triadruid

::link between new-age spirituality and poor mental health::

Dear cod! That's the worst piece of "science" reporting i've seen in kind of a while. meanwhile, I can't actually find Aird's article -- has she even published these findings? I would really love to know whether she is this confused, or just the Brisbane Times.

~~I'm also curious to note that the article identifies her as a "PhD candidate", but many blogs and news outlets seem to be referring to her as "Dr Aird" -- clearly not all that hip to the terminology.~~ It's a weird inconsistency, but the UQ website calls her Dr Aird too, so I suspect she's finished.

Also weird, but not as weird as it seemed at first: these findings came from interviews studying pregnancy. My first thought was that they were only talking to pregnant women, and that that sample oddity would have been worth mentioning. But it's actually the case that this is a longitudinal cohort study -- the interviews were with people born 21 years ago, whose mothers had been part of a pregnancy study. Which means that they've got lots of other data about these "kids" -- I wonder what else is in there...

Grrr... Argh!

Edited Date: 2008-01-23 04:19 pm (UTC)

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That's the worst piece of "science" reporting i've seen in kind of a while.
Amen, brother llama. I mean, science reporting tends to be bad, but wow. Copy-editing is dead.

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"Brother Llama" is a new one, I think. (cf yesterday's list of names.

I normally go more for "His Excellency", that sort of thing ;)

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Lama Llama?
(Lama Llama Ding Dong?)

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Also, poetry break!

The Lama

The one-l lama,
He's a priest.
The two-l llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three-l lllama.*

-- Ogden Nash

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This has always been one of my favorites =)

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greektoomey.livejournal.com

Dali Llama?

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funny you should mention that...

My friend Celia wrote a song for/about me after we met last year, called "LlamaMan". But then she wrote a bunch of other verses about animal-name people: Tiger Woods, the Beatles, etc. But they were all famous but me, so my verse became one about the Dalai Lama instead of the Ken Llama. She says that she's going to record my verse for me once she gets it into the studio though. I can't wait...

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I got the impression that this was part of her PhD process (I'm not hip to the terminology either, having a B.A.).

Which is possibly MORE terrifying, as an idea...

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That was my first impression too. The UQ article clearly states, though: "Dr Aird is a 51-year-old agnostic from Closeburn, who now lectures in the School of Public Health at the Queensland University of Technology."

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The timing is about right for this to be the finshing of her PhD. She went to Qld in 1999 as a research officer (not a student), was a project manager on part of the follow-up studies (so would be a co-author, but still not a student or candidate) until 2004. She got her bachelors in 2003, and a Uni award for outstanding scholarship in the same year. That might well let her get into a PhD program in 2004-5 (especially in the same department where she did the undergrad), which would put her finishing up a full-time PhD right about now.

If the Australian system runs about the same as the UK system, she may only just have had defenses and degree day (Exeter's graduation was last weekend). So it's entirely possible that she can rightfully use Dr, and the webpages just haven't caught up yet.

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I do find it terrifying that she's doing PhD-level research related to New Age religions, and yet she's quoted as saying new agers "...often borrow from all sorts of old beliefs, like Wicca, witchcraft or Native American religions."

Sorry, kids, but the 1950s does not equal "old."

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But her staff page at UQ still lists her as a PhD candidate. Hmmm....

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- but see also http://www.hlth.qut.edu.au/ph/about/staff.jsp#AcademicStaff where she's listed as "Lecturer", whatever that means in the AU system.

This seems to show a 2004 unpublished paper, "The health and well-being of Australian adolescents over time: The difficulties associated with assessing change from available mental health data"

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Listing as a lecturer doesn't seem to imply a PhD, based on the staff pages for other lecturers in that dept, several of whom have only bachelor's or master's level certification.

(I love the intarwebs.)

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That copyright refers to the University webpage design, not the specific content. Note the presence of an early 2006 paper and an in-press paper in her publications.

