Glider

When did the half-arsed, tree-hugging newbie 'educators' of the 60s and 70s become 'Psychologists'? They may have entered their teacher training with an unhealthy interest in, and familiarity with, pop-psychology, but that doesn't make them psychologists. A lot of them were also socialists and into Marxism (very popular at that time), that doesn't make them politicians. Some of them may even have had a degree in psychology, but that doesn't make them psychologists either. Even the branch of psychology particular to learning (Educational Psychology) doesn't get involved in policy decisions in schools. It's primary role is research (the study of learning and how humans learn in educational environments). The cornerstone of all Psychology is research. Psychologists don't teach (unless they are University lecturers, and even then, they research). Nor are they involved in the design of school curricula or educational policy decisions concerning their implementation. I know this is off topic, but it pisses me off that when a problem like this arises, it's suddenly the fault of 'Psychologists', when in reality, it was more the fault of people with a particular (usually political) agenda or bias who may be marginally familiar with some crappy pop-psychology books, and then, only those which support their particular axe-grinding perspective which was generated by their greater familiarity with books on Marxist philosophy and the communist manifesto. Back in the 60s and 70s it was 'educational socialism and equality' and 'no-one can fail' and suchlike. Now, it's more a competition between schools to keep their pass-rates up (i.e. their government funding). Neither of which has anything to do with Psychologists. To blame the current state of middle education on Psychologists is, at best, like blaming Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Einstein. You might be thinking "Oh, he's only posted this because he's a Psychologist", and you'd be right, but that doesn't make it not true. I posted this because I was frustrated at yet another example of the inaccurate and misleading beliefs concerning what Psychology is, and what Psychologists do. [/rant]

The boom box does not display the signal characteristics of a 'predator', so after initial fear (due to its novelty), the deer would habituate to it. I doubt they would approach it though, as the noise it makes would interfere with their ability to listen for danger. Something moving with obvious stealth on the other hand, displays the major characteristic of a predator. It's not an instinctive fear of human hunters, but an instinctive fear of hunters in general. All ambush hunters tend to move in the same way, stalking. Humans are just a lot more clumsy and easy to spot.

I once knew a horse that was allergic to hay. It had to be fed silage, or it would start wheezing and coughing and stuff.

Not really. A blastocyst is a blob of around 50 undifferentiated cells. We are a highly ordered functional system of highly differentiated and specialised cells and organs. We contain a greater number of specialised cell types than a blastocyst contains cells.

Yeah, diet coke is mine

That's true, but the initial urge to reach out and grasp is initiated simply by the perception of an object that evokes an 'approach response' (positive affect - approach motivation). Some objects evoke the opposite (a negative affect - avoidance motivation), in which case, the initial urge will be to withdraw from it. This is a very basic response which occurs preattentively (in the limbic brain) and is generated simply by the perception of such objects (see for example Dijksterhuis, Bargh & Miedema, 2000). Whether or not we carry out the urge to grasp an object is moderated by higher cognitive processes and will depend on higher constructs such as social context (e.g. does it belong to someone else? Will there be negative consequences if I touch it?). Both of these simple urges are adaptive to the species and, equally adaptive is the fact that the urge to withdraw is subject to less higher processing (which moderates the basic urge with the 'appropriate' response). This is why people will flinch away from things like snakes and spiders entirely automatically. Refence: Dijksterhuis, A., Bargh, J. A., & Miedema, J. (2000). Of men and mackerels: Attention, subjective experience, and automatic social behavior. In H. Bless & J. P. Forgas (Eds.), The message within: The role of subjective experience in social cognition and behavior (pp. 37-51). Philadelphia: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.

There is a stimulus. It is the percieved need to move your hand. This can come from outside, for example, when you percieve an object which generates the need to reach for or grasp it. Or it can be internal, for example discomfort at staying in the same position, requiring a change (why we turn in our sleep). There will always be a stimulus.

Dogs are better at sniffing. With dogs (in general) smell is their primary sense. They evolved to track and run-down prey over long distances using scent. Cats are ambush predators. Their primary sense is hearing (extremely sensitive). Vision is next. Their visual system is set up primarily to detect motion. They locate by sound and stalk and attack using vision.

Caffene is a psychoactive drug and it does elevate dopamine levels in the brain reward centres, therefore, it fulfills the criteria of a potentially addictive substance. Yes, there are people who are addicted to it. Anxiety is a significant factor in compulsive behaviours and (in more severe cases) compulsive absessive disorders.

