In delusional America, many of us act as though we are living in Lake Wobegon where, as Garrison Keillor tells us every Saturday on NPR that “all the children are above average.” Of course, we know that intelligence is actually distributed among the human population in the form of a bell curve, with equal numbers of people above and below average. People have always been sensitive about any suggestion that they, or their children, are below average in intelligence, reasoning, or knowledge. Calling a person stupid, dumb, retarded, or ignorant is taken as a major insult. More recently, however, using these words in any context has become offensive, much like using profanity. Just now, I looked up the word “retarded” in the Encarta Dictionary, and I was not surprised to read this definition: “An offensive term meaning intellectually or emotionally challenged.” It has become the “r-word”.
Not so long ago, a student wrote on an evaluation of my graduate-level psychological testing course, “He is very insensitive and unprofessional. A psychologist should never use such a disgusting term as mentally retarded.” Well, excuse me! I was using the diagnostic term that is in the American Psychiatric Association’s current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) (Fourth Edition, 1994). But, I must add, that the American Psychiatric Association will soon be publishing the DSM-V, and they are changing the term to Intellectual Disabilities because they feel that Mental Retardation is considered to be pejorative. Fascinating. The APA, the expert source on psychiatric disorders, is changing its own terminology because the lay public has become offended by neutral words that are appropriately descriptive.
Of course, this is nothing new when it comes to how people deal with words that are used to describe serious deficiencies in intelligence. Words like cretin, feeble-minded, moron, imbecile, and idiot, which used to be the appropriate medical terminology, all came to be perceived as being too offensive to use by both medical professionals and the general public. These words were gradually replaced, through the first half of the twentieth century, by the term mental retardation, because it was considered a neutral, inoffensive term. And now, on the euphemism treadmill, we have intellectual disabilities to replace the r-word.
So, what is this really about? It seems as though most of our society is offended by any words that even suggests below average intelligence, as though they are living in the lala-land of Lake Wobegon. Speaking professionally, as a person who has administered one type of intelligence test or another to more than 10,000 people, I have had no problem with the concept of mental retardation or the term. The fact is that, either by genetics, accident, or social/cultural impoverishment, more than 2 of every 100 people in the world are far enough below average in their general intellectual functioning to be considered mentally retarded.
Speaking personally, however, it has been quite a different story. You see, my wonderful, handsome, loving, and loveable 36 year-old son has been mentally retarded since the age of 13 months when he suffered a very high fever of unknown etiology. The fever caused seizures and brain damage, dramatically altering the course of all of our lives. In case you couldn’t read the tiny font, let me explain that, as a parent, I have received the disapproval of many people when I’ve used the term, so I have to be careful about saying it too loud. I’ve actually had people scold me for saying mentally retarded, telling me that my son would outgrow it, that everybody has special talents, and suggesting that I was ignorant and crude for uttering the r-word.
At first, it was very hard for me to accept my son’s diagnosis, having dreamt of a perfect, gifted child who would be a source of pride and joy for me and my wife for the rest of our lives. It took some time to get over our sadness, but we came to realize that he is as perfect as anybody, since we all have imperfections; that he is gifted in many ways (loved by all who know him, kind and accepting, a terrific and joyful distance runner, and much, much more); and, along with our beautiful daughter (I'll brag about her in a future post), our greatest source of pride and joy. So, if I can accept the term mentally retarded, then I don’t think it should be very difficult for those in our society who may not be as intimately involved. But in a Lake Wobegon society where grade inflation is through the roof, where half the college grads graduate with honors, where every kid in little league gets a trophy even if his team takes last place, where the winner has to apologize to the loser for winning a game by a lopsided score, and where anybody (including the truly stupid) can get their 15 minutes of fame and hero worship, it really is not surprising. Without a doubt, many among us will continue to make a display of how offended they are by others who use words like stupid, dumb, ignorant, or retarded. Any bets on how long it will take for the term intellectually disabled to become an epithet?
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Are Health Supplement Users Delusional?
As a kid, I loved going to the farmers’ market and county fair with my family. I was absolutely riveted by the slick pitchmen doing their spiels for kitchen knives, food choppers, juicers, magic tricks, etc., even though I never actually bought anything. Even at the age of 10, I understood that these items would not work as well for me as for those well-rehearsed hucksters. Today, we don’t need to leave home to be pitched- we can get plenty from network and cable TV, the internet, targeted mass mailings, and telemarketers.
In 2010, even if a person doesn’t know much, he probably has been exposed to the common adages of skepticism: “Caveat Emptor” (buyer beware), “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”, “If told jump off the bridge, would you?” and the maxim erroneously credited to P.T. Barnum, “There’s a sucker born every minute”. Exposure to these ideas, sadly, doesn’t necessarily mean that a person will embrace them.
