PSY 497 Capstone Exam 3 (chapters 8-9)

CHAPTER 8 : THE HISTORY OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

• What year was psychology born? 1879

• In 2002, Western Connecticut sociologist Steve Ward suggested that Psychology has done more than any other discipline to affect day-to-day positively- life in the world over the previous 123 years.

• In 2004, Dutch professors Jerry Jansz and Pete van Drunen referred to this as the psychologization of society.

• Does Applied Psychology even count? Psychology has long been associated with helping to diagnose and address mental disorders. But many other areas of life have benefited from Ψal research as well. The workplace, the courtroom, athletic performance, product design, the space program, etc.

• How did Ψists come to be involved in so many different areas? Of course, it began with the need to address mental disorders.

• Clinical Psychology- Prior to WWI, even the treatment of Ψal disorders did not fall within the purview of Psychology. Freud, for example, saw himself as a physician -- one who used the process of Ψoanalysis as a medical treatment. Ψists were clearly subordinate to medical professionals – i.e. “real doctors.” Mostly, they, Administered diagnostic tests, Weren’t allowed to practice therapy in official settings, and Weren’t covered by health insurance. They were essentially subordinates to med school graduates. Somewhat similar to Master’s vs Baccalaureates today

• Penitentiaries- Why are prisons called “penitentiaries?” In 1790, there were no prisons in the U.S., only local jails. Pennsylvania decided it needed more than just jails; it needed a state prison. The general belief in western civilization had been that the only way to rehabilitate serious criminals was through solitary confinement. This hadn’t worked at all in Europe, but that had been attributed to overcrowded prisons. So…the walls of the Pennsylvania state prison were built extra thick; there were no windows; and guards were even required to wear socks over their shoestominimizedistractingnoise;but PENITENTIARIES- it did have running water & central heat, plus …each cell had a skylight[?] to focus prisoners’ attention on the heavens. All of this was designed not to punish the criminals per se, but rather to force them to consider the crimes they were convicted of and to become penitent for them; regretful, contrite, repentant. Eventually, the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia became the most (in)famous prison in the world. In fact, it even became a very popular tourist attraction. Charles Dickens visited Eastern several times, devoting an entire chapter to decrying its methods in his 1842 travelogue American Notes for General Circulation.

• THE TIMES, THEY WERE A-CHANGIN- The whole thing was a terrible idea, with disastrous results. Penitence was much less common than being driven insane by the silence and sequestration. In what year did the (literal) Penitentiary system end? 1913. This provided opportunities for clinical psychologists to fill the void left in the wake created by the abandonment of that system

  WWI

• Shellshock- Anxiety disorder resulting from exposure to the new horrors of war that resulted in dysfunctioning to the point where a soldier no longer responded to most stimuli, including threatened punishments.

• In WWII, shellshock became known as battle fatigue. During the Koren conflict, it was retermed to as operational exhaustion. In the Vietnam era, the term evolved again to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

• The frequency of shellshock during WWI prompted the need for Ψists in two related ways. 1. Identifying beforehand those who might be (even more) prone to shellshock; and 2. Treating those who suffered from it, after the fact

  THE THIRD MOVEMENT

• As part of this expansion of Ψ’s roles, a new movement emerged within Psychology in the 1950s: Humanistic Ψ

• Why did Maslow refer to Humanism as “the third movement?” What were the first two?  Psychodynamism  Behaviorism

• Both Freudian & Behavioral Ψ are reductionistic and deterministic. €  The humanists believed that people have the desire and ability to initiate positive steps in an effort to “self-actualize.

• David Rosenhan (1973) – “On Being Sane in Insane Places”

• Ron Laing – several books suggesting symptoms & feelings are just valid results of one’s (unusual) experiences.

• Tomas Szász (1960) – The Myth of Mental Illness  Szász’s claim?  Most Ψal dysfunctioning does not reflect an incurable mental disease that requires extreme forms of intervention.

• 2. Psychotherapy research In 1952, German-British Ψist Hans Eysenck conducted a metaanalysis of research on the effectiveness of traditional psychotherapy.

• EMPIRICISM WORKS IN CLINICAL Ψ TOO!

• About 2/3 of experimental Ps (i.e. those receiving Ψotherapy) showed improvement across a two- year period.

• What fraction of control Ps showed improvement? The same.

• What was Eysenck’s conclusion? Psychotherapy (in that era) was largely ineffective b/c it wasn’t securely founded in sound Ψal research.

