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    Ecopsychology - For People Who Think Social Psychology Is Too Credible
    By Hank Campbell | July 27th 2012 02:00 PM | 7 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
    If only there were a field that examines the spiritual, therapeutic and psychological aspects of human-nature relationships, I'd abandon my graduate studies in Theoretical Phys Ed and embrace this new discipline instead.

    Luckily, there is. For those of you dumb enough to have spent $80,000 for a two-year program in Environmental Journalism at Columbia but now can't (they closed it - even unlimited student loans reached a gullible student limit), Ecopsychology is here.

    Sure, environmental problems may seem like material ones - we simply need cows that burp less, plants that require fewer pesticides and more natural gas - but people in Ecopsychology are much more nuanced than rubes in the real world and know environmental problems are simply human behavioral ones. If we teach everyone to not brush their teeth with the water running, Greenland won't melt.   The field covers areas such as eco-spirituality, experiential learning about environmental harmony and the interdependence between our physical and psychological health and that of the planet.

    It even has a peer-reviewed journal.   

    You can imagine the downside to a peer-reviewed journal regarding something as mystical as ecopsychology.  Ain't no one critical passing that peer review, any more than non-believers in astrology or homeopathy are passing their peer-reviews. 

    That's not to say their isn't a legitimate psychology issue. Some people on the right are not going to believe that anything we do to the planet matters. And every plant geneticist, no matter how liberal they are politically, regards anti-GMO protesters as creepy and dangerous, for good reason.  Those are valid psychological barriers to getting responsible discourses on science policy.  

    But a field based on 'coping with anxiety or grief about environmental destruction'? 'Investigations into the subjective, experiential, and existential states associated with connectedness to nature and ecocentric conceptions of self and identity'? 'Spiritual practices that support a healthy environment'?  I know there is a left/right divide about some science issues - kooky science bloggers who think the only anti-science issues in America are stem cells, evolution and global warming come to mind (you know who you are; not that you read actual  science sites, so you do not see me making fun of you) - but can we not all agree that this is a waste of money?  I don't mind if some rich kid or athletic scholarship type takes this stuff if all of the basket weaving classes are full, but this sort of major is ground zero in the growing 'psychology is not science' movement regarding funding.

    The problem will be that, since this article is critical, a whole bunch of people in psychology will insist maybe this is science - instead of driving the quacks out of their field.

    Think medicine before 1850, people.  It was all skull drilling and leeches and no interest at all in germs. But finally one medical school in the world decided medicine should be a real thing and not full of charlatans and now when people hear 'doctor' they think of 'Medical Doctor', when in the past that 'Medical' had to be a prefix because Doctors (PhDs) wanted no part of their silliness so M.D.s had to be ghetto-ized .  Psychology needs its 1850 version of Harvard Medical School.

    Comments

    Gerhard Adam
    I'm coming to think in even simpler terms regarding whether psychology is science.  In my view, if you even have to try and convince someone ... then it's probably not science.
    Gerhard Adam | 07/27/12 | 16:12 PM
    Fred Phillips
    every plant geneticist, no matter how liberal they are politically, regards anti-GMO protesters as creepy and dangerous, for good reason.
    The problem is not GMOs per se. The problem is that GMOs are part of a (excuse the expression, it's only been the title of my Science2.0 column for the past several years) socio-technical system. It is the system that is f.u.'d. Protesters know the system is too hard to change, so they protest the most vulnerable point in it, which is, in this case, GMOs. It is a rational decision on their part.

    Imagine you are a farmer in Minas Gerais or Ukraine or somewhere. Your neighbor plants GM seeds and you do not. (Let's say you can't afford to.) During harvest, seeds from his plants blow into your field. Your next harvest shows modified DNA, so Monsanto sues you for failure to pay royalties. The system allows Monsanto to do that. You could countersue Monsanto for trespass, but guess who has bigger lawyers? Houston, we have a problem.

    People tied to old technologies always get swept aside by the new, for all the grand reasons of Creative Destruction. That's OK. But farmers getting hammered for dipshit reasons like windblown seeds is not something I'm prepared to countenance.

    The protesters probably visited their legislators in an orderly manner, hoping to prevent these abuses, but arriving just in time to see the lobbyist for Monsanto (or Daniels-Midland or whoever) hand a big check to the Congressperson. C-person will not, they correctly assume, be voting to change Monsanto's unrestrained ability to 'protect its intellectual property.' The protesters reasonably understand their only hope is to turn public opinion against GMOs so that C-person will say to Monsanto, 'Sorry, nothing personal, but I won't get re-elected if I don't vote to ban GMOs.'
    Fred Phillips | 07/27/12 | 20:50 PM
    Hank
    The problem is not GMOs per se. The problem is that GMOs are part of a (excuse the expression, it's only been the title of my Science2.0 column for the past several years) socio-technical system. It is the system that is f.u.'d. Protesters know the system is too hard to change, so they protest the most vulnerable point in it, which is, in this case, GMOs. It is a rational decision on their part.
    I have heard this rationalization for years - usually from left wing science bloggers faced with anti-science people in their political midst, though.  Protesters are not anti-science, they are anti-corporation.  Yet if religious people object to constant cultural attacks by atheist biologists, they are anti-science.  When George Bush simply limited federal funding for human embryonic stem cells, he did not have a moral position, he was anti-science. 

