Talk:Semmelweis reflex

Bravo!

Bravo--we need this term!
Science has a long and painful history of ignoring facts, sometimes for decades, or not seeing the connection between related facts in different fields. In his book on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Bessel van der Kolk wrote of "psychiatric amnesia"--of behavioral scientists forgetting facts that had already been discovered. Margaret9mary (talk) 20:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)Margaret9mary (talk) 20:19, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Could we somehow include a reference to "'Scientific Impotence Excuse"?

When reading about the "Semmelweis reflex" (or Ignaz Semmelweis himself) I would have greatly appreciated finding this reference:

• Geoffrey D. Munro (2010). "The Scientific Impotence Excuse: Discounting Belief-Threatening Scientific Abstracts". Journal of Applied Social Psychology. 40 (3): 579–600. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00588.x. ISSN 0021-9029. OCLC 568731640. One of the most difficult things to do is to admit that you are wrong. In cases where a person is exposed to scientific conclusions that contradict her or his existing beliefs, one option would be to accept the scientific conclusions and change one's beliefs. It sounds simple enough, and, for many topics, it is that simple. However, some of our beliefs are much more resistant to change. These are the ones that are important to us. [...] {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |laydate= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysource= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |laysummary= ignored (help)

Would you consider incorporating it into the article?
--Seren-dipper (talk) 05:55, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this citation would be great, but only in reference to the way the Semmelweis reflex connects with other known biases. I suspect the Semmelweis reflex is an example of the biases cited in this article, but I would like to see some verification of that fact.
Have you read the entire text of the article, Seren-dipper?
LordIlford (talk) 04:21, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

There seems to be a difference between the Semmelweis Reflex and the Scientific Impotence Excuse. The Semmelweis Reflex is specifically about scientists and professionals in the field refusing to reexamine their beliefs in the face of new knowledge. Denial is denial, but society depends on scientists to examine new data and update their expert advice.Margaret9mary (talk) 20:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Even though The Semmelweis Reflex affects even scientists and professionals – Why do you claim that it excludes the layman?
--Seren-dipper (talk) 06:31, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

About References and Examples

This article was in dire need of cleanup.

A search on Goggle reveals that this term is in circulation, and the reference to Semmelweis is obvious.

However, references should be links to neutral articles about the existence of the phenomenon (beyond the Semmelweis), not just alleged examples of the effect. Also, I see no value in references to examples of its usage unless those examples are neutral and archetypal. A long list of links to the use of the term is not what's expected in a references section.

Basically, the material I removed added nothing to the clean definition of the term that remains.

It would be great to have more references, as long as those references clearly establish the origin of the term, or demonstrate prevalence of the effect. The references should not be chosen to promote awareness of the effect or to support any particular cause. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LordIlford (talk • contribs) 04:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC) LordIlford (talk) 04:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Dear Sir,
Yes, I agree the definition is clean and should stand as is. But do you believe that a book must have been written about historic examples of data being ignored and that people must read the book to learn about the phenomenon? Or can some well-known examples in history be listed to illustrate it? I have come across such a book but don't remember its title, but if the use of examples is acceptable to you but not the way the article was worded would you please rewrite it to show us how?

Perhaps Semmelweis was chosen as an archetypal example because his was a particularly tragic one. Thousands of women were dying of puerperal fever on obstetric wards in hospitals in the 1800s, but the germ theory had not yet been accepted. In the ward he oversaw Semmelweis demonstrated a dramatic reduction in deaths, but doctors could not believe their unwashed hands could be transmitting disease. Perhaps it was a problem of language--Semmelweis was Hungarian working in Austria. Or perhaps it was a matter of social class. And perhaps he was a man of too strong a conscience who felt burdened by all those deaths that could have been prevented, and his own death was particularly tragic... OH DEAR! But this is an emotion and emotions must be banned as unscientific. We are not human and must not have any feelings. On the contrary, any good research scientist who devotes his life to any field must believe that what s/he is doing is worth while and a contribution to humanity. It's necessary to distinguish between a deep sense of scientific responsibility and irrational excesses--but, unfortunately, sometimes those irrational excesses are disguised under the name of objectivity.

The reason to list examples from past centuries is that less emotion is involved. The examples of the Semmelweis reflex existing in our era that have not yet been proved or disproved are far too contentious.Margaret9mary (talk) 19:52, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Moved the entry of User:Margaret9mary (dated 20:02, 10 February 2011 (UTC)) to the right section (above).
--Seren-dipper (talk) 06:19, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Erroneous inclusion of a Freud episode

The current article contains the following:

In the last 100+ years [examples] include Sigmund Freud being ostracized by the Viennese medical community for his presentation, Aetiology of Hysteria,(1896) which proposed that what was then known as hysteria (probably now called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) was a result of the real sexual molestation of children. He capitulated under the pressure and later formed a theory attributing their memories to fantasies of what they had desired. [Ref: Jeffrey Masson (1992/1998) The Assault on Truth]

While it is the case that there is a valid reference for the statements in this paragraph, almost every substantive assertion is refuted by the documentary evidence, much of it from prior to the publication of Masson's The Assault on Truth in 1984. Freud was not ostracized by the Viennese medical community following his presentation of his lecture "The Aetiology of Hysteria" in 1896. Sulloway (1979 pp. 448-449) documents the "blatant contradictions between the actual historical facts and the traditional account of Freud’s reception." He states that it is a myth "that Freud was scientifically isolated from about 1894 to about 1906" (p. 493). Sulloway references Bry and Rifkin (1962), Ellenberger (1970), and Decker (1971, 1975, 1977).