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ah, thanks. still, not especially up to date.

poor, sad web designers who don't keep the copyright statements up to date... that's what dynamic content was created for.

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hey scott and david (and anyone else):

turns out that Aird *just* got her PhD in December, and the research mentioned in this article is from her dissertation. through the application of my fierce library-fu, i have obtained a copy in PDF form. i've not looked at it yet, but I'm willing to share it with anyone who wants to take a look.

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The title of Aird's thesis is: Religion, spirituality, and mental health and social behaviour in young adulthood: A longitudinal study

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You smell like penguins. :-P

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Y'know, I hadn't wanted to say anything about that, but.... =)

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Or, it could be the characteristic waddle. :)

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It's the duckfeet shoes. I forgot about the duckfoot shoes I have on today.

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Ah ha! The flipper shoes! Keep watch for further possible symptoms, including desire for fish, increased tolerance to cold, and intense attraction to other males with whom you might like to raise an egg. :)

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Flipper shoes == increased cold tolerance? I need some of that shit up here!

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I think you might have the causality reversed there: increased cold tolerance predicts usage of flipper shoes.

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Wow. I agree - it's difficult to know whether to chalk that up to bad reporting or bad science. At least they correctly used the word "correlation" in the article, even if they didn't go on to explain that showing a correlation says nothing about causality. I think it far more likely that either teens with anxiety and depression issues are more likely to associate with subcultures *in general*, including religious ones, or (and this is an idea that piques my interest) that teens with these issues tend to see alternative religious practices as providing better frameworks for coping with those issues than more traditional practices.

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Yeah, there's some interesting concepts in the article (I tend to ascribe, anecdotally, to the "people who are neopagan are more interested in freedom of movement in their moral/spiritual beliefs" concept), but it's not clear from the short news article that Dr.(?) Aird believes that, or that the spirituality is causing the mental instability.

::edit:: WorldNetDaily, of all places, has a slightly longer article, which seems to show that she's supporting (privately, if not in the paper) a causality based on practice, not prior mental characteristics.

Edited Date: 2008-01-23 04:59 pm (UTC)

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Hmmm. I'm not sure whether to read that as *her* support, or just WND's wording around her quotes to support their (blantantly obvious) viewpoint on the issue. Also interesting that they include her email address in their article....

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Well, I'm looking at her apparent bias in statements like "My generation was about social responsibility and collective interests compared to the Me Generation,", and her general disparagement of mix-and-match spirituality.

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I was curious about that. I thought the 80s-yuppies were the "Me" Generation. I think Kids These Days are considerably more group-minded than When I was Their Age. It's not the same as the hippie's, and it's inflected with some of the individualism of their "Me-Gen" parents', but there is a pretty strong community-service kind of orientation to a lot of college-age students right now.

[More]:
Wikipedia lists a bunch of generations and their various labels. They identify the Baby Boomers at the Me generation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation#External_links

Note in fairness: I wonder if the generational labels differ in Australia?

Edited Date: 2008-01-23 05:24 pm (UTC)

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greektoomey.livejournal.com

(I tend to ascribe, anecdotally, to the "people who are neopagan are more interested in freedom of movement in their moral/spiritual beliefs" concept)

Do you mean subscribe? I'm not familiar with any sense of ascribe that would make this sentence work.

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I probably did; I rewrote the second half of that comment a couple times.

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tessagratton.livejournal.com

Oh no! Buffy will make your kids despressed and anti-social! Noooooo! Better be safe and not let them read Harry Potter, either!!!!!!!111!!!1!!!1!!!!!!

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liquidfun.livejournal.com

It's not in the eye.

It's the hair. Long-haired communist F/OSS users :-)

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Ahh. Well, that's alright then. :)

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Completely unrelated, but IIRC you can't check email at work:

Would it be possible for me to discuss the Bazaar webpage with you after the Imbolc team is done meeting at your house tonight? (Before will not work, because we're supposed to be starting at 6.30.)

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