I have something for you on a lighter, less postmodern (maybe note.) After reading this, I just wanted to say:
I want to get a kilt so I can wear it over jeans.
I’m such a college student, and I think this post should be taken as evidence that it’s a very good thing that I’m going to be graduating in a year and some change.
Cheers, Sam
We were discussing the possibility of heritability and psychological traits, in a class today, and the professor made the point that “if people have an implicit theory that, for instance, height and intelligence are linked, and if this theory persists, psychologists will observe a correlation between heritability and intelligence.”
He went on to say (and I agree with this), “this linkage, though ‘real’ isn’t because there isn’t likely a gene (or genes) that controls cognitive ability and height, but rather, tall people, if assumed to be smarter, will be given opportunities that will enable them to develop into more intelligent people. As a result of this association, (since height is highly heritable), psychologists will observe a heritable intelligence link.”
Basically that correlations don’t prove causation, with the added little bonus of “teleologies will reify themselves.”"That sounds great!” I say. And it does.
So I, being the uppity chap I am, offer the following in some form (again, this is all hindsight, and I’ve been trying to clarify it all day, so it’s probably more clear now than it was in the original):
“If there is a widely held belief about a construct, reified by repeated social behavior (performative acts, if you will), then our definition of that construct (and our ability to understand/measure/analyize it) is defined (at least in part) by that belief about the construct.”
The response was something to the effect of, “Thats true, but even if our measurement technique was perfect, and it isn’t, we’d still observe differences, because intelligence–or whatever trait–will actually change because of the social factors.” (Again, not doing justice here; he really is very articulate.)
And then the class was over.
This represents, I think, why I feel out of place in psychology. There is an assumption that psychometrically valid constructs and factors, exist a priori. Therefore the problems with psychological investigation, are a product of the measurement and design, when in fact there’s no there, there. That we think if we just work hard enough and are meticulous enough we’ll be able to finally understand the essence of construct x, y or z.
Here’s a food example: It’s like studying french-fryness while encountering only one variety of french fries, without realizing that either other kinds of french fries or potatoes exist and that frenchy fry cutting factories exist; and then deciding that the only way to really learn about french-fryness is to encounter as many different iterations of that only one variety of french fries in as many ways as possible.
Because that would work so well.
Cheers, Sam
I must admit that I don’t consume knitting books in the normal manner. Patterns rarely interest me, and many of the knitting books which have been popular of late, are very interested in sharing the craft with a new generation, teaching the basic skills of knitting, purling, casting on and binding off, with a hip(ster) flare. And while I appreciate the presence of some of these books (Most notably, Sally Melville’s “The Knitting Experience,” books, The Knit Stitch, The Purl Stitch, and now Color, but most of the other dribble out there, is just that. Sorry to offend, I have minor beef with the Stitch and Bitch/Bust franchise, and many of the other books around to me seem to be repetitive, and not suited to my purposes. To each their own.)
Having said that, there are a number of knitting books that I do enjoy a lot, and I thought I’d list them out here. It’ll show you where I’m coming from, and then again it might just show you something good to look for, if you’re in need of good knitting reading.
No particular order.
Alice Starmore. Fisherman’s Sweaters.
Anne L. MacDonald. No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting
Ann Feitelson. The Art of Fair Isle Knitting: History, Technique, Color, & Patterns.
Meg Swansen. Meg Swansen’s Knitting.
Elizabeth Zimmerman. Knitting Without Tears.
Alice Starmore. The Fair Isle Knitting Handbook. (also Alice Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle Knitting.)
Enjoy!
A professor of mine, a social psychologist by training, and I had a little run in the other day. I think it’s interesting, so I’m sharing it with you:
I made the assertion that cognitive neuroscience, in contrast to social psychology, was probably the biggest thrust currently in the discipline of psychology.
He objected, with an unsupported statement. Something to the effect of, “I disagree, this is really important.”
To which I said. “No, I agree completely, this is really interesting, and totally worth while, but psychology as a field is moving away from social and personality fields.”
He repeated his objection.
I said, “There have to be way more new Ph.D.’s and tenure-track jobs in cognitive/neuroscience than there are in social and personality jobs.”
He conceded the factuality of that point, with the comment that “That has to do with funding and money.”
Precisely.
Dude. I have such a backlog of things that I struck my eye over break, that I totally haven’t gotten it together to post here. Wow. Anyway. Here’s something for you to enjoy
As an academic brat, I found this sort of interesting, and my experience these days, is that I’m really pretty comfortable in academic settings (dare I say, most comfortable?) While academia has completely colonized my brain, I’m mostly ok with this. Lets just hope I get into grad-school. Anyway, Enough angst for right now.
Read this post:
“I really enjoyed MLA this year — as I usually do. I know so many people who are still wounded from the job market and who loathe MLA — but oddly enough I always really like it. I’ve been thinking about why that is, and I think it’s something tribal. MLA is the one place where I feel like I’m part of something bigger, like I belong with a group of people. Of course, as a second-generation academic, this might make some kind of sense (supposedly I attended an MLA with my parents when I was 2 1/2 but I don’t remember it). But at a deeper level I generally have a strong distrust of groups, of seemingly artificial communities. I was raised without any kind of religious community, youth group, sports team, or other such organizations that probably promote social skills and a sense of belonging. I’m an introverted, overeducated nerd — so mostly I don’t walk into a room of strangers and think ‘ah, I fit in here.’ But at the MLA, I know I fit. And I know that I fit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum — I’m not the nerdiest, the smartest, the ugliest, the leftiest, the most fashionable. I’m right in the middle. And I very very rarely get to be middle-of-the-road average. It’s kind of relaxing.”(Via In Favor of Thinking.)
Wow. Some background. JT Leory’s story is very similar to another you may be familair with: that of Anthony Godby Johnson. The Wikipedia articles above should give you the background. Basically LeRoy/Johnson were/are potentially fictitious authors who ‘live’ very secluded lives, and tell stories about their tortured childhoods. This is in effect the modern literary hoax, and I couldn’t be more interested.
I think JT LeRoy is much less cut and dry than AGJ, in AGJ’s case, there were certain legal and medical records which didn’t exist, which should have been part of the public record, possibly of course, and the complete dirth of cases, lead to a fairly logical situation. JT, on the other hand. shrug
I’m fascinated by this, and aperantly, my source(s) tell me there’s an upsurge in chatter about LeRoy. I think the connotations of identity here are huge. I keep saying that ‘how others see you’ is potentially as much about “who you are” as, how you see yourself; and this sure throws a wrench in it.
Thoughts? Questions? I recognize this is a pretty week post, and relies heavily on the wikipedia accounts (which are by my reading dead on; the LeRoy one, leans a bit in LeRoy’s direction, but no matter.)
I had heretofore been completely oblivious to it’s existence, and while I don’t actually want to read the blog, its existence is most interesting…
tychoish
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