Evidence that refutes Masson's story is given by Esterson (2002, p. 125): "In February 1897 Freud was proposed for the position of Professor Extraordinarius by Professors Nothnagel and Krafft-Ebing, and unanimously nominated by a committee of six senior professors in May. At a subsequent meeting of the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna in June 1897 the nomination was approved by 22 votes to 10." Sulloway (1979, p. 466) writes that "Freud’s scientific sponsors, as well as two-thirds of the Medical Faculty, unswervingly supported Freud's candidacy throughout the whole affair”. Again, Ellenberger (1970, p. 448) writes: "There is no evidence that Freud was really isolated, and still less that he was ill-treated by his colleagues" during these years. Decker (1977, p. 321) writes of the ostracism story: "The main source of this description of Freud’s early reception was Freud himself. But Freud’s intellectual biases, emotional reactions, and unrealistic expectations often affected his judgment."

In short, Masson's account of the supposed ostracism is a story originating from Freud that has been decisively refuted in the scholarly literature.

Another point is that in the "Aetiology of Hysteria" (1896) Freud didn't just propose that hysteria resulted from the sexual molestation of children, he claimed that he had uncovered unconscious memories of sexual molestations in infancy for every one of his 18 patients. Nor did he "capitulate under pressure". In spite of the (entirely justified) scepticism of his contemporaries, he did not publicly acknowledge his theory was erroneous for some eight years after he had privately given it up, hardly the behaviour of someone bowing to public pressure (Esterson, 1998).

The issue is now whether a précis of the above should be added to the current passage on the Wikipedia page (with some appropriate amendments), or whether it should be removed altogether. Given that the statements in the paragraph have been documented to be erroneous by several authors in the scholarly literature, I suggest it should be completely removed. This is definitely not an example of the Semmelweis Effect.

References:

Bry, I. and Rifkin. A. H. (1962). "Freud and the history of ideas: primary sources, 1896-1910." In Science and Psychoanalysis (pp. 6-36), ed. J. H. Masserman. Vol. 5. New York: Grune and Stratton.

Decker, H. S. (1971). "The medical reception of psychoanalysis in Germany, 1894-1907: three brief studies." Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 45, pp. 461-481.

Decker, H. S. (1977). Freud in Germany: Revolution and reaction in science, 1893-1907. Psychological Issues (Monograph 41). New York: International Universities Press.

Ellenberger, H. F. (1970). The discovery of the unconscious: The history and evolution of dynamic psychology. New York: Basic Books.

Esterson, A. (1998). Jeffrey Masson and Freud’s seduction theory: a new fable based on old myths. History of the Human Sciences, 11 (1): pp. 1-21.

Esterson, A. (2002). The Myth of Freud's Ostracism by the Medical Community in 1896-1905: Jeffrey Masson's Assault on Truth. History of Psychology, 5 (2): 115-134.

Sulloway, F. J. (1979). Freud: Biologist of the Mind. New York: Basic Books.

Esterson (talk) 08:22, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

A further reason for deleting the whole passage is that the theory that was greeted with scepticism by Freud's colleagues was that the root cause of all cases of psychoneuroses (hysteria and obsessional neurosis) lay in repressed memories of sexual molestations in infancy ("The Aetiology of Hysteria", 1896). This is not a theory that anyone accepts, so it most certainly is not a candidate for the "Semmelweis Effect". Esterson (talk) 14:08, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Passage on John Bowlby

Quote:

In later years Freudians repeatedly ostracised psychoanalysts in their community who presented new information, including John Bowlby whose 3 volumes, Attachment and Loss, included a rejection of the concept that children were more affected by fantasies than by real-life events. (see Attachment theory on the ostracism of Bowlby).

First, Freudians who treated new schools of analytic theory (Jung, Adler, Horney, etc) as heretical do not constitute examples of the Semmelweis effect, as none of these schools constitute new fields of knowledge accepted as current received knowledge. They are only accepted as such by their respective adherents.