  Improving Clinical Diagnosis

• While working on his doctorate at Minnesota in the 1940’s, Paul Meehl was one of the researchers who helped create the MMPI. (He contributed the K-scale, wh/ is intended to measure defensiveness.) In 1962, he also hypothesized that schizophrenia has a genetic link. In between, he wrote a book that is more important than he’s sometimes given credit for, perhaps b/c it’s yet to be as influential as it should be.

• Meehl’s Book- In 1954, Paul Meehl published Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence.  The book’s major predicate:  Any judgment or decision requires a means of combining information in order to make a choice. The minor predicate:  Clinical diagnosis is one type of judgment

• The essence of Meehl’s argument was that an objective, algorithmic approach to combining information is superior to a subjective one.  An algorithm = set of rules for determining the solution to a problem in a finite # of steps, like a computer program

• The advantages of Algoritthms- Meehl’s contention was that clinical diagnosis would be far more reliable & valid if it were done using a statistical algorithm vs. relying on a therapist’s professional judgment.  In the mid-1950s (as now!), clinicians combined all sorts of info in their heads – not all of it accurate, or even relevant. They then filtered it through a Freudian prism before deciding what problem a client had.  Meehl contended that a human being is not as consistently accurate as an algorithm would be in identifying relevant information and assessing its usefulness in a given case,

• Marty Kohn is an ER physician/medical scientist who has “trained” Watson* the computer in medical diagnosis.  One category of causes of death in the U.S. is…  …“death by doctor,” or medical errors. Approximately 1/3 of all ER errors are due to misdiagnosis, one cause of which is anchoring bias [?].  Tendency to overrely on one piece of info  Algorithms don’t exhibit anchoring (or any other type of) bias.  Plus, algorithms are much better suited to digesting large volumes of data…

• SCIENCE VS. ART  Thus, an algorithmic approach would be more inclusive and more reliable than the ongoing alternative.  It would take much of the “art” out of diagnosis and provide a stronger, more scientific basis for the accurate clinical diagnosis of a client.  In 2000, Bill Grove et al. completed a metaanalysis of research comparing these two approaches across a wide variety of instances in health & behavior assessment.

• GROVE ET AL. (2000)  11% of the time, clinical judgment is superior.  40% of the time, algorithmic judgment is superior.  49% of the time, there is n.s.d.  So, ~89% of the time, across a diverse set of circumstances, algorithmic/statistical judgment is at least as good as clinical judgment.  Dan Kahneman?  Nobel Laureate Dan Kahneman -- who died last year -- won the Nobel Prize in 2002 for his research on expert intuition, which he based on Meehl’s work.  Master chess players can quickly examine a chessboard, say something like “Black takes king in four,” and be right.  Veteran firefighters can glance at a situation and almost instantaneously make a correct life-or-death decision

• ARE YOU AN EXPERT OR JUST EXPERIENCED?  But unless certain conditions of expertise are met – prolonged practice* & rapid, unequivocal feedback, for ex/ – all you really have is experience. And experience ≠ expertise.  In fact, experience without having attained expertise leads to false impressions and overconfidence.  Thus, the impt. of receiving and absorbing term paper feedback…  Kahneman won the Nobel in the category of Economic Sciences for demonstrating that humans are not nearly as rational as we like to think we are.  Kahneman found that when non-experts make decisions, they suppress alternative interpretations. They become overly focused on only one single solution (~anchoring bias)….

• Psychiatrists reinvent themselves  W/ the development of numerous psychoactive drugs – beg. w/ chlorpromazine in 1950 – the medical doctors (i.e. psychiatrists) who’d dominated psychotherapy for decades had a new tool, wh/ only they were allowed to prescribe.

• UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES  As a result of the availability of psychoactive medication, several developments rippled through society:  a. Long periods of hospitalization were necessary far less often.  b. B/c of lower overhead, the cost of treatment was substantially reduced, making this variety of psychotherapy much more widely available to the general population.  Of course, it also contributed to an unfortunate byproduct: an epidemic of addiction to prescription drugs.  c. The rise to prominence of social management (controlling “deviant” individuals through society-run “social services”)  I.e. decentralizing mental health care by allowing local agenciestohelpmaintaincasesonanoutpatientbasis

• ΨAL TESTING One tool clinical ists use is psychological testing. al tests have been around for a very long time. Perhaps the oldest known are authenticity tests. [?]  Are individuals representing themselves accurately? Are they who they say they are? Or are they lying? Two early authenticity tests: Dried rice test (ancient China) Magic donkey test (ancient India) There was an even more dubious authenticity test in medieval Europe.