No, but chronic depression is only one condition. Socipoathy, psychopathy and many other conditions won't affect your breeding. Arguably sociopaths and psychopaths are more likely to breed more because they don't care about the picky details of monogamy and consequences and stuff.

It is a perceptual thing based on familiarity and your scale of thought. When you are a child, everything is new. The seasons change and you notice everything. As you get older, you become familiar with the changes throughout a year and so you notice less. More of it slips by 'under your radar'. More importantly, as adults we also think ahead more, living less for 'the now'. We have many more 'time markers' than children, such as pay days and other regular events occurring throughout the year. We plan things, like 'next spring I'll repot these satzuki azaleas'. Next spring is 'only' 3 months (3 pay days) away. This kind of thinking telescopes our perception of time; next spring doesn't seem so far away if you think of it like that, so when next spring gets here, it won't have seemed so long. When you don't plan ahead, but live 'in the moment' planning only for tomorrow, and then, only at the end of today, the bigger changes (e.g. winter to spring) creep by comparatively slowly because we're not thinking on that scale.

I know this is off topic, but I had to ask. Why do you bathe your cat?

Psychology is only one component of addiction. A true addiction has both a physiological and a psychological component. The physiological refers to the physical changes a body undergoes in the presence of a chemical that, upon its withdrawal, leads to a syndrome of symptoms associated with that withdrawal. The psychological are harder to quantify, but can looslely be described as a set of cognitions and compulsive behaviours that are carried out regardless, or in spite of, awareness of the negative effects of those behaviours to one's health, social/family life etc.. To be honest, I don't know that eating disorders can be classed as addictions (though I may be wrong). Vanity may well play a part in developing these disorders. That and social pressure to conform to societal 'norms' of beauty. But, they may not. People with bulimia nervosa tend to have a BMI in the normal range, so it can't really be a need to be thin that drives it. Nonetheless, the psychological side of addiction, maladaptive sets of cognitions and sets of compulsive behaviours, can be treated successfully with psychological interventions. Some of the most effective in these cases are Cognitive-Behavioural Therapies (CBTs).

No, it doesn’t. It should though, but that would require thought. You’re right, it is largely about semantics. Words carry meaning. They are what we use to make observable the unobservable (our thoughts and feelings). In a sense, language is a mechanism of translation between out internal world (mind and emotion) and the external (social) world. They also carry weight. They carry the ability to affect people. For example, suppose I write the words: “I think you are a stupid, ignorant twat”. The minute you read those words, you would have undergone physical changes. There will be a measurable galvanic skin response and other autonomic changes associated with sympathetic arousal. Using words, I have just changed your physiological function and elicited a negative emotional state. Words and semantics are important. Plus, there is a reciprocal feedback system between thought and language. The words we use not only express our thought, they influence the way we think. I really do not think you are a stupid, ignorant twat. It was just an example. Sorry if you took offence, but it needed to be offensive to work. Political correctness started as an attempt to get people to think, to consider the words they used and the effects of their words on others. However, IMO, the original idea has become corrupted beyond all reason and it’s just FUBAR now. As has been said before, now all it does is to force bigotry underground. It doesn’t address the problem, it just hides it. No, just person. The attribute ‘female’ in the majority of everyday contexts is not relevant. It is, as it is with females, people who are ill, different races, etc. etc.. All people acknowledge they possess the attributes they do, they just (quite rightly) don’t like being defined by them. Hence people who are crippled don’t like to be thought of as ‘cripples’. Precisely. But that’s not to say they become ‘a cripple’ the second they are confronted by stairs. They’re the same person, they just need help with the stairs. Cynical, but probably true *sigh*.. Yes, because they’re cognitive misers and haven’t bothered to work out that it’s only this person’s legs that don’t work. Instead, they just stick them in the pigeonhole labelled ‘cripple’ which carries the attributes of not being able to do much of anything, including think, hear or talk for themselves. Moving from ‘a cripple’ to ‘a crippled person’ doesn’t help much. Moving from ‘a cripple’ to ‘a person’ helps a lot. Or it would, if people could be bothered to work out why. Much more common, and still growing. It’s largely due to the fact that so many people still believe it’s a problem only for gays and junkies (and therefore ‘not my problem’). Very little, except that it contains the term ‘person’ which tends to get ignored when discussing ‘a cripple’. It would be better just to think ‘person’ and forget the condition altogether. It’s rarely relevant. Not unless you could drop the term ‘cripple’ altogether and just use ‘person’, as with anybody else. Many people just need to be reminded that they’re dealing with real, live, thinking, feeling people, not the cognitive construct ‘cripples’. In most contexts, the physical state of a person is not relevant, so why insist on the label? Changing the terms used doesn’t make a difference until it affects thinking, which, in too many cases, it doesn’t. This is my thing against PC. Forcing people to use particular terms for things doesn’t change their thinking unless they understand why. The increasing abuse of political correctness just breeds resentment and people start ‘digging in’ and become more entrenched, defending their way of thinking and using the inconsistencies and surreal bollocks of modern PC to excuse it “Look how ridiculous political correctness is! If it’s so wrong, I must have been right all along!”.

