Answering the Critics:

V. On the Charge of [Experience Not Representative, Evidence Anecdotal]

Now there are those who would argue that Wyatt's evidence, which consists of personal experiences and observations, is not based on a representative number of experiences. "They don't want to go there," chortled Ehrenfels. "If they're suggesting that metric, they're opening a can of worms. I've been affiliated in one capacity or another with nine universities, more than the 3-5 of the average university professor."

However, the argument advanced against Ehrenfels establishes an impractical standard against which he, and for that matter, anyone is likely to fail. "Their argument implicitly compares my 9 affiliations with all universities nationwide, which number in the thousands. If 9 isn't representative of 3,000, what number is? Where they're headed with this is that no one, regardless of how well-traveled, can use their experiences as the basis of any statement about Psychology. They would demand empirical research, amounting to some survey method, that seeks to affirm or deny the characteristics I ascribe to the population of Psychology departments. And while the central-limit-theorem has entombed 30 as the minimum acceptable benchmark for sample sizes, more reliable conclusions can be drawn from a smaller sample of scrupulously probed universities. And if we accept their point of comparison, which is the entire population of universities, does 30 really seem sufficient? We accept psychological research that customarily makes use of a sample of observations that number somewhere between 20 and 200. We would never question the results of this research despite the fact that there are over 270 million residents of the United States alone. My point is that whether we're talking 9, 30, 3,000, or 270 million, it's the quality of the observations that determine the quality of the research. But as long as we are talking numbers, couldn't I just as readily base my observations on number of faculty rather than number of institutions? The individual professor is, after all, the vehicle and indivisible unit of action (and thus the basis of my criticism). Across the departments of psychology, I must have acquainted myself with dozens of professors, and I find it quite remarkable that some of my criticisms apply to over 80 percent of them. It is remarkable -- the uniformity that characterizes the conduct of so many faculty, but then that uniformity is not some far-fetched coincidence, as some of those charging me with over-generalization would have you believe, but rather the product of some university-wide policy or principle, the endorsement of which -- or compliance with which -- is a requirement for employment."

Having been trained in these rules and having played both inside and outside these rules, Ehrenfels is qualified to assess the health of this science. Is it any wonder that his adversaries should refer to him as 'Mr. Ehrenfels' in listserv discussion? As PhDs, they should know better than to use a designation that implies a lack of doctorate. But they resort to this tactic to subliminally undercut his perceived credibility. And when Ehrenfels calls attention to the misnomer, they deftly feign ignorance and depict Ehrenfels as some whiny and arrogant person who demands use of his title in a forum in which they all refer to one another by their first names. Clever. Sneaky. Canniving. Ehrenfels then reminds the group that "Wyatt" is perfectly accurate and even preferable to him, but that "Mr. Ehrenfels" is inaccurate, and then Ehrenfels proceeds to give one of the participants a taste of his or her own medicine by referring to him or her as Mr. (or Mrs.) Usually, at this point, Ehrenfels is accused of being argumentative and petty.

Evidence is Anecdotal