    Anti-vaccine people are rationalized as being anti-corporation too.  Framing it that way is a dangerous precedent because it basically allows any anti-science belief to be dismissed as being moral or subjectively business related.  Global warming is certainly big business too; are skeptics anti-business or anti-science?  To Republicans who claim to love science while refuting climate scientists, that line is easy; they trust science but not the scientists doing it.  
    —
    Want more no-nonsense, independent science? Buy Science Left Behind
    Hank Campbell | 07/28/12 | 00:34 AM
    Fred Phillips
    Good point, Hank, except you haven't explained what's wrong with being anti-corporation? Somebody's gotta be, in select cases - just read the newspaper to find the corporate abuse du jour. I share your appreciation for what corporations have contributed to our well-being, but I don't want to ignore the truly egregious abuses. 

    I'm trying to make the point that as citizens and scientists we should figure out better ways to effect systemic change. And I did use as examples two corporations that have pioneered the leading edge of abuse.

    Otherwise I'm with you, up to
    they trust science but not the scientists doing it.
    That's a far cry from "I trust science but not all the corporations commercializing it." You and I agree that not all people with "scientist" on their office doors should really be called scientists. That's another can o' worms that I'm sure we'll continue to hash out on Science2.0. (Worm hash, mmm.) Scientists abusing science can lose their jobs. By the same token, some corporations need to have their charters revoked.

    I did say "read the newspaper." If your city still has one, that is. We know what corporations have done to the newspapers they've acquired...
    Fred Phillips | 07/28/12 | 04:17 AM
    Hank
    Good point, Hank, except you haven't explained what's wrong with being anti-corporation? 
    There's nothing wrong with being cautious or even skeptical, but anti-corporation is crazy.  Can I build a bridge?  No, I can't. Can I loom my own clothing? No. Lots of kooky left-wing people are anti-Wal-Mart; they seemed to like when only small stores in remote areas had a monopoly on selling goods.  I was not part of the 1% growing up, my country family was making what it made when I was a kid and Wal-Mart came along and provided better stuff at cheaper prices. The rich store owner on the hill could worry about himself but if my family had been anti-corporation he would be rich and they would be able to buy less.

    Can I make my own vaccines? Maybe today, but a whole lot of dead children would be in other families.  The vast majority of people working for anyone is working for a corporation, that includes academia and NGOs and activists groups raising money for their corporation by being against another one.

    Have you talked to old media people?  I have, obviously, lots of them, and they invariably tell me they were printing money in the 1980s, because they had a monopoly.  Television, print, it did not matter, they could throw money around.  How was that better for society to have elites controlling the news?  Corporations did not kill newspapers, the Teamsters and the printer unions did.  There is a reason you no longer have a paper boy and it isn't because corporations hate paper boys, it is because unions got it in their contract.
    —
    Want more no-nonsense, independent science? Buy Science Left Behind
    Hank Campbell | 07/28/12 | 11:14 AM
    Gerhard Adam
    I think the point being missed is on the extremes.  I don't think anyone has ever disputed that larger size companies are necessary.  But, like anything else we have to recognize that while some may be good a lot isn't necessarily great.

    What we're now seeing is that it is possible for companies to get too big, where they become a drain rather than a benefit to economies.  There's no question that anyone with power, whether it be the local businessman or a multi-national corporation will tend towards tyranny when they are monopolies.  That's why a sensible economic model would focus on the beneficial middle-ground instead of promoting larger and larger entities that can't possibly compete with anyone.

    So, it isn't strictly being anti-corporate [at least for me].  It is about the size of corporations and whether they represent a business or another governmental force.

    We have to stop thinking in terms of extremes all the time.  Any idea, whether it be conservative or liberal would become tyrannical in the extreme.  Any attempt at solving problems becomes tyrannical in the extreme.  Therefore, we need to recognize that organizations that are "too big to fail" are simply "too big". 

    We need to provide more opportunities for entrepreneurs instead of allowing these business behemoths from determining the conditions of competition.  That would limit their size.
    Gerhard Adam | 07/28/12 | 11:36 AM
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    There's no question that anyone with power, whether it be the local businessman or a multi-national corporation will tend towards tyranny when they are monopolies.  That's why a sensible economic model would focus on the beneficial middle-ground instead of promoting larger and larger entities that can't possibly compete with anyone. 
    So true Gerhard! I once worked for a huge multi-national corporation in the Asia Pacific head office, working and playing alongside the corporate executives who wielded such enormous power between them, when we weren't sailing on Sydney Harbour and attending endless social functions! BTW there were no scientists amongst them, some good chess players, accountants and keen gamblers though.

    These corporate executives were often amazing, charismatic but ruthless guys. They run these huge corporations with thousands of employees and often have their fingers in many pies but they are only human and they are simply goaled to beat the opposition, make profit for the shareholders and bonuses for themselves at almost any cost to everyone else. There is also no long term accountability, and its a dog eat dog, work hard, play hard ruthless environment, where directors come and go more and more frequently. They do however play by the rules that society and the governments that we elect give them and they are often casualties themselves, alcoholism and divorce are very common. Allowing these multi-national corporations to get too big and powerful is dangerous for everyone, end of story!
    —
    Make love not war
    Helen Barratt | 07/28/12 | 18:14 PM