It would seem so, finally.

True, but a major determinant is the degree to which a person finds the behaviour rewarding. Physiological addiction requires that the substance elevates dopamine in the reward centres of the brain (particularly the nuclues accumbens, the ventral tegmental area and the tract which connects them, the medial forebrain bundle). This varies to a degree between individuals for any given substance. If the substance cause elevation in DA, then it is potentially addictive. The faster it elevates level of DA, the more addictive it is. This translates as, the more rewarding an individual finds a behaviour, the more strongly that behaviour is reinforces and the higher the probability that the individual will repeat it.

They are not both attributes of human beings. Sex is an attribute, schizophrenia is not. To be an attribute of a human being, a characteristic needs to be a population parameter; a variable that is possessed by every member of the population. Sex is an attribute of a human being, as is consciousness and self-awareness. Schizophrenia is not an attribute of a person. It is an illness, a pathology. Yes, they do, and it is wrong. Whilst calling a bus driver ‘a bus driver’ is correct insofar as the person is the driver of a bus, to define the person by that label is wrong, as it is not a defining characteristic. Attributes are defining characteristics (see the ‘is a blastocyst a human being?’ debate) but it is common also to define a person by what they do. Surgeon, bus driver, cop, fire fighter, nurse etc.. In many cases, people also define themselves by that they do; “I am a doctor”, “I am a nurse” etc., but people can also choose not to be defined this way “This is what I do, not what I am”. So, defining characteristics are what people are; male/female, conscious, etc.. Added to these are long-term relatively stable psychological characteristics such as extrovert, introvert, and so-on. In addition, people are often (although less correctly) defined by that they do. However, this is not really useful as it is not a defining characteristic. People often do many things throughout their lives. Further, they can choose whether or not to be defined by such criteria. So, if defining somebody by what they do is not really correct or useful, then defining somebody by what illness they have is just ridiculous. Unfortunately, that’s how people tend to interpret such labels. That’s what makes such labels dehumanising. The label comes first; ‘Schizophrenic’ and so is used as a defining characteristic (which it isn’t) and thus determines all subsequent interaction with that person (which really does not help). Because people are ‘cognitive misers’. People use ‘pigeon holing’ and labelling as a fast way of determining interaction. It is faster than learning each time. To a degree, we need to be able to pigeonhole others quickly in order to be able to interact with them quickly and efficiently, for example, working with a colleague you have never met. This can be an efficient way of easing social interaction, but it depends upon accuracy, which in turn depends upon the schemata an individual holds to begin with. At work, you are familiar with what goes on, what people do and so the schema of ‘colleague’ is going to be familiar (based on longer experience) and probably accurate. At a restaurant, your schema of ‘waiter’ is likely to be accurate so you will interact with the waiter in an appropriate manner. You would not ask another client to fetch you more breadsticks. That would not be appropriate. Problems arise as people’s schemata become less accurate and this is usually due to less familiarity with the object of the schemata. People are familiar with waiters, so their schema is accurate and their subsequent pigeonholing is generally acceptable insofar as it determines limited interaction within a specific context “I’ll have the steak please”. However, if you had to interact with that person socially, you would have to learn the person and the previous type of interaction would not be appropriate. As people become less familiar with the object of their labelling, the less accurate their schemata will be. People rarely come into contact with mental illness and so they carry all kinds of bizarre preconceptions and most are negative. Research shows that people fear mental illness (which is why mental illness charities receive so much less than those for cancer or other physical illnesses). So, when people come into contact with someone who has schizophrenia, their schema is way off and thus, so is their label but it still determines their immediate interaction. The same thing happens when people come into contact with a person in a wheelchair. Their label is inaccurate and subsequent interaction is, in many cases, embarrassing to watch. Which perfectly demonstrates my point. The statement “Usually that is gay or junky” is complete bullshit. Yet, should you meet someone with AIDS, it is clear that your interaction with them will be determined by your schema of them as ‘gay or junkie’ and (and you have to trust me on this), that will piss them off. because the label you give them affects how you see them and interact with them (see above) It’s a start. It’s an attempt to get people to think about what they are saying and its implications for a change. The thing about ignorance is that it seems to be subject to the laws of inertia. It tends not to change unless subjected to an outside force.

