I think it is now clear that the psychologists whom Stuart Ritchie castigates did not get it wrong. Ritchies use of absolute death counts betrays just the kind of mathematical illiteracy that the psychologists identified.
The panic is undoubtedly disproportionate. Had this been a repeat of the 1918 “Spanish ‘flu” (which had many young healthy victims of cytokine storms) there might have been some justification for the general lockdowns we have indulged in. But Covid-19 is nothing like that.
Instead of allowing herd immunity to develop naturally, we have been herded into a totalitarian’s dream.
Jeffrey Shaw
4 years ago
Most literate people in the 21st century have learned to not trust the discipline of psychology……..period.
Steve Craddock
3 years ago
Possibly our major problems in this area stem from us being too safe and coddled in general. We have lost our feeling of what a risk is, our risk radars so to speak are out of tune, or maybe we have become hyper sensitive to very small risks, especially when they being shouted at us from all directions. Similar perhaps in a way to the suggested biological process that is presently at work raising our population wide allergy cases to stratospheric levels. Over decades have been made mentally weakened and had our self reliance systematically removed as regards to risk. The continued use of psychological tools as a form of power steering to control and constrain our society will further exacerbate the potential adverse or unexpected reactions now the global panic button has been pressed.
John Private
3 years ago
Excellent article thanks.
jonathan carter-meggs
3 years ago
We all operate under biases, these are a necessary short cut to decision making and our brains are entirely dependent on them. We do not have the processing power to make each and every decision from scratch.
“wrong” biases do exist but these can be very dependent on circumstances and so not easily reduced to a series of good ones versus bad ones to be used in every case.
My feeling is that it is a technique in political game theory to seek to destroy the opposition by claiming to have identified an erroneous bias.
I think it is now clear that the psychologists whom Stuart Ritchie castigates did not get it wrong. Ritchies use of absolute death counts betrays just the kind of mathematical illiteracy that the psychologists identified.
The panic is undoubtedly disproportionate. Had this been a repeat of the 1918 “Spanish ‘flu” (which had many young healthy victims of cytokine storms) there might have been some justification for the general lockdowns we have indulged in. But Covid-19 is nothing like that.
Instead of allowing herd immunity to develop naturally, we have been herded into a totalitarian’s dream.
Most literate people in the 21st century have learned to not trust the discipline of psychology……..period.
Possibly our major problems in this area stem from us being too safe and coddled in general. We have lost our feeling of what a risk is, our risk radars so to speak are out of tune, or maybe we have become hyper sensitive to very small risks, especially when they being shouted at us from all directions. Similar perhaps in a way to the suggested biological process that is presently at work raising our population wide allergy cases to stratospheric levels. Over decades have been made mentally weakened and had our self reliance systematically removed as regards to risk. The continued use of psychological tools as a form of power steering to control and constrain our society will further exacerbate the potential adverse or unexpected reactions now the global panic button has been pressed.
Excellent article thanks.
We all operate under biases, these are a necessary short cut to decision making and our brains are entirely dependent on them. We do not have the processing power to make each and every decision from scratch.
“wrong” biases do exist but these can be very dependent on circumstances and so not easily reduced to a series of good ones versus bad ones to be used in every case.
My feeling is that it is a technique in political game theory to seek to destroy the opposition by claiming to have identified an erroneous bias.
Don’t get me started on privilege!