TO THE EDITOR:
An article in the Sept. 11 issue of The Daily Tar Heel discusses a paper by Professor Barbara Fredrickson and the criticisms of it raised by the (in)famous physicist gadfly Alan Sokal.
The criticisms do not surprise me. Even without reading the original paper (sorry), I cannot take its conclusions seriously.
The paper cites a critical positivity ratio that determines whether individuals have the ability to reach their full potential. The tipping point from “bad” to “good” is reported to be 2.9013. My negative reaction is based on the extreme precision in this number.
It supposedly is based on a mathematical model. It appears to me that this number is a straightforward listing of the computer output with no thought about whether it is reasonable. But the model must be based on some contact with the real world; it must derive some of its parameters from real data about people.
To get this precise value for the ratio, over 800 million people must have been thoroughly interviewed (29,013 times 29,013). But surely it was fewer than that, and this ratio must have some error bar.
I generally don’t like Sokal’s negativity toward all things that are not physics. But in this case I understand his rejection.
Psychology is not a precise science, since people are not simple spheres. Practitioners must have some common sense, and must understand uncertainties — otherwise they cannot be taken seriously.
Dietrich Schroeer
Professor emeritus
Physics and astronomy
