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Two thousand years after Archimedes, psychologist finds three topics that will simply not yield to the experimental method

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2022

B. Keith Payne Open the ORCID record for B. Keith Payne [Opens in a new window]  and
Mahzarin R. Banaji
B. Keith Payne
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC27516, USA. payne@unc.edu; https://bkpayne.web.unc.edu
Mahzarin R. Banaji
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138, USA. mahzarin_banaji@harvard.edu, https://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~banaji/
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Abstract

Cesario argues that experiments cannot illuminate real group disparities because they leave out factors that operate in ordinary life. But what Cesario calls flaws are, in fact, the point of the experimental method. Of all the topics in science, we have to wonder why racial discrimination would be uniquely unsuited for investigating with experiments. The argument to give up the most powerful scientific method to study one of the hardest problems we confront is laughable.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 45 , 2022 , e87
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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