| I'm glad to hear of this class. I think I'll take it in order to see if I can learn some things I didn't know. That said, the article is very poorly written. The author appears to not have a good understanding of what constitutes standards of proof in the social sciences, and in what way studies in social sciences ought to be spoken about. (For example, they refer to a landmark Princeton study that "proved" money doesn't equal happiness, then states that some later studies with a different demographic "disproved" this. But the first study did not prove anything by most meanings of the word, nor did the second disprove it. They provided evidence, suggested conclusions, invited interpretation...etc. You can't prove lasting things about changing statistical aggregates, nor prove things about individuals based on group statistics. That is not how statistics works.) Then there is the cheesy bit where they show themselves "scoring points" on a professor who "concedes" that a car could be an experience, if you can focus on the experience of driving it...but frankly she's gently correcting them, not conceding a point. (Note that these scare quotes are my interpretation; they are not said in the article.) I do think in general that I don't like this folksy let's-pretend-the-journo-knows-nothing-because-some-readers-won't style. Perhaps it's an imperfection of mine rather than the author's. I'd rather they just tell me what they know or found out, or quote the authority, because I don't find the fact that they had a conversation with the authority human-interesting. (That is, I think they're angling for a human interest style in this sort of piece, but there is nothing of human interest in showing me you had a conversation with a person.) |