Second, it is not the case that Bowlby was ostracised by psychoanalysts (disagreement is not the same thing as ostracism), and the link to the Attachment Theory Wikipedia page provides no evidence for the assertion. Esterson (talk) 13:56, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

In any case, Attachment Theory is just one of many theories in psychology, not received current scientific knowledge, as is the case with, e.g., Plate Tectonics or Germ Theory. Esterson (talk) 14:21, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

The above is a "text-book example" (online of course) of how data is eliminated under the Semmelweis reflex. Freud and his theories go unquestioned, (although virtually no scientific research backed them--however note this is not the central issue!)--Freudianism was widely accepted as science for many years and mostly went unquestioned. In contrast, Bowlby's Attachment theory, which more than adequately explained the distressed behavior of thousands of children separated from their parents in England during World War II is dismissed and eliminated. Yet the rapid, widespread changes in policy in caring for small children in hospitals and orphanages in the 1950s was an indication that professionals accepted and acknowledged Bowlby's working hypothesis.Margaret9mary (talk) 22:22, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Before any further discussion of this arises, I want to state that I will not go into any arguments over the exhaustive details cited by the author. The plain fact is that Freud's theory that childhood memories of sexual abuse were fantasies of a child's desire, was effectively used as a cover-up of sexual abuse of children, especially incest for over 70 years.Margaret9mary (talk) 22:41, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

A belated response to Margaret9mary's statement that my above comments constitute an example of "how data is eliminated": I have not "dismissed" Bowlby's Attachment theory, merely pointed out that Bowlby was not ostracized. In fact his work was generally welcomed as an important contribution to children's psychological development. (The reactions of orthodox psychoanalysts is a different matter, but they were hardly representative.) I would add that Michael Rutter has provided important caveats to Bowlby's original work: Maternal Deprivation Reassessed, Second Edition 1981, Penguin Books.

The rationale for Margaret9mary's statement that "Freud and his theories go unquestioned" in this context (i.e., my comment) is a mystery. Esterson (talk) 12:49, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

Edwards reference appears incorrect

I just read the article by Ward Edwards referenced on this page. It's an interesting discussion of the conservatism of subjects in experiments using Bayes's Theorem, but makes no mention of Semmelweis or a 'Semmelweis Reflex' that I could find, so I suspect this source may be incorrect.

76.95.20.202 (talk) 15:16, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

You're correct to point this out, because in that case, the association with the Semmelweis reflex is synthesis, which is counter to Wikipedia policy, so using the article as a reference in this article is not warranted; usually one would expect that a source used in an article at least mentions the discussed subject (as identified by the title, or at least alternative, especially redirected titles). This case is even more crass, as the ref is used to source the definition of a term it doesn't even mention, according to you.

I have therefore tagged the reference, which means that the article remains without any valid references, and it appears that "Semmelweis reflex" could even be an original coinage of a Wikipedia editor, not an established term. Thank you.

(Just in case the statement that Edwards' article does not mention, much less define, Semmelweis reflex, should be incorrect, the ref can be re-inserted with the relevant passage quoted.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:17, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Should there be a link to Joseph Lister ...

... who pioneered antisepsis in the UK, and also encountered resistance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Lister#Diffusion_of_Listerism ? 222.152.27.40 (talk) 10:40, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect attribution for Leary book.

There is a section in the text, and a footnote (currently reference number four) that is misattributed to Robert Anton Wilson as the author of a book with a contribution by Timothy Leary.

In fact, the book is by Timothy Leary, and contributions were made by Robert Anton Wilson.(follow the ISBN link, which is correct, and gets you to an external source like Google books or Amazon, and you'll see that the book is by Timothy Leary.)

This is the section in particular, though as noted, the footnote reference is also incorrect:

While there is uncertainty regarding its origin and generally accepted use, the expression "Semmelweis Reflex" had been used by the author Robert Anton Wilson. In Wilson's book The Game of Life, Timothy Leary provided the following polemical definition of the Semmelweis reflex:

Robert Anton Wilson is indeed an author, but not the primary author of that particular book.

As to which one of them used the phrase, I am not certain. I do own that book, but I'll have to go digging through it to find the relevant section, and correcting this attribution error is probably best left to someone with better Wikipedia editing skills than myself. I just wanted to point out the issue. PatrickSalsbury (talk) 08:38, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Semmelweis Effect and climate change

The entire section entitled "The acknowledgement of climate change" should be amended or removed.

The CAGW hypothesis has been disproved. It does not reflect reality. This is not stated as opinion, but as mathematically-precise and scientifically-provable fact. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and we get to see the irony of CAGW acolytes experiencing the Semmelweis Effect.

https://www.patriotaction.us/showthread.php?tid=2711

76.30.103.137 (talk) 12:52, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Bullshit. Science is published in scientific journals and not in right-wing websites. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:23, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

SYNTH

It seems that there is a lot of WP:SYNTH in this article. Users read a source somewhere and connect it with the concept of Semmelweis reflex, then put something in the article quoting the source. I cannot access all external links, but all sources that do not explicitly mention the term, and everything sourced to them, should be deleted. This probably includes the COVID and climate change examples as well as large parts of the "Explanation" section. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)