  SO, WHAT MAKES A GOOD TEST?

• In addition to authenticity tests, there were also qualifying tests. [?] Assigning a task to determine the best candidate for something Of course, the two most important issues in assessing any test are…? Reliability & validity Early Ψists tried to do for mental processes what medical science wasdoingforphysicalprocesses:

• In addition to the survey, what’s been the most historically popular means of obtaining info from other people?  How reliable & valid is the interview, as it’s usually conducted?  The earliest critical analysis of the face-to-face interview was conducted by Columbia Ψist Henry Hollingworth (1922).  A dozen experienced sales managers interviewed 57 job applicants.  They were instructed to interview the applicants however they normally would for a job opening, then rank all (57!) candidates.

• WHY DIDN’T I GET THE JOB?!  The mean correlation coefficient b/w any two interviewers was r = .15. Your thoughts…  More than a century of research on the interview – clinical intakes, job applications, college selection, probation hearings, etc. – shows that the typical face-to-face interview is not just low in reliability, but practically devoid of validity!  Why is the interview so poor at predicting just about anything (other than how to give good interview)?  Numerous reasons…

• The primacy effect [?]  Buckley & Eder (1989)  ¾ of professional interviewers make their decision w/i the first five min.  Contrast effects, negative information bias, the halo effect, overattention to nonverbal behavior…  Young & Beier (1977)  Nonverbal behavior accounts for >80% of the variance in an interview decision!  So, the typical interview is a quagmire of irrelevant influences.

  THE FIRST PERSONALITY TEST

  Personality test = a series of Qs designed to identify the traits or stable patterns of behavior that define an individual

• Nomotheticism- a perspective emphasizing the general laws of human behavior

• Idiographicism- a perspective emphasizing individual differences vs. general laws of behavior

• The Woodworth Personal Data Sheet has been called the first personality test.  Bob Woodworth (1920) designed the WPDS to predict which army recruits would be most likely to experience shell shock in battle, albeit too late to employ in WWI.  There turned out to be two major problems w/ the WPDS…

• WPDS IS EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES… 1. Woodworth didn’t bother to determine whether any of the items on the test actually distinguished the susceptible from the extra-susceptible.  He wrote and selected the items b/c they seemed intuitively valid [?]  I.e. they sounded good. Ex/s:  “Are you bothered much by blushing?”  “Have you often fainted?”  These sound like items you might find on the completely invalid MyersBriggs Type Indicator, but why are they not terrible first draft Qs for a test of proneness to shellshock?  What type of validity does this – an item sounding legit -- refer to?  Face validity  This is perhaps the greatest distinction today behind “tests” found online (Buzzfeed, Slate, etc.) & in magazines (Cosmo, 17, etc.) vs legitimate, scientifically derived tests.  2. Woodworth assumed that Ps would respond to each item honestly, despite the fact the MC options were replete w/ social desirability. ¥  How do we avoid these pitfalls in creating a test?

• In 1962, Cornell Med School Ψist Tom Langner set out to create a predictive test of general Ψal impairment...  Langner composed 120 Qs that were “intuitively valid.” Meaning what?  They sounded good. But he didn’t stop there…  Administered the test to two groups…[?]  Psychiatric patients & Ps w/o any psychiatric symptoms  What did he look for?  Langner ID’d 21(out of the original 120) items that the two groups consistently answered differently.  Rather than relying only on his own intuition, Langner selected only those items that actually distinguished the two groups he was trying to distinguish.

• What do you want me to say? What about the social desirability problem?  Numerous tactics to reduce or help account for it:  Ensure anonymity. Why should this help?  It increases truthfulness.  Create subtler Qs.  E.g. “Have you ever run out of gas?”  wh/ would assess…?  planfulness/stability  Use other formats (vs. self-report Q’aires).  E.g. projective tests (such as?)   Create a sub-scale that assesses respondent bias.  E.g. the validity scales on the MMPI:  Response inconsistency, lying, defensiveness, etc.

• CHAPTER OVERVIEW  Clinical origins  Penitentiary system  Shell shock  3rd movement: Humanistic  Post-WW developments in clinical  Psychiatric misadventures  Research on otherapy  Ineffective  algorithms  Psychiatrists reinvent themselves  al testing  Interview  Standardized tests  Personality tests

📘 Chapter 8: The History of Applied Psychology

Origins and Expansion

• Birth of Psychology: Established in 1879.