I don't think there is a 'best', sisnce many are designed for different purposes (e.g. market research, epidemiology/population studies etc.). One of the most comprehensive is SPSS (statistical Package for the Social Sciences). This one is good because it is flexible. You can buy the basic package and then add different modules and functions to it according to what you need it for. However, as has been said, if you don't understand the basics, then none of them will be much help. Learning to use a statistical spreadsheet is different from learning to use statistics in the same way that learning how to use all the tools in a toolkit is different to learning how to strip and re-build an engine.

Nor answering the question apparently It is an excellent question that I wish I had thought of. You contend that: blastocyst = human being. If this is true, then: human being = blastocyst. ergo, you are a blastocyst. Is this true?

Exactly. There's a time and place for things. Essays, course work, research reports, CVs and job applications aren't really the place for the mangled English of SMS shorthand.

Because a bus driver is a bus driver and a male is a male. However, a person with schitzophrenia is not 'a' schizophrenic. They are schizophrenic, but they are not 'a' schizophrenic. In the same way, someone may be retarded, but they are not 'a' retard. There is no such thing as 'a schizophrenic'. There are people who have schizophrenia, and who therefor are schizophrenic, but there is no such thing as 'a schizophrenic'. It's an incorrect and inaccurate use of the term that has resulted in people being incorrectly classified as their condition (whatever it may be). But, as I said, how you conceptualise a person determines how you interact with them. This is why people interact differently with people who are classified as 'bus driver' or 'surgeon' or 'policeman'. These lables do make a difference. Unlike all these lables, when it comes to lables like 'schizophrenic' or 'cripple' the individual had no choice, yet these lables will still influence how people interact with them because these lables define them as people. . These lables influence your personal construct of the world and people in it. It defines your model of reality and thus, how you will interact with it. True, so why doesn't it happen? Well, because people don't tend to define people with cancer by their condition. They still think of them as people first, with cancer second. On the other hand, HIV carried with it a massive stigma. The 'AIDS patient' stigma has done a huge amount of damage in terms of mortality, spread of the disease etc.. This is because once it was known a person was HIV positive, then the AIDS lable was stuck to them and they carried the associations of 'gay' or 'drug abuser', never 'unfortunate transfusion patient' or 'needlestuck nurse'. The lable applied to individuals defines how they are thought of and treated. The only thing you can say for such lables is that they are very adhesive. If we must lable people, we can at least try to make sure the lables are accurate. .

It's all relative

Yes, he did. Same thing, only more complex. The thing is still obviously suspended from one point. Its rather jerky motion and slight tendency to swing tells you that. I'd like to see him get the object rotate on three axes. If he can make it float about in the air using his magic, it should should be a doddle.

PC was a way to attempt to avoid mindless labelling. It doesn't work though. Mindless labelling is a function of ignorance. Changing the terminology doesn't make people any less ignorant. Mindless labelling is still a problem. A good example is where a person 'becomes' their condition. For example, ParanoiA says "To call a cripple(d) person physically challenged is not entirely accurate". This is true, but note that the term ParanoiA used was 'a crippled person', i.e. a person who is crippled. That, I believe, is acceptable because it is very different from 'a cripple'. The latter use depersonalised the individual and they become primarily their condition and how you see a person does affect how you interact with them. This mindless labelling is particularly noticable in cases of mental illness. For example, a person with schitzophrenia becomes 'a schitzophrenic'. A person with a Bipolar disorder becomes 'a manic depressive'. A person with anorexia becomes 'an anorexic'. In cases of physical illness, this happens a lot less. A person with cancer never becomes 'an oncogenic'. As I said, it is true that the way you conceptualise a person does influence strongly the way in which you interact with them. If you see them as their condition, then you are interacting with their condition, not them, and I can see how that could piss people off. Having said that, I think PC is arse. As it was beautifully put earlier, forcing the ignorant to use flowery words is like covering a turd with petals. All that is really required is that people think about what they are saying rather than just opening their mouths and letting mindless garbage vomit forth. Political correctness can't achieve that. I think PC adds to the problem because all it does is force the symptoms 'underground'. You can't say there's no problem just because you can't see the symptoms, and if you hide the symptoms, you can't adress the problem.

If that was levitation, why does the object swing like a pendulum? Could it be that the object is still subject to gravity but is being supported by a physical attachment to one point (that rather obvious bit that sticks up)? Who are you expecting to accept this as evidence?