Understanding and Overcoming Hate
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    • Index of All Topics
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  • Understanding Hate
    • Introduction
    • What is Hate? >
      • Hate as an Emotion >
        • Papers: Hate as an Emotion
      • Hate as a Belief >
        • Papers: Hate as Belief
      • Hate as an Act >
        • Papers: Hate as an Act
      • Hate as a Policy >
        • Papers: Hate as Policy
    • The Roots of Hate >
      • Early Imprints >
        • When Needs are Not Met
        • Papers; Not Meeting Needs
      • What Are We Doing To Our Children? >
        • Children in Dire Circumstances
      • Effects of Trauma and Abuse >
        • Papers: Stress Effects
        • Papers: Trauma Abuse Effects
        • Links: Stress, Trauma Research
      • Causes and Effects of Bullying
      • Trauma, bigotry, violence linked
      • Authoritarian Upbringings >
        • Papers: Authoritarian Roots
        • Papers: SDO and Authoritarianism
      • Absolutism and Insularity >
        • Papers: Absolutism
      • Papers: Early Roots of Prejudice
      • Impaired Cognition >
        • Papers: Impaired Cognition
      • The Violent Brain >
        • Papers: Violent Brain
      • Roots of Violence and Cruelty >
        • Chart: Powderkeg Formula
        • Papers: Roots of Violence
        • Articles and Blog Posts
      • Ghosts of the Past >
        • Ripples of revenge
        • Papers: Ghosts of the Past
    • How Hate Manifests >
      • Chart
      • Everyday Hate >
        • Papers: Social Rejection
        • Papers: Bullying
      • Social Injustice and Discrimination >
        • Papers: Discrimination
        • Papers: Inequality
        • Articles: Inequality Effects
        • Articles: Cognitive Exhaustion
        • "White" Privilege
      • Stereotyping and Caricature >
        • Papers: Stereotyping
        • Stereotyping
      • Prejudice, Racism and Bigotry >
        • Articles and Blog Posts
        • Papers: Prejudice Racism
        • Papers: Skin color and face
        • Papers: InGroup Outgroup
        • Papers: Implicit Bias
        • Evolutionary Issues >
          • More blog posts
      • Dehumanizing >
        • Views about the outsider
        • Papers: Dehumanizing
      • Hate Crimes >
        • Papers: Hate Crimes
      • Hate Groups >
        • Links: Hate Groups Research
        • Papers and news: Hate Groups
      • Abuse of Power >
        • Papers: Abuse of Power
        • Evil Men: Tyrants, Dictators
        • Blogs and news
        • Articles: SDO and RWA
      • Xenophobia >
        • Papers: Xenophobia
      • Collective Rage >
        • Papers: Collective Violence
      • Extremism >
        • Papers: Terrorism
        • Papers: Extremism
      • Cruelty on Mass Scale >
        • Links
        • Papers: Cruelty on mass scale
    • Hate in the News >
      • News: Hate in America
      • News: Hate Trends Worldwide
      • Extremism: Current Trends: News
      • Authoritarianism Trends
    • Group Influence >
      • Search for Belonging >
        • Papers: Search for Belonging
      • Social Cognition and Learning >
        • Papers: Fairness
        • Papers: Social Cognition
      • Group Think >
        • Papers: Intergroup Dynamics
        • Papers: Group Think
      • Status and Stigma >
        • Papers: Status and Stigma
      • Conformity >
        • Papers: Conformity
      • Obedience and Compliance >
        • Papers: Obedience
      • Bystander Effect
    • Social Defenses >
      • Papers: Social Defenses
      • System Justification >
        • Papers: System Justification
      • Projection >
        • Papers: Projection
      • Denial >
        • Papers: Denial
        • Examples of Denial
        • Papers: Denialism
      • Attribution and Comparison >
        • Attribution Fallacies
        • Papers: Attribution
      • Cognitive Dissonance >
        • Papers: Cognitive Dissonance
    • Fanning the Flames >
      • Media and Persuasion
      • Papers: Persuasion
      • Papers: Indoctrination
      • Papers: Hate Speech
      • Papers: Attitude change
      • News: Cyberhate
      • Links
      • Media Effects in the News
      • Persuasion: Blog Posts and Articles
    • How We Fool Ourselves >
      • Mechanisms: Cognitive Biases and Heuristics >
        • Papers: Brain Tricks
        • Biases: Blogs and Articles
        • Biases organized
      • On Being Wrong
      • Probability and Decision-Making Biases >
        • Papers and articles
      • Memory Distortions >
        • Papers: Memory illusions
      • Perceptual Illusions >
        • Papers: Perceptual Illusions
        • Illusions: Blog Posts and Articles
      • Self-Deception >
        • Papers: Self-deception
      • Delusion, Confabulation >
        • Papers: Delusions
        • Papers: False Beliefs
      • Conspiracy Theories
      • Papers: Neural mechanisms mystical states
      • Brain and Spirituality: Articles
    • Brain and Belief >
      • What is a Belief? >
        • Papers: Belief Formation
        • Papers: Automaticity
      • Perception and Processing >
        • Papers: Perception
      • Salience and Tagging >
        • Papers: Salience
        • Papers: Essentialism
      • Creating Categories >
        • Papers: Categorizing
      • Cognitive Unconscious
      • Embodied Cognition >
        • Papers: Embodied Cognition
      • Emotion Cognition Interplay >
        • Papers
      • Creating a Story about the World >
        • Papers: Story Creation
      • Investing in Cherished Beliefs >
        • Papers
      • Identifying Self with Belief >
        • Papers
      • Search for Meaning >
        • Papers: Meaning
    • Search for Certainty >