There are many things that interfere with people’s judgment, causing them to buy lousy or useless products. Underdeveloped critical thinking skills, weak math skills, lack of appreciation for scientific evidence, wishful thinking, and naïve faith in those who have not demonstrated trustworthiness are but a few of them. The fascination that large numbers of people have with what are loosely termed “spiritual” phenomena (translation: must be accepted on faith because there isn’t a scintilla of scientific evidence), e.g. Psychics, Numerology, Reiki, Tarot Readings, Feng Shui and Astrology, is unsettling. Every time a person tells me that he or she is “a very spiritual person,” my instincts tell me that the person is at greater risk for suckerhood.
In graduate school, like almost every psychology grad student of my era (late 1960s-early 1970s), I learned about research methods and statistics, the placebo effect, and what my profession calls The Scientist-Practitioner Model. We became well-versed in the concept of therapies that claim to help people but are actually no more effective than placebo treatments. Many established psychotherapies have still not adequately passed the test of scientific scrutiny, and every passing decade has brought us new psychotherapies that couldn’t even pass the sniff test. Primal Scream Therapy, Nude Encounter Groups, Neurolinguistic Programming, Inner Child Work, Thought Field Therapy, Past Life Regression Therapy, and Repressed Memory Therapy are but a few examples. In psychology, we now have so many mass-production graduate programs that many of the graduates practice all kinds of nonsense. Either their training skipped the “scientist” part of the Scientist-Practitioner Model, or lower admissions standards have yielded less intellectually rigorous graduates, or both. It is with this point of view that I approach a much larger area of suckerhood in our society: health and nutritional supplements and products.
I’m still fascinated by the spiel of a pitchman, but just like when I was a kid, I still don’t buy the stuff. Some of my favorite health supplements and product pitches are for:
NATUREBEE- Just $99.95 for 360 bee pollen capsules “from clean, green New Zealand.” “Often referred to as nature’s most complete food,” the bee pollen in NATUREBEE, if taken every day will strengthen your immune system, make you more energetic, and rejuvenate your body. I’ve heard NATUREBEE ads on several AM talk radio stations, mostly during the most expensive drive-time when the hosts give personal testimonials for the product.
Prolixus- According to the manufacturer, studies show that this herbal supplement for men increases libido, improves sexual stamina and performance, heightens orgasms, and increases penis size. You just take 2 capsules per day at a cost of $76.99 per month. This amazing product is advertised on AM talk radio stations.
iRenew- For $19.99 you get a bracelet that contains the “iRenew Energy Balance System”. By wearing this bracelet, which is programmed with natural frequencies that your body is tuned to, you will enjoy more energy, better sleep, increased strength, greater flexibility, enhanced balance, and healthier blood. You can see the TV ads on ESPN and other cable stations.
The Flex Belt- As advertised on TV and the internet, for only $199.00, you get this abdominal toning system which claims to exercise your muscles with no effort on your part, thereby producing rock-hard abs in a matter of weeks. All you have to do is Velcro the belt around your abdomen and electrical stimulation causes your muscles to spasm rapidly, thereby toning them and giving you the "six-pack" that you've always envied. Endorsed by Football Hall of Fame great Jerry Rice, how could this product be anything but legitimate?
While the availability of scientific knowledge has advanced geometrically over the years, most people in the USA have avoided like the plague, courses and professions in the STEM fields: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. We have become a society that is perfectly designed for the pitchmen, hucksters, and snake oil salesmen. There have always been faith healers and con artists, and this means that there have always been willing customers. But now, the health supplement industry does about $25 billion in sales in the USA every year. This is suggestive of a mass delusional phenomenon! Just turn on your TV at 3:00 AM and view the infomercials, or read some of your SPAM mail, or check out the ads in health and fitness magazines, or count the number of health supplement and vitamin shops that have sprung up in your community. Businesses don’t spend the megabucks needed to manufacture and promote their products unless they are getting a good return on their investments.
So, are the people who buy unproven health supplements and products sharing a delusion? To believe that one can easily improve one’s health, strength, sexual prowess, and appearance by simply buying relatively cheap, practically unregulated products, which are usually presented in cheesy ads, represents wishful thinking on the part of millions of Americans. The fact that they actually spend to the tune of $25 billion per year qualifies this phenomenon as a shared delusion of massive proportions.
