The Sydney Chalmers -- Issue 1 2019

THESYDNEYCHALMERS

Journal of the School of History and Philosophy of Science

MANAGING EDITORS

Laura Sumrall

Gemma Lucy Smart

Alexander Pereira

REIVEW TEAM

Patrick Dawson

Caitrin Donovan

Arin Harmann

Paddy Holt

Claire Kennedy

Samuel Lewin

Eamon Little

Gemma Lucy Smart

Laura Sumrall

Alexander Pereira

DESIGN

Joseph Matthews

The Sydney Chalmers is the undergraduate journal of the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. It is a publication of The Incommensurables: the History and Philosophy of Science club at the University of Sydney. Funding for The Sydney Chalmers comes from the School of History and Philosophy of Science, and a Student Life Grant through the Faculty of Science at the University of Sydney. Special thanks to Alan Chalmers, Hans Pols and Debbie Castle.

© 2019 School of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney. Apart from any fair dealing permitted according to the provisions of the Copyright Act, reproduction by any process or any parts of any work may not be undertaken without written permission from the individual author and the School of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney. Enquiries should be addressed to the editors. The statements or opinions expressed in the articles in The Sydney Chalmers are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the School of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Sydney.

THE SYDNEY CHALMERS

Journal of the School of History and Philosophy of Science

University of Sydney

2019 ISSUE 1

Contents

The Incommensurables

From the Editors

Gemma Lucy Smart and Laura Sumrall

Early History of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney

Alexander Pereira

Alan Chalmers Profile

Alexander Pereira

Undergraduate Showcase

Mungo Man: science, the media and the meaning of Aboriginality

Pola Cohen

Global Mental Health: a remedy for “medical imperialism”?

Clara Mills

The Galileo Affair: an analysis of Bellarmine’s letter to Foscarini

Bettina Chan

The Raven’s Paradox: does context determine the relevance of evidence?

Julian Ubaldi

Mental Health Interventions in Aboriginal Communities: suicide in the Tiwi Isalands

Pola Cohen

Is Psychology Really a Science? A critical examination of the ongoing use of significance tests in psychology

Roanna Vohralik

From the Editors

Welcome to the inaugural edition of The Sydney Chalmers.

It’s been a pleasure and a process to develop an undergraduate journal with The Incommensurables and the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney. Since its inception, our history and philosophy of science society The Incommensurables has been a small home for undergraduate and graduate students interested in critical studies of science. We’re mostly a social club, so it was a real treat to be able to provide an opportunity for undergraduate students to showcase their excellent work in a more formal way through this journal.

We’d like to extend our thanks to all the contributors, especially for their patience through the long editorial process. We thank the postgraduate cohort in the School of History and Philosophy of Science for their hard work during the review process. Special shout out to Alexander Pereira for stepping in to write the retrospective pieces that front our publication.

We would also like to express our gratitude for the unending support of the staff of the School of History and Philosophy of Science, especially Head of School Hans Pols and School Manager Debbie Castle. We couldn’t have done it without you. The funding that made this publication possible came in the form of a Student Life Grant through the Faculty of Science.

Most importantly, our thanks go to Alan Chalmers for his assistance with this publication, for allowing us to use his namesake, and for writing the book that started it all.

Enjoy!

Gemma Lucy Smart and Laura Sumral

Early History of History and Philosophy of Science at The University of Sydney

Alexander Pereira

“Over the past three decades, the various attempts which have been made at the University of Sydney to facilitate interdisciplinary studies in the history, philosophy and social studies of science and technology have provided a sorry tale of missed opportunities, misfortune, and the inevitable problems which arise when there is no back-up to a single staff-member employed to teach an undergraduate course.” – Ian Langham (1983).1

The early days of the University of Sydney’s then Unit for the History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) were characterised by quiet struggles with an uncertain identity. Both this quietness and insecurity were born of HPS’ position at the fringes of the science faculty, burdened with establishing its place and securing resources against a backdrop of fluctuating departmental enthusiasms, turbulent politics, funding woes, and internecine warfare in the neighbouring school(s) of philosophy. HPS began

as an optimistic but lonely chimera. The story begins with a call from the Australian Association of Scientific Workers (AASW) in 1941 for New South Wales students to be:

“…given some general course which would teach them the correct approach to science. Such a course might take the form of instruction in the scientific method based on examples from the history of science.”

