On Tue, 2 Apr 2002, Greg Schofield wrote:
> Miles, one of the fundemental problems with psychological studies of
> this kind is its inherent reductionism. What if there is no causual
> relationship whatsoever between TV and actual violence, yet the
> correlation exists?
Researchers have conducted experiments that support this hypothesis. Appreciate the distinction between a correlational study and an experiment here!
>
> By the nature of such studies this is irresolvable, at this point you
> can only fall back on common-sense and that on any complex problem will
> be misleading. Could not the relationship assumed by the study be
> reduced to a simple and rather stupid common-wisdom - "monkey see,
> monkey do".
>
What's wrong with simplicity? A simple explanation might be useful and appropriate! Complexity is not valuable in and of itself. If a simple explanation accounts for the data, why complicate things? (O's razor).
Miles