In 2010, even if a person doesn’t know much, he probably has been exposed to the common adages of skepticism: “Caveat Emptor” (buyer beware), “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”, “If told jump off the bridge, would you?” and the maxim erroneously credited to P.T. Barnum, “There’s a sucker born every minute”. Exposure to these ideas, sadly, doesn’t necessarily mean that a person will embrace them.
There are many things that interfere with people’s judgment, causing them to buy lousy or useless products. Underdeveloped critical thinking skills, weak math skills, lack of appreciation for scientific evidence, wishful thinking, and naïve faith in those who have not demonstrated trustworthiness are but a few of them. The fascination that large numbers of people have with what are loosely termed “spiritual” phenomena (translation: must be accepted on faith because there isn’t a scintilla of scientific evidence), e.g. Psychics, Numerology, Reiki, Tarot Readings, Feng Shui and Astrology, is unsettling. Every time a person tells me that he or she is “a very spiritual person,” my instincts tell me that the person is at greater risk for suckerhood.
In graduate school, like almost every psychology grad student of my era (late 1960s-early 1970s), I learned about research methods and statistics, the placebo effect, and what my profession calls The Scientist-Practitioner Model. We became well-versed in the concept of therapies that claim to help people but are actually no more effective than placebo treatments. Many established psychotherapies have still not adequately passed the test of scientific scrutiny, and every passing decade has brought us new psychotherapies that couldn’t even pass the sniff test. Primal Scream Therapy, Nude Encounter Groups, Neurolinguistic Programming, Inner Child Work, Thought Field Therapy, Past Life Regression Therapy, and Repressed Memory Therapy are but a few examples. In psychology, we now have so many mass-production graduate programs that many of the graduates practice all kinds of nonsense. Either their training skipped the “scientist” part of the Scientist-Practitioner Model, or lower admissions standards have yielded less intellectually rigorous graduates, or both. It is with this point of view that I approach a much larger area of suckerhood in our society: health and nutritional supplements and products.
I’m still fascinated by the spiel of a pitchman, but just like when I was a kid, I still don’t buy the stuff. Some of my favorite health supplements and product pitches are for:
NATUREBEE- Just $99.95 for 360 bee pollen capsules “from clean, green New Zealand.” “Often referred to as nature’s most complete food,” the bee pollen in NATUREBEE, if taken every day will strengthen your immune system, make you more energetic, and rejuvenate your body. I’ve heard NATUREBEE ads on several AM talk radio stations, mostly during the most expensive drive-time when the hosts give personal testimonials for the product.
Prolixus- According to the manufacturer, studies show that this herbal supplement for men increases libido, improves sexual stamina and performance, heightens orgasms, and increases penis size. You just take 2 capsules per day at a cost of $76.99 per month. This amazing product is advertised on AM talk radio stations.
iRenew- For $19.99 you get a bracelet that contains the “iRenew Energy Balance System”. By wearing this bracelet, which is programmed with natural frequencies that your body is tuned to, you will enjoy more energy, better sleep, increased strength, greater flexibility, enhanced balance, and healthier blood. You can see the TV ads on ESPN and other cable stations.
The Flex Belt- As advertised on TV and the internet, for only $199.00, you get this abdominal toning system which claims to exercise your muscles with no effort on your part, thereby producing rock-hard abs in a matter of weeks. All you have to do is Velcro the belt around your abdomen and electrical stimulation causes your muscles to spasm rapidly, thereby toning them and giving you the "six-pack" that you've always envied. Endorsed by Football Hall of Fame great Jerry Rice, how could this product be anything but legitimate?
While the availability of scientific knowledge has advanced geometrically over the years, most people in the USA have avoided like the plague, courses and professions in the STEM fields: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. We have become a society that is perfectly designed for the pitchmen, hucksters, and snake oil salesmen. There have always been faith healers and con artists, and this means that there have always been willing customers. But now, the health supplement industry does about $25 billion in sales in the USA every year. This is suggestive of a mass delusional phenomenon! Just turn on your TV at 3:00 AM and view the infomercials, or read some of your SPAM mail, or check out the ads in health and fitness magazines, or count the number of health supplement and vitamin shops that have sprung up in your community. Businesses don’t spend the megabucks needed to manufacture and promote their products unless they are getting a good return on their investments.