And later, in 1943: “To secure the wider application of science and the scientific method for the welfare of society, to promote the interests of science and to maintain the status of the scientific worker.” 2

The AASW applied sustained pressure after the project was sidelined due to the war and it was spearheaded locally in 1944 by Dr R.E.D. Makinson, a lecturer in physics, and Dr Ilse Rosenthal Schneider, then a tutor in the

German department. This led to a series of lunchtime lectures in 194546 on the ‘History and Methods of Science’.3 Ilse Rosenthal Schneider had completed a PhD in physics and philosophy under Albert Einstein before fleeing Nazi Germany for Australia.4 With her contribution to those lectures, she aimed to “counteract the bad effects of too specialised a training”, “stimulate the interest in this most fascinating and so important subject” and hoped that her lectures “may lead to the permanent addition to the syllabus of ‘History and Philosophy of Science.”5,6

It appears those lectures did not continue and what followed was a period of dormancy, before an energetic awakening. In 1953, a newly formed HPS committee launched a successful bid to institute an official HPS course in the Faculty of Science. These began as private study units for third year students. Lecturers were a motley group of invited speakers, often turning over each year, and in 1959 the committee first suggested that a permanent Senior Lecturer post be introduced to helm the course. However, it took six years for the job to be formally advertised and another twenty before the role

was finally filled.7 This was an early example of a lack of bureaucratic energy which translated into a lack of departmental momentum. The HPS committee were partly to blame, too – it appears they were parochial in their hesitance to look beyond Australia for a suitable applicant. So, a string of temporary lectureships composed the interim period, which included figures such as Hugh Lacey, Louise Crossley, and Alan Chalmers. These were tenuous appointments at the most junior rung of pay. An official university document later described Louise Crossley as an “exploited temporary Senior tutor”8, another early hint at the demanding and pernicious costs of running HPS –a theme that would loom over the following decades.

Ian Langham, with a nearly complete PhD in HPS from Princeton, took the post in 1974 after Alan’s brief stint, again employed at the most junior level. Ian inherited a turbulent academic landscape. The preceding year had seen the infamous rupturing of the philosophy department into two uneasy (and confusingly titled) schools: The Department of General Philosophy, housing the controversial schism-fuelling

course on Feminism; and The Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy, housing staff who thought the course was doing violence to academia9. In 1979, the department of General Philosophy invited Ian Langham to make his HPS course available to its students, securing the only formal association between HPS and the Arts Faculty10. HPS at Sydney was confined to the sciences. Ian’s own struggles with the bureaucracy are on display in the above epigraph. Alan Chalmers notes that:

“A major problem for Ian was the incongruity of the HPS lectureship insofar as it was not attached to any department. As a resul, there was no ready access to the normal procedures for making course additions and changes and the like.”11

Ian became the first permanent head of the program, and then in 1983, the first to fill the prophesied position of Senior Lecturer, twenty years after the job was advertised. This was tragically short-lived – Ian Langham died suddenly in 1984, aged 41.

Alan Chalmers was seconded from his own Senior Lectureship in the Department of General

Philosophy to return to HPS and run the course after Ian. The move became permanent in 1985.12 Alan reflects on his time at HPS in illuminating first-person detail in the accompanying profile. It is worth mentioning one of Alan’s most enduring contributions here: his book published in 1976 What is this thing called science?. Alan’s introduction to the philosophy of science, geared towards undergraduates and interested neophytes, had an extraordinarily powerful reach, both locally and internationally, and the book has influenced the structure of introductory HPS courses ever since. Alan’s own experience at

Image: Ian Langham of History and Philosophy of Science. Image courtesy of Debbie Castle.

HPS appear to have mirrored Ian Langham’s and Louise Crossley’s – helming the ship is a taxing job. Alan retired in 1999 at his earliest convenience but has continued to research ever since.

Some themes emerge across this half-century. Alison Turtle argues that the early days of HPS at the University of Sydney were marred by “a variety of mishaps and strategic blunders”, particularly due to a dependence on an oftenuninterested Science Faculty, HPS’ inability to forge connections with neighbouring Arts and Humanities departments, and a general streak of “non-innovation” that saw decades of undergraduate-only courses overseen by a single staff appointment. 1 But the story so far suggests that this was not from a lack of internal effort. Those entrusted with running and developing HPS were burdened with navigating departmental politics and having to justify why an interdisciplinary subject enmeshed in the humanities should exist at all in the Faculty of Science, let alone be given more resources, when adjacent schools were already providing similar programs. Regarding the bureaucratic powers-that-be, Turtle writes in 1987 that “Sydney’s policy

towards HPS has…been neither of committed aloofness, nor of realistic investment in the growth and development of the discipline”.2 For Turtle, other Australian HPS units flourished as Sydney stagnated.

