Commenters convinced me I made a subtle mis-step in my framing of Psychology Research Is Mostly Fine.
asserted
Research → convince → framing
My framing emphasized that social priming studies had failed to replicate, but that many other subfields of psychology hadn’t.
asserted
subfields → emphasize → psychology
This naturally led commenters to point to failed replications in other subfields.
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This → lead → subfields
Instead of emphasizing the difference between social priming and other subfields, I should have emphasized the difference between settled science and novel research.
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I → emphasize → science
The brain is sculpted by reinforcement learning, and a key driver of this learning is a prediction-error-based algorithm located in the nucleus accumbens and implemented through dopamine.
asserted
driver → sculpt → dopamine
Psychedelic drugs exert their effects through 5-HT2A receptors, pointing to a role for these receptors in some sort of construct like the balance between priors and new evidence.
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drugs → exert → priors
Certain cognitive functions are localized to certain brain areas (for example, impulse control to the frontal lobes; linguistic structure to Broca’s area, linguistic meaning to Wernicke’s area.
asserted
functions → localize → area
But injure one of these areas, or render a certain function useless (eg a blind person having no more use for their visual cortex), and these mappings can gradually shift - suggesting that neurons are general-purpose compute whose specialization is a contingent fact about convenience and efficiency rather than a necessity.
Most personality traits and general capabilities are about 50% genetic and 50% random, with little role for family environment or childhood history, with a few notable exceptions like partisan preference.
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traits → injure → preference
Recent research complicates this story, but the further you go from this basic picture, the gnarlier the chains of indirect causation you require.
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you → complicate → causation
Neurons fire together in “brain waves”, whose exact frequency corresponds with the character of consciousness; These divide neurons into natural subpopulations and linked graphs.
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These → fire → subpopulations
The gamma rhythm corresponds surprisingly well to items in conscious awareness.
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rhythm → correspond → awareness
GABA receptors seem to be involved in something like relaxation.
asserted
receptors → seem → relaxation
By hitting different GABA receptors in different ways, you can modulate the exact type of relaxation you produce.
asserted
you → hit → relaxation
Hitting GABA-A directly is too powerful and can cause dangerous levels of sedation, but allosteric modulation of GABA is an incredibly fruitful strategy that underlies drugs from benzos to barbituates to alcohol.
asserted
that → hit → alcohol
If you know your GABA-A subunits, you can target specific subtypes of relaxation; for example, Ambien hits GABA-A1 and induces sleep.
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Ambien → know → sleep
Memory divides somewhat fuzzily into bins of immediate-sensory, short-term, and long-term, with separate retrieval and storage functions, and separate systems for declarative vs. procedural learning.
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Memory → divide → learning
These can be harmed selectively, usually by hippocampal injury, so that some patients can remember their life stories but not form new long-term memories, or learn new skills like bike-riding but not new facts.
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patients → harm → riding
The exact substrate of memory is unclear but seems to involve new synaptic connections between neurons in at least some way.
uncertain
substrate → seem → way
The ability of modern psychology and psychiatry to treat mental illness is real but limited.
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ability → treat → illness
SSRIs work for half or slightly fewer than half of patients; antipsychotics work with extreme side effects; benzodiazpines work but produce addiction and tolerance in many (not all) people.
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benzodiazpines → work → people
Most supplements are stuck in Poor Quality Study Replication Crisis Hell, but melatonin and l-theanine stand out as especially promising.
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melatonin → stick → Hell
Psychotherapy works with moderate effect size, but (with a few exceptions) seems to be more about the relationship with the provider than the details of the therapy itself.
asserted
Psychotherapy → work → therapy
Mental hospitalization can sometimes defuse immediate crises but work less well than mental hospitals would like, with some studies showing overall negative effects.
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studies → defuse → effects
Schizophrenia is mostly genetic, but risk also increases with prenatal infection (especially rubella) and obstetric complications; there is suggestive evidence for roles of social stress and drug use (with psychedelics and marijuana making things worse, and nicotine if anything making things better).
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things → increase → anything
Bipolar and schizophrenia are so closely linked on a pathophysiological level that it seems like they might be the same disease; on the clinical level, they do seem to follow two separate courses/prognoses but can sometimes surprise clinicians by eg someone who seemed condemned to permanent schizophrenia unexpectedly recovering.
uncertain
who → link → schizophrenia
The brain’s native reinforcement learning algorithms cash out in the phenomena of classical and operant conditioning; different reinforcement schedules reinforce at different levels, which can be exploited by bad actors to make especially compelling products (eg slot machines).
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which → cash → products
But they’re all a step above one p = 0.049 paper that might not replicate.
uncertain
that → ’re → paper
If they get overturned, they’ll be overturned by the same sort of genuine scientific shift that replaced Ptolemy with Copernicus or Lamarck with Darwin, not some sort of sordid discovery about someone entering random numbers into a spreadsheet.
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someone → overturn → spreadsheet
In 2008, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote about The Beauty Of Settled Science:
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Yudkowsky → write → Science
If you only care about scientific issues that are controversial, you will end up with a head stuffed full of garbage.
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you → care → garbage
The media thinks that only the cutting edge of science is worth reporting on.
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edge → think → science
How often do you see headlines like “General Relativity still governing planetary orbits” or “Phlogiston theory remains false”?
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theory → see → orbits
So, by the time anything is solid science, it is no longer a breaking headline.
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it → break → time
“Newsworthy” science is often based on the thinnest of evidence and wrong half the time—if it were not on the uttermost fringes of the scientific frontier, it would not be breaking news.
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it → base → news
Scientific controversies are problems so difficult that even people who’ve spent years mastering the field can still fool themselves.
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who → spend → themselves
That’s what makes for the heated arguments that attract all the media attention.
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that → ’ → attention
If you want to pretend to be sophisticated, go find a play to sneer at.
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you → want → play
If you just want to have fun, remember that simplicity is at the core of scientific beauty [
asserted
simplicity → want → beauty
]
A steady diet of science news is bad for you: You are what you eat, and if you eat only science reporting on fluid situations, without a solid textbook now and then, your brain will turn to liquid.
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brain → eat → liquid
n=5paper in Annals Of Recently-Breaking News showing that large portion sizes increase support for terrorism
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sizes → break → terrorism
…and 21 more, not listed.
The Aporia
