Comment by Bukhmanizer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Bukhmanizer | Hacker News Reader

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Jonathan Haidt’s analyses are absolute garbage.

I see this constantly in his work, he writes as though his argument is driven by data, but if you look closely, the two are often barely related.

> At this point, there is only one theory we know of that can explain why the same thing happened to girls in so many countries at the same time

Ok this is what I mean. The idea that “there is only one theory” is something that’s 100% his opinion (and also, very obviously the opinion he came into the analysis to start with) yet he presents it as something that the royal “We” have agreed upon.

There are hundreds or thousands of theories one could posit about this trend. One of which is the very obvious fact that attitudes towards mental health are changing. I went to school in the mid-2000s. I knew so many people who attempted suicide none of whom were ever hospitalized for it.

I think you're probably right in that there's no one answer, but when we expand our thinking to encompass the impacts the Information Age has had on a number of other aspects of society – politics, learning, business, language, the economy – it's reasonable to suspect some correlation.

A fair cautionary statement. But the substack post (and presumably its analysis) is by Zach Rausch. As Haidt writes in the intro:

>The rest of this post is Part 1 of Zach’s report, in his voice.

Haidt hired Rausch as a research assistant, so caveats, but it's not actually Haidt's analysis.

> I knew so many people who attempted suicide

Successful suicides are up, not actually only suicide attempts. Changes in attitudes toward mental health don't result in changes in how bodies are counted.

But stating an opinion as fact is not evidence he thinks there is truly only one theory. It is just how many people talk. Everyone knows he means there is only one theory that he can think of to explain it.

It’s not how scientists talk. And stating your opinion as fact when you’re a hugely influential social psychologist is really bad.

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