Staving off the psychology blues……

(I wrote this as I was sitting in my psychology class at lunch time.)

We are watching a supposed psychological thriller movie. It will take up two class periods and we are not even being tested on it. It is too far late for me to drop the class and get any of my money back so I am trying to use this time wisely. Most of the period, I sat and made an outline of chapter three of my textbook. Chapter 3 deals with evolution, genes, and their effects upon behavior.

Earlier, I arrived an hour and a half before class and sat in the student lounge enjoying a coke. I used this time to make an outline of chapter two. I am trying to get caught up on and to understand the material. Here are some interesting quotes from the summary of chapter two which deals with critical thinking and how psychologists do research:

“Be cautious about correlations. We said this before, but we’ll say it again: Many statistics in the news are correlational, so you can’t be sure what’s causing what.”

“Arguments over public policy often take the form of shouting matches about numbers. People on the right and left are equally likely to misuse numbers to promote their political causes. Many Gay men and lesbians protested new evidence that homosexuality is statistically much less common that Alfred Kinsey reported in 1948. Many conservatives protested the evidence in the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2001 report showing that “abstinence-only” sex-education programs do not lower rates of teen pregnancy; birth control information does.”

I find this type of stuff fascinating and it reinforces my long held beliefs about certain things dealing with politics and popular media. There is so much crap floating around on our airwaves that it can be a daunting task to discern what is statistically accurate or what is statistically fiction promoted by a biased group. This makes me fear for the average individual who is not trained or learned in critical thinking. I fear that the majority of our average citizens buy the junk that is spouted in the popular media and by our government hook, line, and sinker. I urge everyone to maintain a healthy skepticism about what you read and hear. Asking sometimes hard questions can be a good thing and can broaden our horizons.