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Comment by lutusp | Hacker News Reader

> I find the position that cryptozooligists never "abandon any discredited evidence" to be unfair.

Science isn't about what's fair, it's about what the evidence tells us. The fact that, in spite of no evidence whatsoever, Bigfoot stories, books and TV shows have escalated tremendously over the past 20 years, supports the claim you're objecting to.

> There are likely to be more reasonable cryptozooloigists that disregard discredited evidence, and would happily admit to hoaxes in this area.

Those aren't cryptozoologists, at least not gainfully employed ones. It's sort of like psychologists who know talk therapy is a waste of time -- they may still be psychologists, but they're not making a living at psychology.

> You do need to use smear tactics if you want to create outrage.

The article didn't need to use smear tactics, and it didn't use smear tactics -- it used evidence.

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> It's sort of like psychologists who know talk therapy is a waste of time -- they may still be psychologists, but they're not making a living at psychology

I know you hold anti psychology views, but some forms of talking therapy are evidence based and are as effective as medication for some mental illnesses. They are quick and achieve good rates of recovery (both amount of recovery, sometimes total, and length of recovery, sometimes many years.)

I'd agree if you'd used the terms "counselling" and "counsellors".

> I know you hold anti psychology views, but some forms of talking therapy are evidence based ...

I said that talk therapy doesn't work. You say it's evidence-based. Both are true -- the evidence shows that talk therapy doesn't work.

> ... and are as effective as medication for some mental illnesses.

Yes, that's also true. Talk therapy doesn't work, and it's as effective as the available medications, which also don't work. Here's just one example:

"New Study: SSRI Antidepressants ‘Clinically Insignificant’ For Most People" http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/02/new-study-ssri-antidepressa...

On that basis, I think we're in agreement. Talk therapy is evidence based, and it is just as effective as many of the available medications.

> They are quick and achieve good rates of recovery ...

Yes, and in controlled studies, so does taking no action, sending the client home untreated, or the application of placebos -- all equally effective.

> I'd agree if you'd used the terms "counselling" and "counsellors".

It's well-established that counsellors, fortunetellers, bartenders, and psychologists have the same effectiveness rates in settings where one of the choices isn't unfairly stigmatized.

That is momentously bad science: X doesn't work due to the evidence, and to prove it, here's a paper on a different topic.

If you think talk therapy works, the burden of evidence is yours, not mine. The default scientific assumption under these circumstances is that there's no effect, and as it happens, there's no evidence to contradict this assumption, and plenty to support it.

I posted what I did because it's relatively new and unfamiliar to many of psychology's advocates. As to talk therapy, these findings are in some cases decades old, with no change in the outcome.

Agreed, I actually had some trouble with this sentence:

"Science — psychology in particular..."

Psychology, in itself, is not a science. This diminishes any of his further arguments and not being evidence based.

PS. Sorry was meant for parent comment.

>Those aren't cryptozoologists

they arn't Scotsmen either.

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