Chapter 8 Avoiding the Einstein Syndrome

Chapter 8: Avoiding the Einstein Syndrome Refers to “breakthrough” headlines in the media—leads to the misunderstanding that all problems in science are solved when a single, crucial experiment completely decides the issue, or that theoretical advance is the result of a single critical insight that overturns all previous knowledge. News and entertainment media loves the breakthrough format because these studies have a beginning and unambiguous, satisfying ends. Science is usually just not like that. Einstein’s theory of relativity is an example of a study that really was a crucial breakthrough experiment. **A new theory in psychology must make contact with previously established empirical facts. To be considered an advancement, it must not only explain new facts but old ones as well. Genuine progress in science only occurs when the realm of our explanatory power has been widened. If a new theory accounts for new findings but fails to explain the old ones, it will be considered incomplete, and the two theories will contend simultaneously until a new idea renders them obsolete. The connectivity principle refers to the ability of a theory to connect old and new information. When the media reports a theory as “startlingly new,” it abandons connectivity and can lead to the idea that the newness is a good thing. It’s really not because it fails to connect to old theories. It’s a sign of pseudoscience. The consumer needs to be able to see a progression from old to new with the new theory tying things all together. With the idea that it’s so new, there’s the thought that “data to support it do not even exist yet.” Pseudoscience. In reality, experiments rarely completely decide an issue by supporting one theory clearly while ruling out all others. Instead, most new conceptualizations are decided by a community of scientists gradually agreeing and accepting one theory over the other (e.g., the idea that sexual orientation is not a choice). Data from a single experiment is rarely the answer. Meta-analyses are more common. Rather than a “great leap” model, we have a “gradual synthesis” model instead. True science rejects the idea that one single individual (or group or individuals) has all the answers. There is no “special knowledge” that pseudosciences often claim. A science that is the province of only one or a few people is almost always a pseudoscience. Most sciences have enough people working in the field that there is no dominance by one person or research group. Why is psychology a gradual-synthesis science? For starters, no experiment is perfect. They all have some ambiguity in the interpretation of data. Scientists often evaluate theories by looking at ALL of the available data on a particular subject and seeing what patterns or trends emerge. (Meta-analyses). Second, psychology does not have grand and unifying theories of the Einsteinian type. The discipline is too huge…we have growing “mosaics of knowledge” that lack a single theme. The principle of converging evidence/converging operations: refers to scientists making a judgment about where the preponderance of evidence points. Progress Despite Flaws: One thing that can help us sift through the evidence is to look at the pattern of potential flaws or confounds in the studies. If all of the experiments were flawed in the same way, then it would undermine our faith in the results. If the studies were flawed in different ways, though, our confidence in the conclusions would be increased because it’s less likely that the consistency in the results was due to a contaminating factor that confounded all of the experiments. Each experiment helps correct errors in the design of other experiments and is bolstered by other scientists examining its flaws. If a lot of different studies, each flawed in one way or another (as all studies are), point to a similar conclusion, then we have converging evidence that a particular theory is correct. The fact that all of the experiments are slightly different with different flaws contributes to the robustness of the findings. (Consider the fact that all four Gospels are slightly different…is this a strength or a weakness?) 13 Example of converging evidence: The finding that watching TV violence increases children’s tendencies toward aggression. The results of many studies—and different types of studies (correlational, lab experiments, field experiments, longitudinal) suggest that there is a link there, providing converging evidence. “When evaluating the empirical evidence in the field of psych, think in terms of scientific consensus rather than breakthrough, in terms of gradual synthesis rather than great leap.” Looking at converging evidence is like looking at a fuzzy picture that becomes increasingly less fuzzy the more evidence we uncover. If you’re the type of person who isn’t intrigued by figuring out what the fuzzy shape turns out to be, research may not be the field for you. 14