• Impact on Society: By 2002, psychology was recognized for significantly influencing daily life.

• Psychologization: In 2004, the term described psychology's pervasive role in society.

Clinical Psychology's Evolution

• Pre-WWI: Psychologists primarily conducted diagnostic tests; therapy was dominated by physicians.

• Penitentiary System: Designed to instill penitence through isolation; ended in 1913 due to adverse effects.

Military Influence

• Shellshock: WWI highlighted the need for psychological assessment and treatment of war-induced trauma.

• Terminology Evolution: Shellshock → Battle Fatigue (WWII) → Operational Exhaustion (Korean War) → PTSD (Vietnam War).

Humanistic Psychology

• Third Movement: Following psychodynamic and behavioral approaches, humanism emphasized self-actualization and personal growth.

• Key Figures:

  • Abraham Maslow: Introduced the hierarchy of needs and the concept of self-actualization.

  • David Rosenhan: Conducted the "On Being Sane in Insane Places" study, questioning psychiatric diagnoses.

  • Ronald Laing & Thomas Szasz: Critiqued traditional views on mental illness, emphasizing individual experiences.

Psychotherapy Research

• Hans Eysenck (1952): Found traditional psychotherapy to be largely ineffective compared to no treatment.

• Empirical Approaches: Emphasized the need for research-based therapeutic methods.

Advancements in Clinical Diagnosis

• Paul Meehl (1954): Advocated for statistical over clinical judgment in diagnoses, highlighting the superiority of algorithms.

• Algorithmic Benefits:

  • Reduced biases like anchoring.

  • Enhanced reliability and validity in assessments.

Integration of Technology

• Marty Kohn & Watson: Demonstrated the potential of AI in medical diagnostics, reducing human error.

• Dan Kahneman: Explored the limitations of expert intuition, emphasizing the importance of structured decision-making.

Psychiatrists and Medication

• Introduction of Psychoactive Drugs: Chlorpromazine in 1950 revolutionized treatment, reducing hospitalization needs.

• Consequences:

  • Increased accessibility to treatment.

  • Rise in prescription drug addiction.

  • Shift towards outpatient care and social management.

Psychological Testing

• Authenticity Tests: Ancient methods like the dried rice test aimed to detect deception.

• Qualifying Tests: Assessed suitability for specific roles or tasks.

• Interview Limitations:

  • Low reliability and validity.

  • Influenced by biases such as primacy effect and nonverbal cues.

• Personality Assessments:

  • Woodworth Personal Data Sheet (1920): Early attempt to predict susceptibility to shellshock; faced issues with face validity and honesty in responses.

  • Tom Langner (1962): Developed a more empirically valid test by selecting items that differentiated between psychiatric patients and healthy individuals

CHAPTER 9:

What Is Science?

• Common Definition: Science is the systematic accumulation of facts based on objective and value-free observation and experimentation.

• Big Question: Is science the triumph of reason and evidence over subjectivity, superstition, and bias?

Reasoning in Science

• Deductive Reasoning: Begins with general principles (Plato favored this).

• Inductive Reasoning: Begins with specific observations to develop broader generalizations or theories (Aristotle emphasized this—foundation of empiricism).

Logical Positivism / Logical Empiricism

• A major 20th-century philosophical movement that emphasized a scientific approach to knowledge, moving away from metaphysics (questions about the fundamental nature of reality).

  • Metaphysics = literally "after Physics" — named after Aristotle’s book. It deals with abstract questions like “What is reality?” or “What is the nature of being?”

• Logical positivists believed philosophy should focus less on those abstract, speculative ideas and more on how science works and why it works.

• According to Logical Positivism, science follows a basic 3-step process:

  1. Observation of Facts

     • Especially controlled observation—systematic, precise, and replicable.

  2. Inductive Reasoning

     • From those facts, you derive hypotheses or theories to explain them.

     • This is based on inductive logic, meaning you move from specific data to general ideas.

  3. Empirical Verification

     • You test the hypotheses/theories to see if they hold up under scrutiny.

     • Only after testing can you decide whether a theory is scientifically trustworthy.

Problems with Inductive Reasoning

1. Observation Requires Interpretation: All perception is filtered through existing beliefs and biases.

2. Verified Observations Don’t Equal Full Understanding: You might not know what you don’t know.

3. Unobservable Variables: Some scientific entities (like atoms or the Oort Cloud) were hypothesized before they could be directly observed.

