I’ve been maintaining for years that many ‘studies’ and some ‘social scientists’ are not employing anything like reasonable, much less respectable, methods, and should not be given any standing. Now, thanks to a fellow who has been the darling of the liberal press despite having made up much of his data, we’re getting articles like this: The Chump Effect: Reporters are credulous, studies show, by Andrew Ferguson (Weekly Standard, December 5, 2011.)
I take a swing at sloppy, slanted, ‘social science’ in more than one of my books. Here are a couple of excerpts from Not Exactly Allies, starting with the beginning of the book:
1 – THE CALLS
“Hallo?”
“Durand? Is that you?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Sorry. Hugh here. Did you know men and women see things differently?”
Pause.
“Well, yes,” Leandre Durand said at last, slowly, obviously not quite sure where his British friend was leading with this phone call.
“Sorry, I didn’t put that very well.”
“Perhaps not.”
“What I mean to say is that women not only put their own spin on things, they actually see differently. I’ve been studying it. You should see some of these studies. They put a group of girls in a room and drop hundreds of dollar bills all at once, and the girls see everything at once and rarely grab a bill. They just jump and giggle and grab thin air, mostly. You put boys in the same room, drop an equivalent flurry of bills, and they can isolate them and wind up with booty.”
“My Perrine says such experiments only show that men like to prove their prowess and women are happy just to play.”
“That’s a new twist. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Or perhaps the people performing the experiment have, one hopes inadvertently, prepared the girls differently leading into the experiment. It is hard to say. Certainly boys and girls are different, but children like to please grownups who pay them the least little attention, and psychologists, alas, are prone to pet theories.”
“I’d have to say I’d noticed that. Odd theories, too, some of them.”
“But of course. You cannot make your name with a discovery of something that makes sense. Not in some circles, at least. Excuse me a little minute, if you please.”
Richard Hugh was astonished to hear gunshots and glass shattering. Being experienced, he held his tongue. Durand would get back to him when he could. If he could.
And:
[Richard had] never liked the man, and the more contact he’d had with the fellow over the years, the more animosity there’d been. But it had always been a personal dislike. It bothered Richard that he hadn’t figured out the man was susceptible to outside influences. He told his wife so.
“Bah,” said Emma. “Orchard had a reputation for being easy to manipulate.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I’ll amend that. Orchard had a reputation amongst women for being easy to manipulate.”
“Maybe by women,” Richard groused. “I don’t know a man who didn’t find the fellow impossible to deal with.”
Emma grinned, and swept her husband into a hug. “But, darling. He fancied himself to be totally rational. Nobody but nobody is more susceptible to outside input than a man who thinks he’s rational and is proud of that fact. Especially one whose idea of ‘reason’ is based almost entirely on formal studies of college students who volunteer to be guinea pigs.”
“Which of course tells you something about college students who volunteer to be guinea pigs, but nothing much whatsoever about adults, children, or college students who have better things to do,” Richard said.
“Absolutely. Change the subject, luv.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m in your arms and don’t want to think about men who treat everyone’s emotions but their own as symptoms of something.”
Richard leaned down and kissed her. He made it a long and tender kiss. When he came up for air he said, “There. I couldn’t think of an intellectual subject I wanted to discuss, so I opted for pure emotion. I hope that meets your criteria for changing the subject?”
She pulled him back into a kiss, which he correctly took as a yes.
Not Exactly Allies is also available in Kindle, Nook, and Large Print.
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