Writing in the Pacific Standard, Jerry Adler suggests that research psychology—like most branches of experimental science right now—is facing a crisis. Poorly proofed journals, unreproducible results, questionable statistical models … It leads him to ask the headlining question: “Can Social Scientists Save Themselves?” Or will reformation need to come from the outside? Ironically the article… Read more »
Welcome to the Existential Roundup, where we bring you links to some articles currently trending that may be of interest to those in the existential-humanistic psychology community. Lately, while dealing with a period of high stress, I have found cookies—specifically those with Dulce de Leche chips—a huge source of comfort. Thus, Cookie Monster’s picture on… Read more »
Aboard the Vallejo. Photo by Rick Umbaugh. The following is a (true) tall tale for existential-humanistic researchers demonstrating that not all research has to be tedious. When I first enrolled in the Alan Watts course at Saybrook University, I wasn’t too impressed by Watts. I thought he was sort of a pompous Brit lording it… Read more »
Taking the opportunity to read a women’s magazine recently while on a long flight, I was struck by the title of the Editor’s column “What’s Your Question?” (Lesley Jane Seymour, More Magazine, May 2014). The editor was reporting on a conference focusing on women’s issues at Duke University, and specifically on a presentation, “The Heart… Read more »
National Library of Ireland on The Commons. Science: the place where we abandon our perspective and values, seeing problems from no point of view, studying problems as they come along with no special motivation other than pure knowledge. M.A.S.H.‘s Col. Potter had a word for this sort of thing: horsepuckey. Here’s the thing: we’re humans…. Read more »
Amedeo Giorgi. In the field of phenomenological research, no one has done more to establish its legitimate scientific credentials than Amedeo Giorgi. In a new essay now available to the New Existentialists’ library, Marc Applebaum describes how Giorgi has offered an alternative to the scientism and relativism often found in psychology and what passes for… Read more »
1886 Eli Lilly newspaper advertisement. In part one of this blog, I discussed the beginning of my loss of faith in research, particularly psychological research. As I noted, I began my career interested in being a researcher. I conducted a number of studies, some of which I never sought publication for because of my own… Read more »
The second statistics book I ever read was How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff (1954/1982). If any statistic book could be considered a classic, it should be this book. At the time, I found it amusing, but did not really take it to heart. I learned that in order to get two out… Read more »
Photo by Keith Allison. Now that baseball’s regular season has ended, and the playoffs are in full swing, it is a good time to look back at the season past. In New York baseball alone, special moments abound: the utter grace and dignity of Mariano Rivera’s season, feted from ballpark to ballpark, and culminating in… Read more »
Several years ago I was teaching at a university in Colorado and a small group of us were working to fan the fire of interest in existential psychology with some success. Each year, we brought Kirk Schneider to co-teach a seminar on existential psychology. Mark Yang began joining us from China, often with some Chinese… Read more »