      • Dogmatic Beliefs
      • Belief Perseverance
      • Papers: Feeling of Knowing
      • Papers: Rigid Dogmatic thinking
    • Index: All Biases, Distortions and Influences
  • Overcoming Hate
    • Overview of Topics
    • Introduction
    • Prevention >
      • Meeting Formative Needs of Children >
        • Papers: Child and Brain Development
        • Papers: nurturing, attachment bonding
        • Links: Development
      • Promoting Parental readiness >
        • Papers
        • Links: Helping Parents
      • Supporting Healthy Families >
        • Papers
      • Enhancing Resilience >
        • Papers
      • Cultivating Empathy and Conscience >
        • Roots of Morality
        • Empathic Imagination
        • Mirror Neurons
        • Empathy Programs
        • Links: Empathy
      • All papers: Morality and Empathy >
        • Papers: Roots of Morality and Conscience
        • Papers: Empathy Altruism Compassion
        • Articles, Posts: Empathy
        • Papers: Moral Decision-Making
        • Papers: Moral Cognition
        • Papers: Mirror Neurons
        • Articles: Prosocial Behavior
      • Long-Term Social Investment >
        • Papers
    • Education >
      • Enhancing Emotional and Social Skills >
        • Papers: Emotional Intelligence
        • Papers: Social Cooperation
        • Links: emotional development
      • Building Reflective Minds >
        • Critical Thinking >
          • Papers: Critical Thinking
        • Metacognition >
          • Papers: Metacognition
        • Perceiving Bias >
          • Papers: Perceiving Bias
        • Creative and Lateral Thinking >
          • Papers: Creative Thinking
        • Mindfulness >
          • Papers: Mindfulness
          • Blogs and articles
        • Interoception >
          • Papers: Interoception
        • Fluid and Flexible >
          • Papers: Fluid Intelligence
      • Cross-cultural Awareness >
        • Links: Cross-Cultural
        • Papers: Cultural Neuroscience
        • Articles: Cultural Awareness
      • Media Awareness >
        • Links
        • Papers
      • Teaching an Honest History >
        • Papers
        • Links: Honest History
      • Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility >
        • Papers
      • Ethics Training >
        • Papers
      • Whole Child Learning >
        • Papers
    • Intervention >
      • Social Support and Inclusion >
        • Papers: Social Support
      • Helping Children in Dire Conditions >
        • Papers: Helping children
      • Preventing Violence and Bullying >
        • Anti-bullying programs and resources
        • Helping At-Risk Kids
        • Papers on helping kids
      • Standing Up To Prejudice, Racism, and Bigotry >
        • Papers: Reducing Prejudice
        • Articles: Reducing Prejudice
        • Papers: Stopping hate crimes
        • Papers: Offsetting Extremism
        • Programs and Projects
        • Hatebraker Examples: News
      • Training Our Protectors >
        • Papers: Training Protectors
      • Healing the Hurt >
        • Papers: Healing Hurt
        • Articles and Blog Posts
      • Educating Our Leaders >
        • Papers: Educating Leaders
      • Resolving Conflict >
        • Papers: Resolving Conflict
        • Programs and articles
      • Israel-Palestine >
        • Papers: Israel-Palestine
        • News and blog posts
      • Promoting Dignity >
        • Links: Human Rights
        • Papers: Human Rights
      • Healing the Ghosts of the Past >
        • Papers: Reconciliation
      • Restorative Justice >
        • Papers: Restorative Justice
      • Confronting Mass Atrocities >
        • Papers: Confronting War Crimes
    • Social Advances >
      • Charters and Declarations
      • Slideshow: Social Advances
      • Links: social advances history
      • Timelines: Social Advances
    • More Solutions >
      • Classroom Tools
      • Organizations
      • Programs and Projects
      • Effective Models
  • Resources
    • Academic Papers: Topic Index
    • Background: Sciences Related to Hate >
      • Related Sciences of Hate
      • Social Psychology Subtopics
      • Brain and Life Sciences
      • New Research Tools
      • Links: Brain Mapping
      • Process of Science
      • What is Good Science?
      • Links: Understanding Science
      • Papers: About Good Science
    • Science Links
    • Timelines of Knowledge >
      • Index of all Pioneers
      • Timeline: Early Pioneers
      • Timeline: Group Psychology
      • Timeline: Prejudice
      • Timeline: Persuasion
      • Timeline: Social Psychology Pioneers
      • Timeline: Authoritarianism
      • Timeline: Scientific bias
    • Researchers and Experts >
      • Developmental Foundations
      • Moral Cognition, Empathy
      • Search for Meaning
      • Search for Belonging
      • Search for Certainty
      • Ghosts of the Past
      • Breaking Cycle of Hate: Solutions
    • Other Research and Studies >
      • Syllabi
      • Bibliographies
      • Our Syllabi
    • Recommendations >
      • Books: Topic Overview >
        • Development
        • Empathy, Morality
        • Brain and Belief
        • Tricks of Mind
        • Stress, Trauma, Violence
        • Prejudice, Racism, Stereotyping
        • Overcoming Prejudice, Racism
        • Historical Insight
        • Human Rights Abuses
        • Seminal Works
      • Journals and Magazines
      • Films and Videos
    • Timeline of Hate >
      • Links: Historical Injustice
      • History of Hate in America: articles
      • Index of Historical Injustice
  • Tools
    • Links: Games and Exercises
    • Self-Awareness Tools >
      • What Parents Can do
      • Learning about our Labels
    • Blog