Plenty has changed. This narrative of a downtrodden, low-profile, quietly struggling unit glosses over the many wins and developments no doubt made during that long half-century, by many figures not mentioned in this retrospective. Alan Chalmers, too, concedes that his account of HPS’ growth as “straightforward, onwards, and upwards” is too simplistic.3 But the present story does connect common themes of uncertainty about HPS’ place, worth, and identity. And there is now an undeniable sense of momentum within (the recentlypromoted to ‘School’ of) HPS at Sydney that feels more striking after learning of those early trials and tribulations. We now have many permanent staff appointments; some pulled from the international pool, others homegrown, all dominant in their sub-fields. We are about to recruit another. We have a robust honours and postgraduate program that attracts international attention, an enthusiastic Faculty

of Science, and world-renowned specialties in the philosophies of biology, medicine, and early modern histories of science. HPS Professor Peter Godfrey-Smith wrote an article earlier this year discussing Australia’s impressively “outsized” influence on philosophy,4 and one could comfortably argue that Sydney has had a similarly outsized influence on HPS. Alan’s What is this thing called science? is just one powerful example of that. HPS is often thought to flourish precisely because it has many feet in many scholarly doors, and that certainly seems the case now – but the tale of the early days of HPS at Sydney demonstrates how tenuous and unbalanced this situation can be.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Hans Pols, Maureen O’Malley, Peter Godfrey-Smith, and Michael Devitt for directing me to illuminating resources that were very helpful in the writing of this piece, and Amelia Scott for proofreading. In particular, I’m indebted to Alison Turtle and Alan Chalmers for their own pieces on the history of HPS at the University of Sydney.

1. Notes written by Ian Langham in support of the proposal to establish a Centre for Science, Technology and the Human Prospect within the University of Sydney; in possession of Professor R.M. MacLeod, University of Sydney. From: Alison Turtle, “History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney: A case-study in non-innovation,” Historical Records of Australian Science, 7 no.1, (1987), 27.

2. Turtle, “History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney,” 28.

3. Ibid.

4. “Biography of Ilse Rosenthal Schneider,” Rosenthal Schneider, Ilse (1891-1990), from Trove National Library of Australia, accessed November 2019, https://trove.nla.gov.au/ people/1305190?c=people.

5. Ilse Rosenthal Schneider, “Notes and Correspondence,” Isis, 36 (1946), 132.

6. Ilse Rosenthal Schneider, “Notes and Correspondence,” Isis, 37 (1947), 76.

7. Turtle, “History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney,” 29.

8. Ibid.

9. James Franklin and George Thomas, Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia, (Macleay Press, 2012).

10. Turtle, “History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney,” 30.

11. Alan Chalmers, “The Beginnings of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney: Some Personal Reflections by Alan Chalmers,”, speech presented in April 2018.

12. Chalmers, “The Beginnings of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney,” 2018.

13. Turtle, “History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney,” 28.

14. Turtle, “History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney,” 27.

15. Chalmers, “The Beginnings of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney,” 2017.

16. Peter Godfrey-Smith, “Australian Philosophy,” Retrieved November 2019 from, https:// aeon.co/essays/why-does-australia-have-an-outsized-influence-on-philosophy.

Alan Chalmers Profile

Alexander Pereira

Alan Chalmers was born in Bristol, England, in 1939. He began his academic career locally at the University of Bristol, earning a Bachelor of Science in physics in 1961, followed by a Master of Science in 1964, this time from the University of Manchester. Both degrees were in Physics. Alan then changed gears to explore a burgeoning interest in the historical and philosophical foundations of physics. He attended the University of London to study the History and Philosophy of Science, and in 1971, was awarded a PhD for his dissertation on James Clerk Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism.

Alan won a post-doctoral Fellowship at the University of Sydney in that same year. He became enamoured with the city, began lecturing in School of Philosophy, and eventually took up a brief stint helming the Faculty of Science’s then modest HPS course for a few years before Ian Langham took the realms permanently in 1974. Alan was promoted to a Senior Lectureship in the newly (and controversially) established School

of General Philosophy. During this time, he wrote and published What is this thing called science? which became a go-to resource for introductory HPS courses the world over.

He returned permanently to the Faculty of Science in 1986 as Director of, and Professor in, the HPS unit. Alan directed the program until his retirement in 1999. Alan then continued with his work, free from the shackles of university politics, via funded research positions at Flinders University and the Center of Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Alan became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities in 1998, and in 2003, was awarded a Centenary Medal by the Australian Government for “Services to the Humanities in the area of History and Philosophy of Science”. He remains an Honorary staff member in the School for the History and Philosophy of Science here at the University of Sydney.

Alan reflects on his time at HPS below in a speech he presented at an event

in April 2018, which celebrated the promotion of HPS from a ‘Unit’ to a ‘School’ in the Faculty of Science.

permanent. I was offered and accepted the position in General Philosophy.”

The Fortuitous Birth of What is this thing called science?

