We fear not. But anyway, Neurobonkers asks:
A paper titled “Welcome to My Brain” has been published in the journal Qualitative Inquiry by Sage which is so unintelligible that it is baffling beyond belief. Unfortunately, the paper is behind a pay-wall, but some of the highlights are below.
“This article is therefore about developing recursive intrinsic self-reflexive as de- and/or resubjective always evolving living research designs. Inquiry perhaps full stop—me: An auto-brain—biography and/or a brain theorizing itself; me theorizing my brain. It is thus about theorizing bodily here brain and transcorporeal materialities, in ways that neither push us back into any traps of biological determinism or cultural essentialism, nor make us leave bodily matter and biologies behind.
And much more, mostly paywalled.
Neurobonkers concludes:
There has recently been a resurgence in the good old “is psychology a science debate”. As far as I’m concerned psychology certainly is science, but it’s obfuscating work like this that gives the discipline a bad name. Work like this is a pertinent reminder that just because something is published in a peer reviewed journal doesn’t mean it is good science or intelligible and just because someone uses big words doesn’t make their ideas more meaningful, but it can make them less so. If anyone can enlighten me further, please do so in the comments.
O’Leary for News; I’m not sure whether psychology can be a science at present, because there is apparently no way to distinguish an inherently meaningful signal from this sort of thing in a journal from a respected publisher.* Thoughts?
Neurobonkers: “A blog devoted to empirical science and the study of the mind. Expect to find critical analysis of scientific research, debunking of misinformation and tongue-in-cheek commentary based on cold hard evidence.”
* But note this caveat from Neuroskeptic.
The real story is that more blogs like Neurobonkers and Neurobollocks are taking on a lot of the nonsense from materialist neuroscience (so we don’t have to, much).
Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose