Comments on: Dossey on the Scientific Method

By: bethanyrunkel

bethanyrunkel — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:02:25 +0000

Adding on to ccbowers:

I too wonder if and when men will be the ones who need to have their rights defended. I’m thinking of examples like teaching and nursing. It’s vastly more difficult for a male to secure a teaching position in an early childhood or elementary setting than it is for a woman. I think this is probably true to a lesser degree with nursing as well. I don’t want to see anyone suffer discrimination, but the day men have to begin fighting for equality will be a curious one.

By: Roger Bigod

Roger Bigod — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:18:30 +0000

I once took a course in microeconomics from a guy who’d studied at the London School of Economics. He was bright and taught the course well. The best part was a list of seven criteria for an efficient market — things like absence of monopolies and externalities. Obviously any market you can think of violates several criteria, but it’s an excellent framework for analyzing policy interventions.

What made it pathetic was that the only experimental result was a study suggesting that an industry with oligopoly (energy) led to overinvestment (too many gas stations), as the theory predicts. To be fair, for most of the concepts it is easy to see real world examples that confirm the theory, and there are no doubt many empirical studies around. But it wasn’t remotely like a science course, with the intricate counterpoint between theory and experiment.

There’s also the pretentious bogosity of the “Nobel Prize in Economics” (awarded by a bank). And the political contamination that it tends to go to theorists whose inspirational ideas lead to people getting mowed down in soccer stadiums. When they’re not assuring us that the recent housing bubble was the best of all possible worlds.

By: juliabax

juliabax — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:58:19 +0000

I just wanted to second EdPolanco.
I was also bummed by the opposition economics-science. Although economics has it’s share of woo professionals – like medicine or physics – I like to think that good economists do research using the scientific method. We were taught to do so in my economics school, at least.

Other than that, I think that Dr. Dossey is as crazy as it gets.

And you would think that the whole ‘poor indians forced to have an education and live a life of wealth and health’ argument would already have died out..

Love the blog btw. And I also apologize for any grammatical errors!

By: EdPolanco

EdPolanco — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:35:02 +0000

Just a side comment: why don’t you think of economics as a science? Your comment “he’s an economst, not a scientist” it’s like saying that you’re a doctor, not a scientist. Economics is an area of knowledge that uses the scientific method of observation, hypotheses and tests to advance itself.

I know some who are not exactly willing to give up their views just for political (as opposed) to scientific reasons. But saying that because of them economics it’s not a science it’s like saying that because of doctors who refuse to vaccinate, medicine isn’t either.

My two (marginal) cents.

(if any typo is present, sorry, I’m not a native speaker!)

By: DevoutCatalyst

DevoutCatalyst — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:31:37 +0000

Dr. Pamela Gay addressed the issue of sexism in the sciences in a podcast, some of her comments I found quite sad. Google,

Books and Ideas Podcast #14: Dr. Pamela Gay from Astronomy Cast

By: Watcher

Watcher — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:52:20 +0000

I agree with CC, women are definitely making headway in many science fields, especially academia. At the two institutions I’ve been at, the last three years of incoming graduate students has been about 2/3rds female to 1/3rd male. What I’d be interested in is attrition between the sexes. I have seen ladies having trouble with some of the older cadre of male researchers that may be attributable to the attrition.

On the other side, I don’t know of many professions that are as easy to work a family into than academia. It’s amazingly forgiving when it comes to maternity (and paternity) leave. As long as you’re getting grants funded and whatnot, people in charge don’t care.

By: Steven Novella

Steven Novella — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 14:20:59 +0000

Sorry – forgot the link, it is there now.

By: ccbowers

ccbowers — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:41:56 +0000

I think the women and science thing is becoming a dated concept. Women are beginning to outnumber men in many professional and science fields. Of course there are still areas (physics and engineering, for example) in which women are a great minority… I wonder how much of this is due to actual barriers. Of course we should always be looking at possible barriers and removing them, but looking at medicine and other professional programs- I wonder if men will be the ones needing support in the future. Its even more lopsided when you look at black american women versus men in this country.

By: Hubbub

Hubbub — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:01:38 +0000

That had some bite to it! Love the flavor, Steve.

You may have just forgotten, but you might want to post a link to the original article in your post.

By: superdave

superdave — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:00:03 +0000

It seems like Dossey’s entire argument can be refuted by noting that scientists are people too.