“Ian Langham was unable to take up his new position immediately and I was employed to fill in until he was able to do so. I was the HPS lecturer for the second half of 1973. During that time there was a strike in the Philosophy Department triggered by attempts to introduce a course on Feminism. Whilst the strike was mainly an Arts Faculty affair it spread into the Science Faculty because I felt obliged to join it…An outcome of the strike was the splitting of Philosophy into two separate departments, the Department of General Philosophy and the Department of Traditional and Modern Philosophy, staffed, roughly speaking, by those comfortable, in the former case, and those that were not comfortable, in the latter case, with the new feminism course. In order that the two departments should have a viable number of staff each of them was allocated a three year lectureship, only one of which was to become

“Since the permanence of my job depended on the fortunes of General Philosophy I put much effort into my introductory course on Epistemology and Philosophy of Science for first year undergraduates. I supplied detailed notes for the students, each of the five hundred copies of the thirty pages requiring one turn of the handle of the Roneo machine, a predecessor of the photocopiers we now take for granted. When, a year or so down the track, I learnt that at least two other Australian universities were using my lecture notes I was flattered. An editor at Queensland University Press had a different, more pragmatic, response. Sensing that my lecture notes was a marketable commodity he leant on me to turn them into a book. I eventually succumbed to the pressure he exerted. As a result, the first edition of What is this thing called science? was published in 1976.”

The Chalmers Years

“In 1985 I was seconded from General Philosophy into the Science Faculty to run the HPS course. The arrangement eventually became permanent. I was fortunate that Arnold Hunt was Dean of the Faculty of Science at the time. Once I had settled into my new job he encouraged me to plan for an expansion of the HPS courses. Eventually plans for a third year course, in addition to the existing second year course, were approved by the relevant Science Faculty committee and also by the Faculty of Arts where I had another strong supporter in Sybil Jack, then Dean of that Faculty. There remained the question of staff to teach the now-approved courses. In those days the Vice Chancellor (John Ward at the time) played a much more active role in everyday academic affairs than nowadays. In particular, it was he who signed off on additions to staff in departments throughout the university. Late in 1987 that situation was about to change. Centralised power was about to be devolved at the end of the year to five sub units of the University, with each overseeing its own affairs including staffing

allocations. I did not have high hopes of a sympathetic response to a request for additional staff once that change had occurred. In mid-December, 1987, The Dean of Science, the Dean of Arts and the Senior Lecturer in History and Philosophy of Science (that is, Hunt, Jack and myself) arranged a meeting with the Vice-chancellor at which we urged him to approve an additional HPS lectureship. He ruled in our favour, and the decision to advertise a new HPS lectureship was authorised.”

“The new appointee was Michael Shortland who had a PhD from the University of Leeds. He was extremely pro-active and ambitious. His energy was akin to a rapidly rotating fly-wheel, it being my job to try to engage it with the University mechanisms. We worked effectively, if not always comfortably, as a team with the result that in the first three years of the extended HPS programme, the number of students enrolled in the programme had trebled. By that time we had a case for an additional lectureship that was too strong to be ignored. I should note that in the early years of the extended programme Michael

Shortland and I were dependent on support from a number of staff in the Science and Arts Faculties who were prepared to have their courses included on a list of options that comprised one quarter of the third year requirements. I won’t mention names because to identify those I can remember would be unfair to those that I can’t.”

“In 1994 we appointed Nicolas Rasmussen from the USA to a lectureship, thereby initiating the move towards the strength in history and philosophy of biology and medicine that has become one of the hallmarks of HPS at Sydney University. It also started our practice of snaring promising young HPS scholars from overseas. The transfers were not all one way. In 1997 two HPS students, Suman Seth and David Munns, who were able to take advantage of the Honours and Masters courses in HPS by then in place, won PhD scholarships in the USA, one at Princeton and the other at Johns Hopkins. Both have since prospered in academic positions in the States. Their success proved to be signs of things to come.”

Enough is Enough

“The rise of the fortunes of HPS was not all as straightforward, onwards and upwards as my account might suggest. There were trials and disappointments and the going could be very taxing. Just ask my partner, Sandra. As the twentieth century drew to a close I had had enough of University politics. I retired in November, 1999 on the very first day that it became financially viable to do so. My engineering brother was puzzled by my answer to his question of what I would do after retirement, but I am sure the current HPS staff will know exactly what I meant. I informed my brother that I would be getting on with my work. And that is precisely what I have done. Since retiring I have been able to devote myself to research and take advantage of ARC grants that I have been able to apply for as an honorary member of staff. While my period of employment at the University of Sydney required me to struggle hard to keep my head above turbulent waters the general flow of those waters has set me down on a rather pleasant island.”

Image: Alan Chalmers and then undergraduate student Amelia Scott at the 2017 celebration of History and Philosophy of Science becoming a formal School.

Mungo Man: science, the media, and the meaning of Aboriginality.

