an obituary in American Psychologist. I am happy that A.I. Rabin, who passed away in the fullness of his 98th year, has been so honored. He is best-remembered for his writings on personality development and for his studies of how children grow up in the [...]
October 25th, 2011
Category: Psychology
Human beings are far from rational and perhaps particularly so when we think about things that scare us. Two conversations this week: (1) A colleague tells of a couple he knew who fled a firestorm that ravaged a large section of the city. The husband and wife drove their own individual cars and got separated [...]
October 11th, 2011
Category: Psychology, Spirituality and Religion
There exists an experience you can (probably) have, in a single day, that may lastingly improve your outlook on life, even if you’re in fear because the end of your life is near. Researchers are once again using psilocybin to occasion such experiences in patients facing life-threatening illness. Steve Ross, a psychiatrist at NYU, has [...]
October 6th, 2011
Category: Psychology, Spirituality and Religion
My colleagues at Johns Hopkins have a new paper out, reporting that psilocybin, the “magic mushroom” chemical, can bring about significant and lasting changes in the key personality domain called “Openness.”
October 6th, 2011
Category: Drug Policy, Psychology
In an ABC news article, an expert implies that psilocybin use, over the long run, “can and will’ lead to character deterioration. If there’s any real evidence for that, please let us know. Otherwise, can we back off on the prejudice, please?
