"Reanalysis: No health benefits found for pursuing meaning in life versus pleasure" (James C Coyne)

[Dolphin]

James C Coyne is an established, but renegade psychologist, who spends quite a lot of time criticising other psychological researchers for their lack of rigour, spin, etc.

He has just co-written a paper debunking another study.

The blog on it is here:

Reanalysis: No health benefits found for pursuing meaning in life versus pleasure
http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/...-found-pursuing-meaning-life-versus-pleasure/

Unfortunately this blog post is less accessible than many of his blog posts as quite a bit of it is somewhat statistically technical. But there might be the odd person who will find it of interest. I don't fully understand every step them did but did understand the gist of it.

Unfortunately, I could imagine the type of problems isolated in the original research could occur in the ME/CFS field and they'd likely go unchallenged: very little challenging goes on in the ME/CFS except by amateurs (with whom researchers probably wouldn't share data).

 

[alex3619]

This bit is very relevant to PACE etc:

No one seems to be paying attention to this confusing proliferation of similar constructs and how they are supposed to relate to each other.

 

[alex3619]

Doh, my brain has blurred out half way through the article. I will try again later ... but I am as rested as I can be right now. I do not think its that hard an article, its just that this soft boiled egg is like adamant compared to my mushy brain. Brain fog wins.

 

[Roy S]

　
James Coyne wrote in the blog:

"A well-orchestrated media blitz for the PNAS article had triggered my skepticism."
　
I would characterize Coyne as a rational iconoclast with a good sense of humor. He details the way his team got together with help from internet resources to do this.

From his last paragraph:
"We are told we are damaging the credibility of science with criticism and that we should engage authors in clarification rather than criticize them. But I think our experience with this PNAS article demonstrates just how much work it takes to deconstruct outrageous claims based on methods and results that authors poorly understand but nonetheless promote in social media campaigns.. "
　
　
Barbara Fredrickson, who wrote the book "Positivity", was written about in this previous thread:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...-debunked-the-mathematics-of-happiness.27700/
　
umm... can we get this guy to help us?
https://twitter.com/CoyneoftheRealm

 

[Dolphin]

Reuters have now done a story on this:

Happiness study draws frowns from critics
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/08/25/us-science-happiness-idINKBN0GP1QA20140825

 

[DanME]

My brain is too clouded today to understand the whole critic (so much statistics), but the premise of the original happiness study seems to be absurdly biased towards a conservative and Christian world view.

"Hedonists, it seemed, were headed for a disease-ridden existence and an early grave, as media reports warned in stories with headlines like "Meaning is healthier than happiness." from the Reuters article.

From what I understood, they maybe suffered from too much random data input (DNA activation) and false correlations came up, where they are none in reality.

In my opinion, everybody who can, should have as much fun as possible. Meaning in life is a good thing, but having fun is indeed often - more fun!

 

[DanME]

By the way, this is so dumb, a scientist, who does not want to be criticised is not a real scientist.

"We are told we are damaging the credibility of science with criticism and that we should engage authors in clarification rather than criticize them."

 

[Dolphin]

Neuroskeptic has done a blogpost on this:

(False?) Positive Psychology Meets Genomics
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/n...se-positive-psychology-genomics/#.U_9aiZRkTmd

However, it's quite technical also.

 

[alex3619]

By the way, this is so dumb, a scientist, who does not want to be criticised is not a real scientist.

"We are told we are damaging the credibility of science with criticism and that we should engage authors in clarification rather than criticize them."

Science without criticism is not science ... period!