So, are the people who buy unproven health supplements and products sharing a delusion? To believe that one can easily improve one’s health, strength, sexual prowess, and appearance by simply buying relatively cheap, practically unregulated products, which are usually presented in cheesy ads, represents wishful thinking on the part of millions of Americans. The fact that they actually spend to the tune of $25 billion per year qualifies this phenomenon as a shared delusion of massive proportions.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
The Sky is Falling and Other Shared Delusions
You may recall the traditional English fable about Henny Penny who, while scratching for food in the barnyard, was hit on the head by a falling acorn. Concluding that the sky must be falling, she rushed off to tell the king. Along the way, she met Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey, all of whom readily accepted the notion that the sky was falling. Unfortunately, their mass hysteria led them to the home of Foxy Loxy and family where, with the exception of Henny Penny who narrowly escaped, they were all devoured. Henny Penny, apparently learned her lesson and never did tell the king about the falling sky. Ideally, we learned the moral of the story, which is to not believe everything we are told. But, the world is far from ideal.
In the real world, people believe untruths all the time. Sometimes they simply make an error in perception or reasoning and sometimes they accept faulty information on faith without ever investigating the facts, logic, or scientific evidence. Daily life in our world, crowded with people, cultures, societies, sects, cults, religions, politics, marketing and advertising, has gotten complicated. The explosive growth of TV channel choices, the internet, and social networking, has geometrically ramped-up the complexity.
At GradeInflation.Blogspot.com I made the case that grade inflation, political correctness, for-profit universities, and declining interest in STEM courses and professions (science, technology, engineering, and math), have all served to dumb us down by reducing our knowledge base, our critical thinking skills, and our willingness to express dissenting viewpoints. In an increasingly complex world inhabited by an exploding population that does not have the skills to cope, mass delusion takes hold easily and has become commonplace. You can’t listen to the radio, watch TV, or visit your web browser without being invited to accept the most absurd ideas, products, political candidates, and religious beliefs. For many, fiction has become truth, and in SharedDelusions.Blogspot.com we are going to have some fun with this material.
In the real world, people believe untruths all the time. Sometimes they simply make an error in perception or reasoning and sometimes they accept faulty information on faith without ever investigating the facts, logic, or scientific evidence. Daily life in our world, crowded with people, cultures, societies, sects, cults, religions, politics, marketing and advertising, has gotten complicated. The explosive growth of TV channel choices, the internet, and social networking, has geometrically ramped-up the complexity.
At GradeInflation.Blogspot.com I made the case that grade inflation, political correctness, for-profit universities, and declining interest in STEM courses and professions (science, technology, engineering, and math), have all served to dumb us down by reducing our knowledge base, our critical thinking skills, and our willingness to express dissenting viewpoints. In an increasingly complex world inhabited by an exploding population that does not have the skills to cope, mass delusion takes hold easily and has become commonplace. You can’t listen to the radio, watch TV, or visit your web browser without being invited to accept the most absurd ideas, products, political candidates, and religious beliefs. For many, fiction has become truth, and in SharedDelusions.Blogspot.com we are going to have some fun with this material.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Grade Inflation is Good for America
This post is an edited reprint of a post from http://www.gradeinflation.blogspot.com/ dated 2/6/10.
We all feel good when we receive an “A” and not so good when we get a “C” or lower. I believe that we have found an easy way for more children to get “A”s, thereby delusionally raising the national self-esteem quotient. In his article, If You Want Good Grades, Move to Texas, Jay Matthews of the Washington Post (10/30/07) reported that according to the College Board nationwide survey of those in the 2007 senior class who took the SAT, 49% of the seniors in Texas had GPAs in the “A” range and 43% of all seniors who took the SAT in the USA had GPAs in the “A” range. This is quite an achievement when you consider the legends on most report cards that read: “A” = Excellent; “B” = Above Average; “C” = Average; “D” = Below Average; “F” = Failure. Congratulations to the educators of Texas for insuring that their students maintain both high self-esteem and scholastic excellence, thereby approaching the ideal set by Lake Wobegon, where as Garrison Keillor tells us every week, “all the children are above average.”
As an adjunct to grade inflation, we could also institute a feel-good program like No Child Left Behind, first envisioned by the George W. Bush Administration, and now being modified by the Obama Administration. Inherent in the choice of words, “No Child Left Behind” is the mass delusion that no matter how many obstacles a child might face (neurological, behavioral, socioeconomic, or motivational), the sky is still the limit! The only roadblocks to this plan are standardized tests which have the potential to force us out of our delusional thinking and bring us back to reality. Now if we could just discredit tests such as state-level achievement tests, the SAT, the ACT, and the GRE, by claiming that they are really not correlated with academic performance, we’d really have something. We could also claim that they are unfair to the learning disabled, the dyslexic, the poor, and most minorities. Between grade inflation, No Child Left Behind, and the elimination and watering-down of standardized tests, every child would have a good shot at getting into Harvard, Princeton or Yale, just as long as they could afford the tuition. The elite universities could then establish scholarships to give the economically disadvantaged more opportunities. Finally, the universities would have to get on board with the grade inflation ploy to make sure that no student is left behind in his/her endeavor to become a doctor, lawyer, hedge fund manager, or CEO.
