To the Editor:
Lisa Feldman Barrett wants to reassure us that the inability to replicate findings in more than half of 100 published psychology experiments is no reason for concern about the scientific state of psychology (“Psychology Is Not in Crisis,” Op-Ed, Sept. 1). The reasons for the failure to replicate, she cheerily suggests, is that science is contextual—results are contingent on the context in which each study is done.
Well, context may matter, but Professor Barrett is whistling in a very highly populated graveyard if that is the best she can do to wave off irreproducibility in the psychological sciences.
Those making the effort to reproduce the psychology studies did try to mimic the circumstances in which the original study was done. Did not work. A valid science cannot have findings so frail as to collapse at a tiny change in a contextual variable.
But that is not really what is bothersome about using context to excuse irreproducibility. If things in psychology are as Professor Barrett maintains, then much more modesty ought be in evidence when psychologists publish their findings, communicate them to the press, or popularize them in books and talks for laypeople. Drawing broad conclusions from a few highly controlled studies of the behavior of a small number of college sophomores is not the responsible way to proceed.
Professor Barrett’s attempted rescue of her field is enough to make one suggest turning to the humanities for sources of truth about human nature and behavior.
ARTHUR CAPLAN
New York
The writer is the founding director of the Division of Medical Ethics, NYU Langone Medical Center.
Note from KBJ: I've often said that economics is politics masquerading as science. Psychology is mind-reading masquerading as science.
