This piece was published in the Eugene Register-Guard. It is the first in a series on how human wellbeing can be improved through research-based public health efforts.
There is something new under the sun in Lane County: Virtually all sectors of the community are joining together to create a comprehensive, coordinated, evidence-based public health approach to the well-being of every Lane County citizen. (more…)
I am happy to report that I have a new book coming out in the fall. It will be published by New Harbinger. We are still debating the title. I had tentatively titled it New Under the Sun: A Memoir of the Behavioral Science Revolution. But New Harbinger’s editors have suggested several other possibilities. My current favorite is, Thinking Big: How the Behavioral Sciences Can Bring Us to a Happier, Healthier, and More Caring World.
The book tells the story of my own journey as a behavioral scientist. I have been fortunate to come of age during what I believe is the most important scientific revolution in human history. I get to tell the story of the enormous progress science has made in understanding—and doing something about–human behavior. I believe this is the most significant development in science ever. If that claim seems outrageous, hear me out. (more…)
Gary Gutting, Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame published an opinion piece this week on the New York Times Opinionater pages. In it, he asserts that “we need to develop a much better sense of the severely limited reliability of social scientific results” and that “Given the limited predictive success and the lack of consensus in social sciences, their conclusions can seldom be primary guides to setting policy. At best, they can supplement the general knowledge, practical experience, good sense and critical intelligence that we can only hope our political leaders will have.”
Dr. Gutting is woefully uninformed about the effectiveness of the behavioral sciences. His view are at least thirty years out of date. He is clearly unaware of the Institute of Medicine report on prevention, which describes the results of numerous randomized trials showing the benefits of many family and school interventions for preventing virtually the entire range of psychological and behavioral problems of human beings.
First, with respect to the assertion that randomized controlled trials “are seldom possible when human beings are involved,” the IOM report on prevention indicates that there were more than 290 randomized trials evaluating preventive interventions between 1999 and 2007. Clearly he is mistaken about the possibility of doing randomized trials.
He is also mistaken about the ability of the behavioral sciences to specify policies and practices that can enhance human wellbeing. The IOM report describes many experimental evaluations of family interventions that routinely show that parents’ skills can be enhanced, children’s positive social development improved, and that problems as diverse as antisocial behavior, drug abuse, depression, and risky sexual behavior cen be prevented. There are family interventions for every stage of development, from the prenatal period through adolescence. At every age, we have solid experimental evidence that the social behaviors that lead children to fail in school and develop multiple problems can be prevented.
Then there are school-based interventions. Here too we have solid experimental evidence that preschools and public schools can be transformed to nurture children’s’ academic and social development. To take just one example, the Psychiatrist, Sheppard Kellam did a randomized trial of the Good Behavior Game, which rewards children for working cooperatively in small groups. He found that when children played the game in first grade, they developed the self-regulatory skills that enhanced their development. Children whose classrooms were randomly assigned to play the game in first grade, were less likely to have problems with suicidality, antisocial behavior, or drug abuse as young adults! I am confident that any physicist who was aware of this research would prefer to have their children in a classroom that played the Good Behavior Game.
Dr. Gutting should also be aware the clinical psychology has made enormous progress in the past thirty years thanks, in part, to its relentless use of randomized trials. I have just reviewed more than fifty randomized trials of an approach to treatment called, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT helps people become more willing to have unpleasant thoughts and feelings in the service of their pursuing valued directions. There are randomized trials showing the benefit of ACT for: anxiety, depression, job burnout, drug abuse, cigarette smoking, schizophrenia, epilepsy, , diabetes, physical activity, prejudice, willingness to innovate, and willingness of drug abuse counselors to try new practices.
Canards about the inferior nature of the behavioral sciences have been a staple of public discussion in some intellectual circles for many years. But times have changed. Like other areas of science there has been a steady accumulation of knowledge. It is time for academics who have an influence on public discussion to become better informed about the very valuable tools that are already available to society to prevent virtually all of the psychological and behavioral problems that plague society. Hopefully people like Dr. Gutting will learn about the tremendous progress that has been made in behavioral science research. Perhaps then he will be writing opinion pieces demanding that society inform its policy-making with all of the evidence that can guide us to achieve communities where many fewer young people develop problems and many more succeed.
Are the radical cutbacks surrendering America?
Did you know that 75% of American’s young people 17 to 24 are unfit for military service?1 When I grew up in archconservative Wichita, Kansas, going to school with the ultra-rightwing Koch brothers, data like these showing our American kids were unfit for military service would be proof positive of a left-wing, communist, or socialist conspiracy.
But who is really surrendering America to our enemies? You be the judge.
First, look at some facts in a report by a bunch of retired 4-star generals.1
FACT: Thirty-five (35) percent of young Americans are ineligible for military service because medical or physical problems. All across America, radical “conservatives” are slashing programs to prevent medical and physical problems for young Americans? So is that going to increase or decrease medical or physical problems of our young people for military service?
Question: If elected officials vote to stop, reduce or impair programs documented to assure the health and physical abilities of American young people to be in the United States military, are those extremist elected officials betraying the United States?
FACT: Eighteen (18) percent of young Americans are ineligible for military service because of the use and abuse of illegal drugs. All across America, radical “conservatives” are defunding and dismantling programs proven to prevent drug addictions, and our rates of serious addictions are increasing young people. It is our young people’s addictions fueling the border violence that has the Tea Party, AZ ranchers and international travelers in an uproar. It is heroin trafficking for the s America’s youth and young adults loading the weapons of the Taliban killing our soldiers.
