Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Ego Depletion

 Roy Baumeister's "ego depletion" theory was, at one point, regarded as among the most legitimate ideas in all of psychology--and yet, these days, it's on its way to earning the label of borderline junk science.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2016/03/ego_depletion_an_influential_theory_in_psychology_may_have_just_been_debunked.single.html 

If a scientific experiment is successfully replicated 200 straight times, and then all of a sudden, a bunch of data comes in pointing in a completely different direction, then are we supposed to continue honoring the currency of "science?" 

A "scientific" experiment accompanied by "scientific" replications might not be dealing in legitimate science at all.