4. Verification Limits: You can’t prove something never happens—absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Verificationism vs. Falsificationism

• Logical Positivism (Verificationism): Science proceeds by observing facts, forming hypotheses, and verifying them.

• Popper’s Critique: Real science tries to falsify ideas, not just verify them. If a theory can’t be tested in a way that could show it’s wrong, it’s not scientific.

Pseudoscience Traits

Red Flags for Bad Science / Pseudoscience

This section gives examples of how scientific claims can go wrong, either through bad methodology, bias, or outright deception.

🔬 1. No Control Group to Compare To

• In real science, experiments need a control group—a baseline to compare results against.

• Without it, you can’t tell if the thing you're testing actually caused the observed outcome.

🧠 2. Subliminal Advertising — James Vicary (1957)

• Vicary claimed he secretly flashed “Drink Coca-Cola” and “Eat Popcorn” during movies, and sales increased.

• 🚨 Problem: He later admitted he made it all up.

• He tried to run real experiments afterward to prove it, but never succeeded.

• This is a classic example of a fabricated study that gained media attention and fooled the public for a while.

🎯 3. Cherry-Picked Results

• Choosing only the data that supports your claim, and ignoring contradictory evidence.

• This is confirmation bias—not science.

• Example: Watching only selected, heavily biased sources that distort or omit facts.

  • Examples cited: OAN, Newsmax, FrankSpeech, and even sometimes C-SPAN.

  • Linked clip: YouTube example

📰 4. Sensational Headlines

• Media often exaggerates study results with clickbait headlines.

• Headlines may say “Science proves…” when the actual study is tentative, limited, or misrepresented.

🔍 Takeaway

All of these are signs of pseudoscience, bad science, or scientific misconduct. A skeptical, scientific thinker learns to question:

• Where’s the control group?

• Is the data cherry-picked?

• Can the results be replicated?

• Is the source reliable

🧪 PSEUDOSCIENCE

Pseudoscience refers to beliefs or practices that claim to be scientific but lack proper scientific methodology, evidence, or falsifiability.

⚠ Examples of Pseudoscience (by field)

General:

• Subliminal advertising

• Phrenology – claiming skull shape reveals personality

• Conversion therapy

• Graphology – handwriting analysis as personality test

• Parapsychology – telepathy, ESP, etc.

• Polygraphy – lie detector tests as definitive truth tools

Medicine:

• Biorhythms

• Body memory (the idea that the body “remembers” trauma separately from the brain)

• Chiropractic (especially when making claims beyond spine alignment)

• Antivaccine movements

Astronomy:

• Astrology

• Lunar effect – full moon myths

• Moon landing denial

Geology:

• Bermuda Triangle

• Climate change denial

• Crop circles

Religion / Spirituality:

• Creation “science”

• Dianetics

• Scientology

• Feng shui

🧠 Karl Popper’s Critique of Pseudoscience

Popper, originally trained in cognitive psychology, made a critical distinction between science and pseudoscience.

This difference is called:

🔍 Falsifiability

🛰 Example: Mars Rover 2004 Balloon Descent Test

NASA used scientific reasoning by testing for failure—not just success.

Test Sequence:

• 1st test: Balloon blew up → 😢

• They added multiple high-speed cameras to catch the problem.

• 2nd–7th tests: Success after success → 😐 (Not celebrating yet!)

• 8th test: Still success → 😐

• 9th test: It failed again, exactly like the 1st one → 🎉 Wild cheering!

Why Cheer for Failure?

Because they found the weakness—and now could fix it.
That’s real science: actively seeking to falsify your ideas.

Karl Popper’s Falsificationism

• To be scientific, a theory must be testable and falsifiable.

• Theories should be bold but rigorously tested.

• Science progresses not by confirming beliefs, but by eliminating those that don’t hold up to scrutiny.

Karl Popper on Insecure Perspectives & Science

Popper criticized certain belief systems—including:

• Psychodynamics (Freud, etc.)

• Marxism

• Religion

…because they focused on verifying their claims rather than trying to falsify them.

🤔 Human Nature vs. Scientific Method

• Seeking confirmation is natural for humans

• But it's not good science

• In real science, we try to disprove our ideas to ensure they’re actually valid.

📌 What’s the social term for this human tendency?

Linking Popper to Research Methods (RMS)

• If data shows an effect →
  ➤ We reject the null hypothesis

This is a real-world example of falsification, the key principle Popper emphasized.