What is Good Science?

Credibility and Standards

A "good" scientist tries to make sure that research is credible and is aware that there is no end to the human ability to make up and believe just about anything. Our brains give us the “feeling of certainty” so easily in order to build a sense of a coherent, consistent reality.

"Good" scientists always consider the effects of bias, blind spots and misinterpretation on any research. That is why they attempt to put in safeguards, such as:

  • Double blind, controlled experiments, replication, falsification, ample sampling, appropriate demographics
  • Peer review (outside experts confirm findings), interdisciplinary discussion, continuing professional education and re-certification
  • Better tools and technologies for observing the workings of nature more directly (e.g. electron scanning microscopes, spectroscopy, diffusion tensor imaging, genetic micro-assays, supercomputers)
  • Better methods to analyze and verify data (statistics, consideration of multiple variables, simulations, etc.)
  • Informatics: creating conceptual frameworks and information tools that track and help synthesize the vast overload of data
  • The disclosure of any conflict of interest and all affiliations and funding sources
  •  Study of the history and sociology of science: how culture affects attitudes and societal support for directions of research. How changing views and paradigm clashes emerge from the scientific process.

Puttering
A Vital Role for Basic Research

But there are still limitations to any research. And there is fraud, fabrication and falsification. Hidden agendas, ego games in science, turf wars, and growing commercialism is dangerous to the practice of "good science." If a company spends millions of dollars developing a product, they don’t want to admit that it is ineffective.

Why support for “basic research” is so important
Scientists supported to follow their intellectual passions without regard to commercial viability enable the entire field of knowledge to evolve.

Scientists can have blinders too
Because of bounded rationality: no one can keep up with everything and we are all naive realists in areas in which we are uninformed. Scientists are people who can get entrenched in beliefs and assumptions, not to mention downright prejudice (i.e. eugenics, etc.), And because there are real limitations to rationality in the way humans process, perceive and organize information.

But, a credible scientist never makes absolutist claims.

Disproving a hypothesis is as important to science as confirming it.


Science is not supposed to be an ideology, a religion, or an answer to all of life’s questions

Science does not provide a direct sense of meaning for human existence.

We are a species of self-conscious creatures: who viscerally feel our smallness in the vast cosmos; who are all too aware of our own imminent death and probable non-existence. The terror, confusion, and awe this engenders mingle together and come to the surface during times of quiet reflection, as well as unexpected disruption.
  • Science does not give solace to a fragile humankind that sees unrelenting suffering everywhere and knows loss and despair.
  • Science does not offer immediate answers to ease the fear and confusion of daily life or the dread of an uncertain future.
  • Science does not have a stake in the mythos of life: it ignores the common human experience of personal revelation, the search for spiritual purpose, specialness, or essentialism.
  • Science does not confirm our deepest hopes—nor does it bring us direct entry into the realm of the ineffable or the transformative.

Science is not meant to do these things


Thus, science is just not reassuring enough by itself to emotionally satisfy the majority of people in the world or to provide a structure of meaning. And the backlash against science comes back in full force whenever it chafes against the proponents of ideas that do claim to provide deeper meaning, certainty, personal salvation, etc.

However, the findings of science (and its discovery process) often inspire awe, wonderment, amazement, excitement, and meaning, particularly for those who are less invested in specific doctrines and the search for personal destiny.

Science is hard work
It is always a battle to overcome human limitations and biases and to be able to look openly at evidence regardless of our cherished assumptions and preconceived notions.

Science is counterintuitive
Scientific fact, as well as good scholarship, can be a crushing blow to our cherished world views. 
  • Scientists should never claim to answer ontological questions that are untestable and indefinable.
  • Scientists should never claim objectivity, authority, or expertise in a field outside their own.
  • Scientists are also human beings and can be biased, ideological, deluded, or just plain wrong. 

But the process of science enables bias to become transparent through expert peer review and continuing experimentation and verification.

The process of science has built-in error correcting — but only if allowed to work unimpeded by unwarranted political or social pressures from those who seek to distort findings for their own agendas. Interference with this process has happened all throughout history and all too often still occurs.

The ideal attitude to nurture in young scientists is to value finding out what is true rather than what supports their premises. Disproving a hypothesis should be as important to a scientist as confirming it.