JONAH LEHRER: "I wasn't cut out for the scientific process"

Jonah Lehrer Explains How Being a Journalist rose out of his Lack of Discipline in Scientific and Logical Thinking
Psychology Today
By Jay Dixit on July 21, 2009

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Psychology Today: How did you become a journalist?

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Jonah Lehrer: I was working as a technician in a neuroscience lab, Eric Kandel's. And it slowly dawned on me that I [am] a terrible scientist. The post-doc I worked for, who remains one of my closest friends, used to always joke—although he really wasn't joking—that I excelled at experimental failure, that I found new ways of making experiments not work. You know, mixing up buffers in every PCR I did. In every Northern, Western, Southern, every kind of experiment, I found new and innovative ways to make stupid mistakes.

As much as I loved the ideas of science, I slowly realized I didn't have the discipline, cast of mind, the ability to take very big questions and break them down into testable, empirical chunks.

[...]

So I slowly realized that as much as I loved hanging out with scientists, talking in acronyms, the ideas and theories of science, I wasn't cut out for the scientific process. So that's when I started thinking about how can I write about this?

MORE: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/brainstorm/200907/jonah-lehrer-art-and-the-brain





Dear JONAH LEHRER:
A response to Jonah's 'Article' http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/author/jonah_lehrer/


Which section of the brain anatomy is responsible for the flaw that causes some relatively intelligent individuals to imagine that every other person is of inferior intelligence? Is it in the general area of the brain that makes some imagine they can accurately mass diagnose not only mental aberration but actual pathology based upon cursory reviews of unproven theory bolstered by an incredible megalomania brought on by an overinflated opinion of their own intellectual capacity?

As you are aware, individuals with superior intelligence usually find it quite easy gauge other inferior intellects. As this level approaches their own it becomes much more difficult. Unfortunately in your case although you have a substantial intellect it is by no means particularly impressive. You are quite young and as such your arrogance is
is magnified by youthful exuberance. Pico della Mirandola syndrome.

Although it is entertaining to follow your escapades you would do well to temper your intellectual arrogance as I can certainly assure you that there are others in this world much more intelligent than you.

You could use a little work on your rhetoric. The religion of psychology similar to other religious beliefs such as those espoused by Galton and Darwin, which ultimately drive these sort of debates over the promotion of national socialism and the science state, are merely an aberration of intellectual mediocrity.

To deny that capital is partnership with government and uses science to pursue their dream of ultimate power is disingenuous. To attack an individual such as Alex Jones in the manner you have is similar to theorizing and speculating about conducting war compared to the reality of pursuing it on the front lines. I am certain that in spite of your hubris, you would not be anyone’s first pick as a brother in the trenches. This is a fundamental weakness in the governance of your intellectual capacity which although slightly superior than average is still very minor league.

The haughty demeanor you have adopted is nauseating to all honest men of lesser and far greater intelligence than you posses. The intellectual peacock who spreads his tail feathers in the hope that the eagle will take note and approve. Your entire IQ is merely a snack compared to the true banquet enjoyed by genuine intellects, and all of the fancy certificates you can gather will never alter this state of affairs. You are an excellent candidate for “smart pills” but sadly even a 20% improvement in capacity would still leave you well short of the major leagues.

Your true insecurity is very much on display for those who can see it. Indulging in intellectual punksterism will not save you from that growing sense of inadequacy and fear of losing your edge, youth and ultimately your grip on the fantasy that you are intellectually significant."
Posted by: swatch | 08/5/10 | 1:18 pm

ALEX VS JONAH: The Psychology of Conspiracy Denial

-Jonah Lehrer


Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, August 5, 2010

Wired Magazine writer Jonah Lehrer claims his critics are engaging in “cognitive dissonance,” by expressing concern about experimental vaccines, which in fact is the perfect description for Lehrer’s own behavior.

Wired Magazine writer Jonah Lehrer attempts to offset the overwhelmingly critical response to his attack on Alex Jones by characterizing skepticism of authority in the context of vaccines and mass medication as a psychological dysfunction, despite the fact that the history of government-funded medical research in the
United States is replete with examples of scientific abuse against unwitting victims.

Lehrer fires another salvo in the controversy surrounding brain-altering vaccines that eliminate stress and induce artificial states of “focused calm” by portraying those who are concerned about the potential abuse of such treatments as paranoid cult members who believe in space aliens coming to rescue them from an imminent apocalypse.

Unable to properly address Alex Jones’ video journal about the dangers of mind-altering vaccines point by point, Lehrer resorts instead to retelling a completely unrelated story from the 1950′s about a woman in Minneapolis who thought a giant spaceship would rescue her from the end of the world.

According to Lehrer, people who are concerned about fluoridated drinking water and the New World Order, in other words, anyone who expresses consternation about what they are putting in their own body or what powerful people are planning to do with the planet, are mentally disturbed cult members who are victims of cognitive dissonance.

Of course, Lehrer’s tactic of labeling of those who disagree with him in pointing out that there are very real proposals to mass medicate the water supply with lithium, in addition to the already prevalent neurotoxin sodium fluoride, with a psychological dysfunction, could just as easily be applied to Lehrer himself.

The acid test on who is engaging in cognitive dissonance and ‘doubling down’ on their beliefs even in light of conflicting evidence, be it Lehrer or the “conspiracy theorists,” has to come down to the basic facts.

It’s a fact that Lehrer’s own fellow Oxford luminary Julian Savulescu, in a 2008 white paper, called for populations to be mass-medicated through pharmacological ‘cognitive enhancements’ added to the water supply.

It’s a fact that Professor Allan Young of Vancouver’s Institute for Mental Health told the BBC that “Large-scale trials involving the addition of lithium to drinking water supplies may…be feasible,” following claims that lithium led to a reduction in the number of suicides in Japan and helped to alleviate “mood disorders”.

It’s a fact that Barack Obama’s top science czar John P. Holdren advocated in his own textbook Ecoscience that a “planetary regime” should employ a “global police force” to enforce totalitarian measures of population control, including forced abortions, mass sterilization programs conducted via the food and water supply.
These facts are not a product of some spurious Internet link found on Google, as Lehrer spins it, nor do they have anything to do with alien spaceships or the apocalypse, they were either written or said directly by the individuals themselves.

In Lehrer’s first article on the subject, he wrote that people who expressed concern about proposals to put lithium as well as sterilants in the water supply were trafficking in “idiotic conspiracy theories”.
Lehrer’s knee jerk denial of these manifestly provable facts that he derides as “idiotic conspiracy theories” is proof positive that it’s Lehrer himself, and not the conspiracy theorists, who is engaging in cognitive dissonance and “doubling down” on his beliefs even in light of conflicting evidence.
Lehrer’s behavior is a classic case of cognitive dissonance – when presented with the fact that proposals are in place to mass medicate the water supply, he continues to spin yarns about space aliens from the 50′s while defending his belief system with sophomoric name-calling and discredited stereotypes which attempt to label anyone who disagrees with him as mentally unstable.

Given the multi-decade documented history of the United States government using its own population as unwitting guinea pigs for the most abhorrent scientific experiments and trials, to deny that such plots could be hatched today is the height of cognitive disson