COMMENT TO AN ARTICLE BY JULIA SHAW IN THE INDEPENDENT
This piece by Dr Julia Shaw is feeble.
You cannot compare nearly half a century ago with today in a
rigorous way, controlling for the effects of being in or out of the EU.
Science is not about anecdotes, but this author offers
anecdotes and pretends to explain something by a rather flaky psychological
concept.
And if you do attempt to do a rigorous comparison, which
this author does not, you cannot drag in nonsense like "false
memories" to explain things.
The data must speak for themselves.
This is an example of the classic "junk science"
so often used in American courtrooms to influence verdicts by juries.
It rightly has a very bad reputation because it has been
carefully demonstrated that you can always find an "expert" with the
desired theory or interpretation of theory to support your case. Always, and
that is not science.
This especially is the case in the social sciences, which
have a very tenuous claim to the second word of their title.
And now The Independent has added junk psychology to junk
economics and junk diplomacy and junk international affairs to influence
events.
