Tag: quotations

I like the way you know / That I like how you look

Hannah Diamond (2014) [Every Night]:

I know you like the way that I look
And it looks like I like you too
You know I do

I like the way you know
That I like how you look
And you like me too
I know you do

I see you look at me
And I know that you think
You like what you see
I want you too

Thomas Nagel (1969, pp. 10-11) [Sexual Perversion. The Journal of Philosophy, 66, 5-17]:

At some point Romeo notices Juliet. He is moved, somehow, by the softness of her hair and the diffidence with which she sips her martini, and this arouses him sexually. […] Juliet now senses Romeo in another mirror on the opposite wall, though neither of them yet knows that he is seen by the other […]. But now, cleverly calculating the line of her stare without actually looking her in the eyes, he realizes that it is directed at him through the mirror on the opposite wall. That is, he notices, and moreover senses, Juliet sensing him. […] But there is a further step. Let us suppose that Juliet […] now senses that he senses her. This puts Romeo in a position to notice, and be aroused by, her arousal at being sensed by him. He senses that she senses that he senses her. This is still another level of arousal, for he becomes conscious of his sexuality through his awareness of its effect on her and of her awareness that this effect is due to him.

Intent-to-fail treatments

Westen et al. (2004, p. 651) on “intent-fo-fail” conditions in randomised controlled trials comparing two interventions with each other:

‘Researchers should also exercise caution in labeling control treatments not constructed to maximize their efficacy ([…] what might be called intent-to-fail conditions) with brand names that are readily confused with genuine treatments and create sleeper effects in the literature. For example […] to test the efficacy of CBT for bulimia, Garner et al. (1993) developed a treatment they called supportive– expressive therapy, an abbreviated treatment described as nondirective and psychodynamically inspired, in which clinicians were forbidden to discuss the target symptoms with the patient and were instead instructed to reflect them back to the patient. Such a practice is not in fact characteristic of psychodynamic therapies for eating disorders (e.g., Bruch, 1973) and is analogous to a researcher creating a cognitive therapy comparison condition in which the therapist is instructed to say, “That’s irrational,” every time a patient tries to discuss the symptom.’

References

Westen, D., Novotny, C. M., & Thompson-Brenner, H. (2004). The Empirical Status of Empirically Supported Psychotherapies: Assumptions, Findings, and Reporting in Controlled Clinical Trials. Psychological Bulletin, 130(4), 631–663.

What works for whom?

It can be interesting to venture outside the general evaluation literature. Here’s Gordon Paul (1967, p. 111) on what works for whom:

“What is the appropriate question to be asked of outcome research? In all its complexity, the question towards which all outcome research should ultimately be directed is the following: What treatment, by whom, is most effective for this individual with that specific problem, and under which set of circumstances?”

References

Paul, G. L. (1967). Strategy of outcome research in psychotherapy. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31(2), 109–118.

 

“Oops! We Automated Bullshit.”

“AI systems like ChatGPT are trained with text from Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and other huge archives of bullshit, alongside plenty of actual facts (including Wikipedia and text ripped off from professional writers). But there is no algorithm in ChatGPT to check which parts are true. The output is literally bullshit, exactly as defined by philosopher Harry Frankfurt…”

– Alan Blackwell (2023, Nov 9), Oops! We Automated Bullshit.

“Cheer up love, it might never happen”

“It’s like when you have a broken heart. I always think of it as a piece of paper. It can only be folded eight times. Each fold is like the heart closing in on itself – and one more fold after the eight and it will spring open. The thing is, you never know when the origami master will come along. Oh, you have to laugh. The pseudo-philosophy we give ourselves to try and stay sane.

“Cheer up love, it might never happen. Tell me about it.”

– Tracey Emin (2005, 9 Sept), My Life in a Column, The Independent.

What works for whom and in what contexts

“It is sometimes argued that we need rich qualitative data in order to find out not ‘what works’ but for whom and in what contexts. Anyone familiar with the design of experiments will agree. That question is answered by factorial designs with interaction terms… although main effects predominate in most educational datasets. If that last sentence seems like an unfamiliar concept, blame whoever taught you research methods and please make sure that your students are familiar with procedures that will underpin the thousands of controlled trials that education needs if it is to know that rather than simply guessing or asserting why.”

– Carol Taylor Fitz-Gibbon (2002). Knowing Why and Knowing That. Paper presented to the European Evaluation Conference in Seville, Spain. Emphasis and ellipsis in original.

I don’t know what I want to say, by Martin Creed (2001)

“I don’t know what I want to say, but, to try to say something, I think I want to try to think. I want to try to see what I think. I think trying is a big part of it, I think thinking is a big part of it, and I think wanting is a big part of it, but saying it is difficult, and I find saying trying and nearly always wanting. I want what I want to say to go without saying.”

– Martin Creed, 2001

The first definition of something named “theory-based evaluation”

“A theory-based evaluation of a program is one in which the selection of program features to evaluate is determined by an explicit conceptualization of the program in terms of a theory […] which attempts to explain how the program produces the desired effects. The theory might be psychological […] or social psychological […] or philosophical […]. The essential characteristic is that the theory points out a causal relationship between a process A and an outcome B.”

– Carol Taylor Fitz-Gibbon and Lynn Lyons Morris (1975)

References

Fitz-Gibbon, C. T., & Morris, L. L. (1975). Theory-based evaluation. Evaluation Comment, 5(1), 1–4. Reprinted in Fitz-Gibbon, C. T., & Morris, L. L. (1996). Theory-based evaluation. Evaluation Practice, 17(2), 177–184.

Worthen, B. R. (1996). Editor’s Note: The Origins of Theory-Based Evaluation. Evaluation Practice, 17(2), 169–171. This comment traces the path back to Fitz-Gibbon and Morris (1975).

“The work of art is limited to an acting out, not an understanding”

“To talk does not constitute a catharsis. It is the actual doing. A work of art is successful for me when it removes anxiety. The price we have to pay: The work is only an acting out, trying to get rid of things. The work of art is limited to an acting out, not an understanding. If it were understood, the need to do the work would not exist anymore. Art is a guaranty [sic] of sanity but not liberation. It comes back again and again.”

– Louise Bourgeois, in conversation with Jerry Gorovoy, c. 1992. Louise Bourgeois Archive; LB-0837. Spotted over here.

The kind of theory of theory-driven evaluation

“… the kind of theory we have in mind is not the global conceptual schemes of the grand theorists, but much more prosaic theories that are concerned with how human organizations work and how social problems are generated. It advances evaluation practice very little to adopt one or another of current global theories in attacking, say, the problem of juvenile delinquency, but it does help a great deal to understand the authority structure in schools and the mechanisms of peer group influence and parental discipline in designing and evaluating a program that is supposed to reduce disciplinary problems in schools. Nor are we advocating an approach that rests exclusively on proven theoretical schema that have received wide acclaim in published social science literatures. What we are strongly advocating is the necessity for theorizing, for constructing plausible and defensible models of how programs can be expected to work before evaluating them. Indeed the theory-driven perspective is closer to what econometricians call ‘model specification’ than are more complicated and more abstract and general theories.”

Chen, H.-T., & Rossi, P. H. (1983, p. 285). Evaluating With Sense: The Theory-Driven Approach. Evaluation Review, 7(3), 283–302.