Groan. Why the trumpets, why the tinsel?! When discussing and disseminating science news, shouldn't we aspire to be, you know, a little more scientific?
The following release of a science finding strikes me as akin to having a party to celebrate sobriety.
I bet the headline that appeared on my screen last December elicits at least a small groan from most of you:
The mall as a sanctuary: Study finds holiday shopping outlets aren't just shrines to spending
Oh holy kazoos -- is that for real? Alas, it wasn't a parody or a joke. It was "science." In this case, the strongest of the science part was some actual data collected. That said, get ready for another, minor groan:
The researchers conducted 41 in-depth, in-home interviews with Muslims, Jews and Christians in the United States, Israel and Tunisia to examine consumers' behavior when their given religion represents either a majority, minority or immigrant faith.
That 41 number is kinda small, especially considering the three countries of origin and the three religions involved. How could you come to any type of reasonable conclusion from that sample? Not to mention questions about how the subjects were . . . recruited?
Are you ready for some of the actual "finding"? Put down any sharp object you may be holding, because if you slap your forehead you don't want to hurt yourself.
In countries where a religious group was in the majority, the researchers found that the dominant religion experienced "consumption mass hysteria," which led to consequences of debt, drunkenness and overeating.
Wait. Was this study a joke? Have I been duped into attempting to take something seriously that isn't serious? Sadly, it wasn't a joke. But fortunately, I wasn't duped. Were others?
What we have in this study is another case of a little bit of (poor) data being amplified into a supposedly revelatory finding.
Is that starfish a democrat or republican?
'Society garlic'? Probably in favor of universal health care.
Oh-oh. That pineapple is on its way to reproducing. Hope it doesn't later have to go on the dole! (sorry)
[recycled material - first appeared here]
Roughly twenty years after the birth of the term, I still don't like homophobia. The word. But before arguing against the use of this term, let me emphasize that by taking a position against the word I am by no means taking a position in support of any or all behavior the term is used to categorize. The issue I address here is solely the perceived misuse of language.
Why quibble over "homophobia"? First, as popularly employed, homophobia implies a diagnosis, and supports a perspective, that rests upon a tenet of pop-psychology. The tenet asserts that behind all aggression, anger, and resistance, exists the true causal emotion -- fear. But does fear underlie all aggression, all anger, all opposition?
As Andrew Ortony and Terence J. Turner, researchers specializing in the psychology of emotion, long ago outlined in the pages of Psychological Review, anger is a distinct emotion that has its developmental roots in the infant's experience of frustration. The infantile experience of frustration, especially that of restraint, develops into the adult emotion of anger. Furthermore, the expression of anger emerges prior to that of fear. Hence anger does not develop out of fear.
What underlies adult anger?
In a 1993 edition of another psychological journal, Cognition and Emotion, renown authority on human emotion Nico Frijda wrote, "As for anger: The most elementary elicitors...are acute goal interference."
For the above and other reasons, the fear-as-primary-motivator tenet of pop-psychology seems to me to be more than highly questionable. It is likely outright false.
Returning to the specific case of homophobia, opposition to the increasing presence and political clout of homosexuals cannot and should not be written off as a mere symptom of widespread phobia. It is more complicated than that.
If you think about it, the reasoning behind "homophobia," "homophobic," and "homophobe," is almost absurd. With similarly applied reasoning, one could diagnose anti-abortion activists as choice-phobic, environmentalists as development-phobic, and republicans as tax-phobic. As an even more ridiculous example, I myself could be called "creamed-corn-phobic," for I intensely dislike this canned vegetable and resolutely oppose its inclusion into my diet.
Why not diagnose as phobic all aversive and oppositional behavior? Because the underlying reasoning is defective, and because a term as serious as phobia should not be used to categorize a person or people with reckless abandon.
The second and perhaps primary reason why the popular use of homophobia concerns me is that behind this term lurks moral and political bullying. All too frequently individuals employ the term in an attempt to pathologize opposing perspectives. To force values. To close issues. By labeling and defining people as "homophobic" you easily discredit their concerns. Calling someone homophobic is equivalent to saying, "You are sick. Your feelings and beliefs have absolutely no place in this society."
True, the "other side" is frequently guilty of the above, but does that justify it?
The questions of homosexual rights (the extension of civil rights to people with differing sexual orientations), and how and to what degree society should accept and accommodate homosexuality, are controversial and complex. Personally, I'm for homosexual rights such as the right to marry and adopt children. However, using words that discredit the holders of opposing opinions and values, and thus, indirectly, the opinions and values themselves, is a strong-arm political tactic--a tactic that undermines the effort to make our communities and nation more free-thinking.
Language is a powerful tool. Sure, it would be nice if we could classify all behavior and persons we didn't like as pathological, hence undeserving a legitimate place in the world. But it just isn't that simple. Furthermore, by doing so we undermine a better understanding.
New research proves it: herbal medicine works. Check out the news release headline -
Chinese herbal medicine may provide novel treatment for alcohol abuse
But wait a minute. I think a neglected to put an "an" before "herbal medicine works." For it was one Chinese herbal treatment, right?
Yes and no.
Yes, in that the 'herbal medicine' was the plant Hoventia.
No, in that it wasn't administered as Chinese medicine is. Rather, the experiment used a component isolated from the plant, the chemical dihydromyricetin.
The research team determined that dihydromyricetin may provide a molecular target and cellular mechanism to counteract alcohol intoxication and dependence, leading to new therapeutic treatments — all based on an ancient "folk medicine" treatment that has been used by humans for at least 500 years.
While I applaud this scientific finding, I question the misleading language used in the write up. For example, this title would be more accurate:
"Treatment based on a Chinese herbal remedy may provide . . . "
Once a laboratory isolates the active chemical in an herb, extract or manufactures it, and then applies the methods of science to that chemical, I no longer consider it a Chinese medicine. Rather, it is traditional/conventional medicine working off an idea for a new treatment from Chinese medicine.
Recent Comments