Pola Cohen

In 1974, scientists uncovered a human skeleton at Lake Mungo, in western New South Wales. The remains were labelled ‘Lake Mungo 3’ (LM3), colloquially known as Mungo Man. Mungo Man was removed from the traditional lands of the Muthi Muthi, Paakantji and Nygiampa to a facility in Canberra, where he was originally carbon dated to be at least 30,000 years old – the oldest human remains found in Australia.1 This essay will explore the complex interplay between scientists, media and politicians following a 1990s attempt to sequence fragments of Mungo Man’s DNA. Section One will explain the study itself and contextualise it in the evolutionary debate of its time. Section Two will turn to the responses in the scientific community and the media, exploring how the two industries interacted to shape the debate. Section Three will discuss the politicisation of the Mungo Man findings in disputes over Aboriginal rights and how this reshaped the focus of later studies of LM3. Section Four will consider the ethical problems with scientific use of Aboriginal DNA. The complex layers

of meaning embedded in Mungo Man’s genetic identity draw together science, politics and Aboriginality, demonstrating the entanglement of science and society, and the need for scientists to consider the potential for their work to be misunderstood and misused.

Section One: Mungo Man and the Debate over Human Evolution.

By the 1990s, two major theories offered competing explanations of human origins, which are key to understanding the debate over Mungo Man. According to the Recent Out of Africa theory, Homo sapiens evolved from Homo erectus exclusively in subSaharan Africa. They left it 100,000 to 200,000 years ago and colonised the rest of the world over the intervening millennia, wiping out other species like the Neanderthals.2 In contrast, the Regional Continuity theory (or Multi-regionalism) posits that our Homo erectus ancestors left Africa two million years ago and evolved into

Homo sapiens simultaneously across different parts of the globe, with interbreeding guaranteeing genetic and morphological similarity between different peoples.3 Colin Groves and Alan Thorne, members of the team who uncovered the LM3 remains in 1974, were each strong proponents of one of these theories – Groves supported Recent Out of Africa, whilst Thorne argued for Multiregionalism.4 In 1995, doctoral student Gregory Adcock brought Mungo Man into the debate in a study undertaken with Thorne’s supervision. His team extracted mtDNA from LM3’s bone fragments, comparing it to a reference mtDNA insert sequence (a remnant of an extinct mtDNA lineage found in some living humans’ 11th chromosome), as well as mtDNA from other ancient remains, a range of living Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal humans, and other primate species. The extracted mtDNA grouped with the insert sequence. From this, the authors concluded that it was possible that LM3’s lineage diverted from modern humans before our MRCA (most recent common ancestor), meaning that modern humans may have evolved in Australia independently of the evolution of all humans alive today (see Figure 1). This appears to challenge the Out of Africa theory.5 Their 2001 paper set out the study’s

conclusions tentatively: despite media reports to the contrary, the authors did not say that human life originated in Australia, and they retained the possibility that LM3 was an ancestor of modern Aboriginal Australians (issues I will return to later). Instead, the paper claimed to challenge the recent Out of Africa model of evolution, supporting Regional Continuity Theory instead.6 Nevertheless, the study ultimately stimulated an intensification of the human origins debate.

Section Two: The Scientific and Media Responses

The scientific community’s response to Adcock’s findings was, for the most part, somewhat sceptical. This was partly due to methodological concerns. Given the technology available in the 1990s, successfully extracting mtDNA from 40,00060,000-year old remains (the posited age at the time) seemed somewhat unlikely. Smith et al. pointed out that Lake Mungo’s humid environment was unlikely to have preserved mtDNA for that period at all.7 Indeed, other researchers had failed to assign a biological sex to the LM3 skeleton because of the fragmented nature of the DNA remnants. Furthermore,

Figure 1. Adcock, Gregory J., Elizabeth S. Dennis, Simon Easteal, Gavin A. Huttley, Lars S. Jermiin, W. James Peacock, and Alan Thorne. ‘Lake Mungo 3: A Response to Recent Critiques’. Archaeology in Oceania 36, no. 3 (2001): 170–74. ‘Insert’ refers to the mtDNA sequence inserted into some modern humans’ 11th chromosome, a remnant of an extinct mtDNA lineage.

despite the original paper’s strong assertions that great care was taken to avoid contaminating samples during their research, the LM3 remains had been handled and studied multiple times over more than twenty years – the mtDNA supposedly extracted from LM3 could have actually been a combination of damaged ancient DNA and contaminants from previous studies.8 Concerns were also raised over Adcock’s conclusions. For example, LM3’s grouping alongside the insert sequence may have been due to homoplasy – convergence in characteristics over time, independent of common ancestors.9 Responding to Adcock’s paper, Cooper et al. ultimately dismissed any challenge to the Out of Africa theory, as the paper’s phylogenic trees still showed a clear distinction between Neanderthals and modern humans, which makes the interbreeding aspect of the Multiregionalism theory unlikely (see Figure 1).10 Groves points out that LM3’s distinct mtDNA doesn’t necessarily point to an entirely different lineage of humans.11 Rather, at any point in the past there have been multiple women with distinct mtDNA alive, but the variation between mtDNA decreases because mtDNA is not passed on to male children. LM3 may represent a genetic lineage that did not survive to the present, but this does not mean

that his entire population was replaced. Groves concluded that Adcock et al.’s “conclusions, relatively restrained though they are compared to the way in which the news media reported them, cannot be accepted.”12

