Don't You Love it When Scientists Write Research Articles Solely to Dump on Other Scientists?

[watery_memories]

While conducting a lit review for a psych paper I'm writing on how to measure life satisfaction, I stumbled across this abstract (written by Dr. Easterlin; emphasis mine).

Feeding the Illusion of Growth and Happiness: A Reply to Hagerty and Veenhoven

In a rebuttal of Easterlin (1995), Hagerty and Veenhoven (2003) (see record 2003-05918-001) analyze

Comments

[illicitlearning]

ahh, i love that :D
there was a linguistics paper i read once; the whole thing was a huge diss of the other researchers who study the same topic. i just kept cracking up at the number of times he basically said "there are two main theories on this topic. one is dumb and makes no sense (citation: other dude's studies) and the other is awesome and explains everything (citation: my studies)"
the hilariousness of it was compounded when i went to go speak with him and the entire time he was like "oh my god if you're going to do research please join a psychology department and not a linguistics department; linguists cannot methodology D:"

[watery_memories]

That advice really makes me want to make a macro that says, "Methodology: you're doing it wrong," but the hard part would be finding a suitable picture!

So, are you going into grad school? :)

[illicitlearning]

A macro like that would be hilarious, but I have no idea what image you'd use either. I'll keep my eyes open.

And grad school's the plan! I'm pretty torn between doing psycholing and studying pragmatics or going full psych and studying human sexuality though.

[watery_memories]

I think human sexuality is really interesting, too! When I say I want to be a psychologist, people always ask me what I want to "specialize" in. I've never been really sure how to answer that question. So far, I'm thinking ADD, some other disorders like social anxiety, etc, but I'm not 100% sure which yet, positive psychology (building a happy life and a positive self-image), relationship counseling, and sex therapy. I feel like it's something that most people don't talk about as much as they should, and that's when the problems start, so I think I might be able to really help couples with that. I dunno, though; maybe I'll just get sick of therapy and become a pure researcher and professor (although, I don't think I'd make the best teacher). I just like options!

[swordancerblade]

Haha, we get that too! For one of my Classics courses, I once had a chat with the professor, who told me about an epic feud between two classicist locked in mortal combat. Apparently, everything they ever wrote was intended to tear the one one down. The topic? Whether the Athenian calendar was fixed or adjusted according to that year's seasons.

You'll probably appreciate this- know what the next beginner's MMP I'm working on is? Two paleontology teams in the late 1800s clashing over a rich site, based on the historical Battle of the Bones between Othniel Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. Now, these guys seriously dedicated themselves to destroying each other, and got on worse than the US and USSR. I'm going to use some excerpts from their works =)

I love academia.

[watery_memories]

Academia FTW. Also, YAY NEW MURDER MYSTERY PARTY MUST PLAY IT NOW WHY OH WHY DOES MY SPRING BREAK SUCK AND OCCUR A WEEK AFTER EVERYONE ELSE'S?!