User:Bellebramer/sandbox

=Brainstorming ideas Wiki-workshop= Group brainstorming ideas:

Confusion between disciplines related to truth/evidence within a specific ‘real life example’

Climate change: —> truth (evidence)
Sub-ideas Relevant disciplines
 * food waste
 * plastic pollution
 * car pollution —> switching to green
 * deforestation
 * agriculture; meat industry —> taxation, etc.
 * land fill
 * politics/policy making
 * economics
 * environmental science

Managing the spread of epidemics —> evidence?
Sub-ideas Relevant Disciplines
 * HIV/AIDS
 * black plague
 * anthropology
 * religion
 * sociology
 * economics
 * statistics
 * mathematical modelling

Other ideas

 * monopolies/collusion
 * trophy hunting (ecology)

=More brainstorming...=

Food waste

 * High consumption of water and fossil fuels needed to produce food. Food waste means a waste of these resources
 * Emissions of CO2 and methane from decomposing food -> GHG emissions
 * Difficulties of quantifying food waste (EVIDENCE)
 * Typical data comes from "structured interviews, measurement of plate waste, direct examination of garbage".
 * This data is somewhat indirect, and experts from different fields may debate its reliability/validity. (Thus making it an interdisciplinary issue.)

Drug legalisation
Evidence

Legalisation of medical hallucinogens

Medicine/clinical psychology


 * Carhart-Harris; UK clinical trial of psilocybin (active element in psilocybin 'magic' mushrooms)
 * used for "treatment-resistant" depression
 * 5 of the 12 individuals included in the study were not depressed any longer after 3 months

Politics


 * Societal issues
 * Difference between legalisation & decriminalisation
 * Legalisation of drugs:
 * becomes profitable; almost 'advertise' use


 * Collapse of profit for criminal groups; could possibly lead to uncertainty
 * Destabilising force due to connections of the illegal market to many societies and governments
 * politics and economics connected to money supply coming from illegal markets
 * Different solution to the 'drug' problem
 * instead of legalisation to solve the problem
 * invest in programmes such as drug addiction treatments, improved and increased drug prevention
 * evidence: 2005-2011; increase in treatment and recover availability = decrease in drug use by 15%

Sociology


 * Normalisation of drug use
 * Greater exposure to drug use by the entire society

Race Science and Racism

 * History – argued different races were different species – believed to be true, pseudo-scientific evidence and therefore pseudoscientific racism– social construct ‘types of mankind’ 1854 – human zoos, white supremacy – eugenics
 * No biological evidence for race – more variation within human populations than between populations
 * Race based medicine – race can help identify populations at risk of disease - evidence for Jewish people being more prone to Tay sach’s disease. Inherent belief can also lead to treating people differently – racial bias in pain assessment
 * Subconscious and conscious beliefs ; conscious (implicit) associations role in behaviour and beliefs
 * Implicit association test – people make connections quickly between pairs of ideas already related in our minds than those unfamiliar – male and family vs female and career – more difficult – more mental associations with maleness and careers
 * Online test – measure response times – race IAT – beginning asked what your attitudes to whites and blacks are – 80% pro-white associations – attitudes towards race operate on 2 levels
 * conscious attitudes (choose to believe) – values we use to direct our behaviour
 * IAT measures attitude on an unconscious level – automatic associations not deliberately chosen – data from experiences, people, lessons, books, movies – formulates an opinion we may not be aware of
 * Philosophical stance – does subconscious opinion define who we truly are?
 * Since our actions are consciously driven and are therefore controlled, to what extend does our sub-conscious actually affect these decisions? Do our subconscious thoughts actually matter in terms of our behaviour?

= Chapter structure = (structure we agreed upon for the wikibook chapter)

Subconscious racism

Interdisciplinary issue: Truth

Introduction:


 * establish argument; does our sub-conscious reflect our racist beliefs
 * establish what the IAT test is = the basis of the interdisciplinary issue

Argument:

1. Behavioural psychology argument

Claim: Our subconscious reflects our racist beliefs and the IAT can identify these beliefs.


 * IAT reflects inherent racism
 * how the IAT test works;

Counter argument:

1. Sociology

Claim: Our subconscious beliefs do not reflect our values, since our subconscious is a result of social constructs.


 * Race science: if race is itself a social construct = subconscious will be affected
 * But will not have an innate racism
 * only caused by social construct / imperialism


 * Frederick Oswald research team did meta-analysis of 46 studies, found IAT scores are poor predictors of actual behavior and policy preferences / IAT scores predicted behaviors and policy preferences no better than scores on simple paper-and-pencil measures of prejudice

2. Neuroscientists

Claim: The IAT reflects quick associations in the brain, but there is no concrete link between these reactions among neurons and our conscious values regarding issues such as race.


 * MRIs of brain activity
 * racial bias is caused by fast automatic thinking

3. Cognitive science

Claim: links to neuroscientist claim


 * IAT = assesses familiarity
 * need to answer very quickly
 * some cannot cognitively process the information fast enough
 * IAT is a measuring construct of salient attributes
 * test describes something about racist beliefs but racism in itself is a social construct
 * the subconscious tests do not express something biological but more an environment consequence of our society
 * The test-retest reliability (repeatability) of the Race IAT is only .42, which falls well below the psychometric standard of .80 - repeatibility as a key scientific value

Counter-counter argument

1. Social Psychology

Claim: The IAT is valid in determining the truth of our subconscious beliefs regarding race, as it provides a more genuine response than alternate research methods would.


 * validity of self-reports depends on how sensitive the topic/situation asked about is
 * if asking about a sensitive topic (ie. whether or not the individual deems themselves racist); cannot ask people directly without getting inaccurate results
 * Therefore: supports that the IAT can help find out through their subconscious if an individual may actually have racist beliefs
 * However: even their subconscious may not accurately reflect what that individual believes

Conclusion


 * subconscious is more built around our environment
 * see differences in studies between countries; effect of specific environment
 * key is how we use these results (evidence) to form truths --> what does the IAT measure and therefore what truth can we form? does it measure prejudice / racism / cognitive ability etc?

=References=