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Harvard Phd Vs. About.com over Gaming
MaryAlan writes "I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but About.com's Aaron Stanton is in the middle of a back and forth firefight with Dr. Thompson, a Harvard researcher who recently testified before the U.S. Congress about violent video games. She published a study that listed Pac-Man as being 62% violent. Stanton attacked in an article criticizing her research. Then, Joystiq.com contacted Dr. Thompson and got an interview and a response, published her rebuttal, in which she defends the Pac-Man rating and the study.
So today, Stanton attempted to tear the study apart, detailing why it's flawed even though Thompson claims otherwise. On one hand we have an established Harvard Phd, who has testified before the U.S. congress, against a game journalist with a bachelors degree in Psychology. Hmmm..."
She's not even a PhD to begin with. I can tell you whose assertions I never believe...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The Doctorate of Science is on par with the PhD. In the United States it's only awarded by a few institutions. Harvard and MIT are two of them. Her Doctorate of Science is from Harvard, so it's probably good. The title "Doctor" applies to that degree.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
According to this: http://www.kidsrisk.harvard.edu/images/kmtCV.pdf she's got a ScD in Environmental Health, a MS in Chemical Engineering Practice, and a BS in Chemical Engineering
I've found that nurturing one's Zen nature is vital to dealing with technology. Violence is pretty damn useful too.
Ultra ironic, then, that it was written by a girl.
A Very Brief History of Pac-Man
Education
Sc.D., Harvard School of Public Health
M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
She works for the finest institutions and universities - that doesn't mean a statement like PacMan is 64% violent isn't moronic. The methodology is clearly flawed - as is rhetoric that increased violence in video games had led or will lead to increased antisocial/violent behavior (see declining juvenile crime rates).
They rate Space Invaders as more violent than GTA:SA (which whether you think it should be regulated or not is clearly very violent). The metric and methodology is useless.