At this time, it appears that most universities are, in fact, cooperating with the grade inflation program. For example, according to a 2002 American Academy of Arts and Sciences study, in 1966, 22% of all grades received by Harvard undergrads were “A”s. By 1996, this figure had climbed to 46%. One fly in the ointment: to counteract the easy-“A” mass delusional system that had evolved, Princeton University has now instituted a grade deflation program which limits “A”s to 35% for each department. Let’s hope other institutions don’t follow suit by elevating their standards!
There would probably be a few signs that the above plan has flaws, but most Americans would never even notice them. We could eliminate newspapers and get only snippets of current events from our web browsers. We could gradually lose sight of the role of journalism as a check-and-balance on government (including the public schools) by focusing on celebrity gossip rather than hard news. We could become more isolationist and xenophobic as a country, and explain away others’ anger as jealousy and religious extremism based on other mass delusions. We could blame the loss of good jobs in the USA on illegal immigration, the financial collapse, and the economic recession. And, with regard to the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) results that found that we are ranked 24th in math, 21st in science, and 15th in reading among all the world’s developed countries, many of us would simply tune-out this information because, after all, we are 24th in math and we don’t understand anything numerical.
Remember, anything and everything is possible in the world of delusion!
We all feel good when we receive an “A” and not so good when we get a “C” or lower. I believe that we have found an easy way for more children to get “A”s, thereby delusionally raising the national self-esteem quotient. In his article, If You Want Good Grades, Move to Texas, Jay Matthews of the Washington Post (10/30/07) reported that according to the College Board nationwide survey of those in the 2007 senior class who took the SAT, 49% of the seniors in Texas had GPAs in the “A” range and 43% of all seniors who took the SAT in the USA had GPAs in the “A” range. This is quite an achievement when you consider the legends on most report cards that read: “A” = Excellent; “B” = Above Average; “C” = Average; “D” = Below Average; “F” = Failure. Congratulations to the educators of Texas for insuring that their students maintain both high self-esteem and scholastic excellence, thereby approaching the ideal set by Lake Wobegon, where as Garrison Keillor tells us every week, “all the children are above average.”
As an adjunct to grade inflation, we could also institute a feel-good program like No Child Left Behind, first envisioned by the George W. Bush Administration, and now being modified by the Obama Administration. Inherent in the choice of words, “No Child Left Behind” is the mass delusion that no matter how many obstacles a child might face (neurological, behavioral, socioeconomic, or motivational), the sky is still the limit! The only roadblocks to this plan are standardized tests which have the potential to force us out of our delusional thinking and bring us back to reality. Now if we could just discredit tests such as state-level achievement tests, the SAT, the ACT, and the GRE, by claiming that they are really not correlated with academic performance, we’d really have something. We could also claim that they are unfair to the learning disabled, the dyslexic, the poor, and most minorities. Between grade inflation, No Child Left Behind, and the elimination and watering-down of standardized tests, every child would have a good shot at getting into Harvard, Princeton or Yale, just as long as they could afford the tuition. The elite universities could then establish scholarships to give the economically disadvantaged more opportunities. Finally, the universities would have to get on board with the grade inflation ploy to make sure that no student is left behind in his/her endeavor to become a doctor, lawyer, hedge fund manager, or CEO.
At this time, it appears that most universities are, in fact, cooperating with the grade inflation program. For example, according to a 2002 American Academy of Arts and Sciences study, in 1966, 22% of all grades received by Harvard undergrads were “A”s. By 1996, this figure had climbed to 46%. One fly in the ointment: to counteract the easy-“A” mass delusional system that had evolved, Princeton University has now instituted a grade deflation program which limits “A”s to 35% for each department. Let’s hope other institutions don’t follow suit by elevating their standards!
There would probably be a few signs that the above plan has flaws, but most Americans would never even notice them. We could eliminate newspapers and get only snippets of current events from our web browsers. We could gradually lose sight of the role of journalism as a check-and-balance on government (including the public schools) by focusing on celebrity gossip rather than hard news. We could become more isolationist and xenophobic as a country, and explain away others’ anger as jealousy and religious extremism based on other mass delusions. We could blame the loss of good jobs in the USA on illegal immigration, the financial collapse, and the economic recession. And, with regard to the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) results that found that we are ranked 24th in math, 21st in science, and 15th in reading among all the world’s developed countries, many of us would simply tune-out this information because, after all, we are 24th in math and we don’t understand anything numerical.
Remember, anything and everything is possible in the world of delusion!
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