🧠 Popper’s Advice for Psychologists

• Be bold and creative in forming new hypotheses (like physicists)

• Then be ruthless in testing those hypotheses (try to disprove them)

Only the most robust theories survive — just like natural selection in evolution.

🧬 Sound Science Is Like Evolution

• Popper draws a parallel between science and evolution:
  ➤ Both are systems where only the fittest survive

• This shared principle could be mutual evidence that both frameworks are valid

The Hypothetico-Deductive Method

1. Observe and use inductive reasoning to create a theory.

2. Use deductive reasoning to rigorously test the theory.

3. Try to falsify it rather than prove it true.

Scientific Revolutions (Thomas Kuhn)

• Contrary to the belief that science progresses slowly and steadily, Kuhn argued it proceeds through paradigm shifts—dramatic changes in understanding when the existing framework no longer explains observations effectively.

SCIENTOLOGY / SCIENCOLOGY?!?

This part of the lecture highlights the importance of understanding what science really is, by contrasting it with things that may appear scientific but aren’t. The section title plays on "Scientology", a belief system often criticized for pseudoscience, and "Sciencology", a made-up word used here to prompt critical thinking about what qualifies as real science.

Key points:

• Philosophers of science (not scientists themselves) have been crucial in helping us define what science is and how it works.

• Much of our modern understanding of science—especially its structure, logic, and limitations—didn’t fully develop until the 20th century.

• The core idea we’re exploring is: How do we gain truthful, reliable knowledge?

  • This involves a deeper look into methods of reasoning, like deductive (Plato’s preferred method) and inductive (Aristotle’s contribution, foundational for empiricism).

Big Idea:
Not everything that calls itself “science” actually follows scientific principles. That’s why it’s essential to differentiate between science and pseudoscience, using philosophy and methodology—not just the presence of lab coats or technical terms.

🔬 SCIENTISTS AS REVOLUTIONARIES

Historically, science was viewed as gradual and cumulative, but Thomas Kuhn challenged that in his 1962 book:

Kuhn proposed that science doesn't grow linearly — instead, it follows a cycle:

1. Normal Science:

   • Scientists operate within a shared paradigm

   • Basically: glorified puzzle-solving

2. Crisis:

   • Anomalies (unexplainable results) pile up

   • Confidence in the current paradigm declines

3. Revolution:

   • A new paradigm is proposed

   • Eventually replaces the old one

   • Cycle restarts

🧠 What Is a Paradigm?

Though Kuhn used the word in many ways (21+, per Maggie Masterman), at its core, a paradigm is:

It defines "normal" science, but can be replaced when it no longer explains reality well.

🔁 Examples of Scientific Revolutions

• Astronomy: Geocentrism → Heliocentrism → Lambda CDM (dark matter)

• Physics: Newtonian Mechanics → Relativity → Quantum Physics

• Geology: Catastrophism → Gradualism (plate tectonics)

• Biology: Creationism → Evolution

• Psychology: Psychodynamics → Behaviorism → Cognitivism → (Neuroscience?)

🧮 Other Paradigm Shifts

• Economics: Classical → Behavioral (📍Dan Kahneman)

• Math: Euclidean → Non-Euclidean Geometry

  • “Straight line” = shortest path? Not on a curved surface (think: ants on a balloon 🐜🎈)

• Architecture:

  • Stone & concrete → Steel frame

  • Limitation: elevator space vs. profit

  • Solution (2005, Hong Kong): Smart double-decker elevators using destination control systems

📉 Science is Getting Harder

• Galileo dropped things off towers

• Newton poked his eye with a needle

• Today? Discoveries are harder, more competitive

Enter: Scientometrics

• The science of measuring scientific progress

• h-index (Jorge Hirsch): measures impact of research

• High-impact studies now come from teams, not lone geniuses

🐢 “Science Marches (Crawls) On”

Like Zeno’s Paradox:
We’re always halfway there, but never finished.

• Research is harder

• But: # of scientists is increasing

• Net effect: we still progress, just more slowly and collectively

⚖ Sustainable Science?

• 90% of scientists who’ve ever lived are alive now

• True for 3 centuries straight

• Not sustainable forever, but:

🎭 Kevin Bacon and Small Worlds

🔗 Your Degrees of Separation

You (via this class/notes) are connected to:

• 4 degrees: Elvis, Oprah, Larry Bird, Simon Cowell, Queen of England, etc.

• 3 degrees: Eleanor Roosevelt, Spielberg, B.F. Skinner, SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, Carrie Fisher

• 2 degrees: Bo Jackson, Beth Loftus