As Groves implied, Australia’s mainstream media disseminated the Adcock paper’s conclusions with far less cynicism – and often, with a poor understanding of the science. Many articles (though not all) represented the results as conclusive in the evolutionary debate. For example, The Australian asserted that Mungo Man was part of “a group of Aboriginal people whose genetic line has vanished from the Earth,” and that this made the Out of Africa theory untenable, without any reference to other scientists’ critiques.13 Brisbane’s Courier Mail also claimed that the study “potentially blows away the ‘Out of Africa’ theory,” instead supporting Multi-regionalism – though it briefly alluded to one unconvinced archaeologist near the end of its article on the findings.14 Several other articles suggested that, in light of the new findings, scientists now thought that humans originated in Australia: one begins, “if Adam and Eve existed, Australia could have been their Garden of Eden, genetic analysis suggests” – despite the fact that the

genetic analysis had suggested nothing of the sort.15 Much of the media’s insights into the science came from anthropologist Alan Thorne – the aforementioned proponent of Multiregionalism, and one of the key authors on the Adcock paper. In statements to various news outlets, Thorne expressed his Multi-regionalist position with more conviction than a scientific journal would allow: “a simplistic Out of Africa model is no longer tenable.”16 This, perhaps, explains the subsequent escalation of the debate within the scientific community. As well as some of these journalists having a limited understanding of the probabilistic nature of science, scientists themselves were making strong claims about their findings in the media. The media coverage then seems to have intensified the strength of scientific critiques of the original research, as in Groves’ and Cooper et al.’s work, above. The very interaction of scientists and journalists appears to have escalated the controversy over Adcock et al.’s conclusions.

Section Three: the Politicisation of Mungo Man’s mtDNA.

One strand of media coverage proposed that Mungo Man’s mtDNA meant that Aboriginal peoples had

also colonised and wiped out an earlier race in Australia, bringing it into an historical-anthropological debate over the evolutionary origins of Aboriginal people. These journalists’ interpretation of the data is, to some extent, plausible: they inferred that if Mungo Man was not related to modern Aboriginal people, then his ‘race’ must have somehow died out and been replaced by the ancestors of modern Aboriginals. This would mean that Aboriginal people were not the first Australians. It is worth noting that Thorne clearly argued against this view in his media interviews – he stated that Mungo Man was “definitely among the ancestors of modern Aborigines” and expressed similar sentiments in various other statements to the press, basing this view on morphological similarities between Mungo Man and modern Aboriginal people.17 Nonetheless, the idea that Aboriginal people weren’t ‘first’ took hold in conservative newspapers like The Australian. An article published in January 2001, titled “Modern Aborigines ‘not the First Australians’ - MUNGO MAN,” exemplifies this approach. The article assumed Adcock et al.’s findings to be conclusive, and presented them alongside other evidence which could suggest multiple waves of immigration to Australia, such as the relatively recent

arrival of dingoes and stylistic changes in rock art.18 It implied that later waves of immigration – presumably the ancestors of contemporary Aboriginal peoples – wiped out previous occupants. If this is the case (or so the article seems to suggest), then the history of Aboriginal peoples is re-cast as a narrative of colonisation, rather than of being colonised. All of the scientists quoted in this article disagree with its interpretation of the data, making similar claims that replacement of one population by another is over-simplistic and not supported by the data. Nevertheless, the article concludes that “something significant definitely occurred” involving multiple waves of migration to Australia.19 The Australian was not alone in these kinds of assertions – the Sun-Herald, too, said that “later arrivals from Africa killed off Mungo’s version of modern man just as we continue to kill each other today.”20 This kind of media coverage served to delegitimise Aboriginal peoples’ indigeneity and downplay the significance of colonisation, by suggesting that contemporary Indigenous Australians’ ancestors had done the same thing to earlier peoples as Europeans had done to them.