Question: If the actions of these elected officials are increasing the addictions of American youth, are they not aiding and abetting the America’s sworn enemies and giving the financial resources to harm America?
FACT: Nine percent (9%) of America’s potential recruits are illegible to serve because of poor intellectual functioning. Again, radical “conservatives” are dumping every program or proven effort to prevent poor intellectual performance from prenatal through adolescent years. Most of the rich democracies have better academic outcomes compared to the United States in virtually every domain—even when those other countries are experiencing influxes of immigrants.
Question: If newly elected officials are causing more and more children and teens to be intellectually impaired, is this not allowing our enemies to overwhelm America economically and militarily?
FACT: Six percent (6%) of the young people cannot enlist in the military, because they have too many dependents under age 18. Radical “conservatives” have done everything the can to make sure young people have no access to contraceptives, and they support FOX network that shows the most programs showing teen sexual promiscuity.
Question: If the radical conservatives are promoting increased teen pregnancies that impair America’s readiness, is this allowing our enemies to claim moral superiority over decadence caused by our elected officials and right-wing media.
FACT: Five percent (5%) of young adults in America are ineligible to be in the military because of criminal record as juveniles. Radical right-wing elected officials have stripped delinquency and crime prevention programs from local and state governments while relaxing any restraints on those very persons having access to deadly weapons.
Question: If the radical cutbacks by right-wing zealots are encouraging more and more young people to become violent and criminal, is this inciting domestic disturbance and rebellion?
Now, my fellow citizens, this essay will engender a hue and cry from the paid agitators of the radical right. They will say this is essay is un-American. They will say the problems are the fault of the decline in morals, the lack of prayer in schools, two-working parents, single parents, unionized teachers and gays in America. So if that is true, why on earth do all those other rich democracies have fewer of these problems like Canada, Norway, Sweden or the Netherlands? Aren’t they the heathen lands?
Maybe those “bad” countries actually apply and implement the proven strategies that prevent all the above problems. Even more ironic, the proven strategies that those “bad” countries use were invented and proven in American—thanks for all our incredible scientific excellence that they use and the hired bounty hunter radical right decry.
If you detect more than a bit of outrange and righteous anger, you would be correct. Why would these newly elected, over-the-top so-called “patriots” consciously surrender America’s youth and future to our sworn enemies? Perhaps, for the same reason that Judas gave up Jesus—for pieces of silver, a few moments of fame, and the solicitations of the rich and powerful who flatter others for their own purposes.
Every other rich democracy seeks to assure their young adults are healthy, clean or sober, think and learn well, avoid having children when children themselves, and do not engaged in crime—but not our newly elected Radical Republicans. No, they truly want to plunge American children and youth into some sort of Hell.
The new radicals are NOT the conservatives I grew up with and admired in Western Kansas like Bob Dole. These are not the conservatives like Gerry Ford or Everett Dirksen who were Republican leaders when I worked as a page in Congress. Dole, Ford and Dirksen were good people who wanted good for all—not just financial patrons. When I went to see Bob Dole in his retirement, he talked with pride about taking on the food giants who were selling soda and junk food in schools—and that meant even going against Big Agriculture.
No, the new rightwing, radicals are more like Judas. They will sell your children, my children and America’s safety and security for a few pieces of silver. The really rich who pass out the thirty pieces of silver will be fine; they will hire private armies like the Mexican drug lords to protect themselves and fly above the chaos in the helicopters. You and I will simply tremble for ourselves, for our children, and for our futures—because America won’t be safe or secure in any way.
PS. If you think it is impossible to prevent all these nasty problems, then please go on line to read the Institute of Medicine Report on the Prevention of Mental, Emotional and Behavioral Disorders.2
1. McMichael WH. Most U.S. youths unfit to serve, data show. Army Times 2009 Nov. 5, 2009.
2. O’Connell ME, Boat T, Warner KE, editors. Preventing Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Disorders Among Young People: Progress and Possibilities. . Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine; National Research Council, 2009.
Prevention advocates like to tell the story of the town next to a river where drowning people keep floating by. The town stations boats and an EMT crew on the river to save as many as they can. Sometimes they succeed; often they fail. But no one thinks to go up river and see why all these people are falling in. The preventionist does.
In the case of health care reform, it is as though America has decided to move its rescuers half way to the spot where people are falling in. (more…)
According to CBS’s Sixty Minutes, the new Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland cost $8 billion over twenty years. When asked why it was worth spending $8 billion, American physicist, Bob Stanek told Steve Kroft, “It’s in humans’ interest to know everything, right? And why wouldn’t you want to know that?” He went on to say that the research could lead to our ability to tele-transport people.
That’s nice.
Given the resistance to funding science, I don’t want to suggest that we shouldn’t have a super collider. But it got me to thinking about what would happen if we invested a similar amount in behavioral science solutions to our most pressing problems. (more…)
Acceptance is a key to healthy living and loving relationships. While I could cite the science of this to the nth degree, I think illustration is useful.
As I write this I am waiting at the Arizona Cancer Center; it is my 15 month checkup, after the amputation of my right ring finger for what is called, subungual melanoma—a very rare cancer under the fingernail. The Center has only had five cases, and this
is one of the world-class places for the treatment of melanoma.
(more…)
