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Debunking the Lorentz System As a Framework For Human Emotions
New submitter Enokcc writes "In a series of research articles it was claimed that a famous system of nonlinear differential equations originally used to model atmospheric convection can also be used to model changes in human emotions over time. It took an amateur in psychology with a computer science background to notice how extraordinary these claims were, and with the help of experts on psychology he has now published a critique. The latest of the questionable research articles (with 360 citations) is now 'partially withdrawn.'" Notably, skeptic Nick Brown's paper is co-authored by Alan Sokal, famous for exposing nonsense by less diplomatic means.
Considering how poorly atmospheric conditions and climate are modeled, it's no wonder they can't model human emotions.
Having spent my career working on modeling various physical phenomena, I attest it's easy to fudge the results to produce any outcome you want, if you know how.
At least some psychologists are trying to use math beyond statistics. It looks like they screwed up, by I give them credit for trying. Social scientists have historically sucked at using rigorous mathematics to describe the phenomena they observe. I for one, don't want more social scientists scared off by a backlash on this.
I saw that TED talk (and searching TED talks suck and can't find it, although found a wonderful talk by Russel Foster about sleep and our misconceptions about that and how researchers got that all wrong for centuries.) and the person was talking about lay people - lay people taking current studies as fact.
His point was that it takes about a generation for science to really get down to the truth - trying to duplicate results of studies, improved technology in research, more research, etc ...
How many people still believe the non-sense that we only use 10% of our brains?
Of course, someone IN the field would use previous research - even in his own generation. But a lay person shouldn't take too much stock in current findings until it has run it's scientific course.
Anyway, go back to insulting people and getting your silly mod points.