These questions over the nature of Aboriginality brought Mungo Man’s DNA into the political arena. To give

some context, in the early-to-mid20th century anthropologist Joseph Birdsell had put forth the “trihybrid theory” of human origins in Australia. He postulated three successive waves of immigration with distinct morphologies, the first 40,000 years ago and the most recent 15,000 years ago, with each new wave “colonising” the last.21 Historian Keith Windshuttle continued to support this theory into the 21st century, arguing that Aboriginal rights movements had deliberately repressed the trihybrid idea in order to support pan-Aboriginal rhetoric.22 In actuality, the trihybrid theory draws almost exclusively on flawed craniological evidence, lacks any evidence for its assertion that Australia was once populated by ‘pygmies,’ and has not held up to DNA testing.23 Its disappearance was not due to ‘repression’ by Aboriginal activists, but the weight of scientific counterevidence. Groves – Thorne’s academic rival in the evolutionary debate – argued that the trihybrid theory, along with other hypotheses of pre-Aboriginal Australians, was simply the political fodder of the far right. For proponents of these views, however, Mungo Man’s mtDNA is proof that “Aborigines were not the first possessors of Australia so the land doesn’t really belong to them

and the whites needn’t feel too bad about dispossessing them.”24 Groves asserted that the 2001 findings fed into the rhetoric of parties like One Nation, and allowed Prime Minister John Howard to refuse to apologise for the Stolen Generations.25 Members of the political right did continue to draw on Adcock et al.’s findings to support conservative positions in Aboriginal affairs. For example, in 2015 Liberal Democrat David Leyonhjelm took a stance against constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians on the grounds that they may not have been the first cultures in Australia.26 This way of questioning Aboriginal peoples’ status as the ‘first’ Australians in order to dispute legislative changes is highly reminiscent of Windshuttle’s own argument, which effectively aimed to challenge Native Title rights.27 Of course, Aboriginal peoples’ rights to Country, or to recognition in the Constitution, have little to do with ancient DNA. The important and indisputable point is that they were here before European invasion, that Europeans took the land and eroded their cultures by force, and that the land has never been ceded to white Australia. Nevertheless, this use of the Mungo Man findings by Leyonhjelm and others demonstrates the broader potential for the misunderstanding

and misuse of scientific findings to support political agendas.

By the time of Leyonhjelm’s comments, however, a growing body of evidence seemed to confirm that Adcock et al.’s 2001 study had been deeply flawed. In 2011, the first full-genome study using Aboriginal bio-matter found strong evidence that modern Aboriginal people are the direct descendants of the oldest humans known to have lived in Australia.28 They concluded that “Aboriginal Australians likely have one of the oldest continuous population histories outside sub-Saharan Africa today,” clearly contradicting views like Leyonhjelm’s and Windshuttle’s.29 Of course, Adcock et al. conceded that Mungo Man could have been a direct ancestor of modern Aboriginals whose mtDNA lineage happened to die out.30 Indeed, as mentioned above, Thorne asserted that modern Aboriginal people were certainly descended from Mungo Man’s people, given their morphological similarities.31 However, later studies suggested that the mtDNA extracted from Mungo Man was actually contamination from scientists handling the remains.32 An attempted replication of the original study in 2016 – using superior technology – was unable to extract any recoverable mtDNA from the

LM3 remains, other than evidence of contamination from five different Europeans.33 Interestingly, the 2016 paper contextualised Adcock et al.’s findings within the debate over Aboriginal people’s origins, rather than global evolutionary theory (although they do note that their own findings are consistent with the Out of Africa hypothesis). The politicisation of Adcock et al.’s findings therefore seems to have transmitted back into the scientific meaning of the data, to the point that the political debate became the focus of the scientific controversy itself

Section Four: Science, Ethics, and Indigenous Biomatter.

It is worth noting that the entirety of this debate – in both the media and the scientific community – drew only on Western frameworks, to the exclusion of Aboriginal knowledges. Both the Out of Africa theory and Regional Continuity theory are incommensurable with Aboriginal beliefs about their origins. Dreaming stories, according to archaeologist Martin Porr, “imply that people are so intimately connected to Country that they are one and the same, and thus neither ‘arrived’ nor came from somewhere else.”34 The scientific

debate was therefore largely irrelevant to Mungo Man’s own people. Indeed, when the Adcock study was overturned in 2016, Muthi Muthi Elder Mary Pappin told the press that she “didn’t think Australian Aborigines weren’t the first people” in Australia.35 The apparent DNA evidence of preAboriginal people meant little to these Aboriginal people – DNA did not change their identity or connection to Country. This is troubling, as it shows that the use of Aboriginal bio-matter in the supposedly neutral, universally beneficial enterprise of science, is incommensurable with Aboriginal knowledges and therefore does not benefit Aboriginal people in the same way as non-Aboriginal people. Even more concerning, it seems that Adcock et al. may not have received consent from Aboriginal people to study the LM3 remains – despite the scientists’ claims to the contrary.36 One article at the time reported that Elders were shocked by the lack of consultation over the use of their ancestor’s remains, having only found out about the study the day before its findings were published.37 Reardon and TallBear have previously raised similar criticisms regarding the scientific use of indigenous DNA in America.38 They describe a conflict between the Havasupai people, who had given

consent for their biological materials to be used for diabetes research that could directly benefit the tribe, and teams of scientists who appropriated that DNA for a range of other studies on the grounds that advancing scientific (i.e. Western) knowledge is an intrinsic good. In this instance, the Havasupai people had little to gain from the research and much to lose. As in Mungo Man’s case, DNA research “alters the parameters of indigeneity” in a way that may jeopardise land claims or asserting indigenous rights.39 While scientists used Mungo Man to investigate questions situated in Western frameworks of knowledge, the Traditional Owners of Lake Mungo were campaigning for his remains to be returned home.40 Scientists’ faith in their own knowledge system and their belief that science is an objective good arguably blinds them to its socio-political impact and its cultural exclusivity.

