Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Redemption Is an Infinite Loop of Despair.

In the early 2000's, I was writing letters to various psychiatry journals to debunk studies being done alleging to show genetic loci correlated to specific mental illnesses, personality traits, intelligence, etc. .  It was clear to me that these studies were nothing but false positives.  See an example I wrote to the British Journal of Psychiatry here.  I was largely disregarded and even mocked.  In one instance, I was told that they wouldn't print my letter unless I got two other psychiatrists to vouch for my character.  I kid you not.  I told them to pound salt.  I believe that at least one of my supervisors prevented me from getting a supervisor position based on these letters.  I got frustrated with the whole thing, decided to focus on my career, and stopped paying attention, so I never noticed this article, lovingly titled, "Most Reported Genetic Associations with General Intelligence Are Probably False Positives," essentially making the same point 10 years later. 
Really, this opens up an old wound.  I don't feel redemption.  In fact, as I dip my toe back in this pond, I can already see that I will receive the same reception or worse.  I am retired now, so I don't really give a crap.  It will take me awhile to catch up to the current lingo, but I'm already seeing the same basic flaws I saw at that time and I am going to take it down.  They can write another paper about why it was all wrong in 2028 but, by that time, they will all be onto the next great thing.

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