Conclusion

Debates over Mungo Man’s mtDNA make it clear that science cannot claim to be disconnected from society or from politics. Its reputation as a factgenerating enterprise gives science a powerful role in the political arena, as was made clear in Windshuttle’s

and Leyonhjelm’s use of scientific theories to dispute Aboriginal rights. Likewise, although science can generate interesting and important insights into who we are as human beings, using indigenous data to do so is problematic. This is so in the Mungo Man case because this kind of Western knowledge has little bearing on Aboriginal self-understandings, and because it raises ethical concerns over consent and ownership of ancestral DNA, as well as questions about who science is for. Aboriginal people had little to gain from these DNA studies. By the time Mungo Man was finally repatriated in 2017, what began as a scientific controversy had become highly politicised, warped by media misrepresentations and by scientists’ exaggerations of the certainty of their findings. Although the remains are now back on Country, the concerns this controversy raises over the potential for scientific findings to be misunderstood and distorted remain pressing issues in contemporary science reporting. The manipulation of Mungo Man’s mtDNA to delegitimise Indigenous Australians’ claims to land and sovereignty shows the potential for science to be turned from a valueneutral search for truth to an attack our society’s most vulnerable people.

1. Jim M. Bowler and Alan G. Thorne, “Human remains from Lake Mungo: discovery and excavation of Lake Mungo III,” The Origin of the Australians, eds. R.L. Kirk and A.G. Thorne (Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, 1976), 127-38. In the 1990s, another study dated Mungo Man to 60,000 years old. This was disputed, and consensus is now at 42,000 years.

2. Martin Porr, “Lives and Lines: Integrating Molecular Genetics, the Origins of Modern Humans, and Indigenous Knowledge,” in Long History, Deep Time: Deepening Histories of Place, eds. Ann McGrath and Mary Anne Jebb (Canberra: ANU Press, 2015), 203-220.

3. Gregory J. Adcock, Elizabeth S. Dennis, Simon Easteal, Gavin A. Huttley, Lars S. Jermiin, W. James Peacock, and Alan Thorne, “Mitochondrial DNA Sequences in Ancient Australians: Implications for Modern Human Origins,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98 no. 2 (2001): 537–42; Colin Groves, “Australia for the Australians,” Australian Humanities Review, June 1, 2002, http://australianhumanitiesreview.org/2002/06/01/australia-for-theaustralians/.

4. Leigh Dayton, “Mungo Man,” ABC Science, January 1, 2001, http://www.abc.net.au/ science/articles/2001/01/01/2813404.htm.

5. Adcock et al., “Mitochondrial DNA Sequences in Ancient Australians.”

6. Ibid.

7. Colin I. Smith, Andrew T. Chamberlain, Michael S. Riley, Chris Stringer, and Matthew J. Col, “The Thermal History of Human Fossils and the Likelihood of Successful DNA Amplification,” Journal of Human Evolution 45 no. 3 (2003): 203-217.

8. Alan Cooper, Andrew Rambaut, Vincent Macaulay, Eske Willerslev, Anders J. Hansen, Chris Stringer, Gregory J. Adcock, Elizabeth S. Dennis, Simon Easteal, Gavin A. Huttley, et al., “Human Origins and Ancient Human DNA,” Science 292 no. 5522 (2001): 1655–56.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Colin Groves, “Lake Mungo 3 and His DNA,” Archaeology in Oceania 36 no. 3 (2001): 166–67.

12. Ibid.

13. Leigh Dayton, “DNA Clue to Man’s Origin - How Mungo Man Has Shaken the Human Family Tree,” The Australian, 2001.

14. Brendan O’Malley, “Mungo Man Climbed out of a Different Gene Pool,” The Courier Mail, 2001.

15. Bronwyn Hurrell, “Aussie Eden Theory; Mungo Man Sheds Light on Evolution,” Herald Sun, 2001.

16. Leigh Dayton, “DNA Clue to Man’s Origin - How Mungo Man Has Shaken the Human Family Tree,” The Australian, 2001.

17. Bronwyn Hurrell, “Aussie Eden Theory; Mungo Man Sheds Light on Evolution,” The Herald Sun. Also see Frank Walke, “When It Comes to the Bare Bones, We’re Fair Dinkum,” The Sun-Herald, January 14, 2001; and Penny Fannin, “Mungo Jumbo,” The Age, January 13, 2001.

18. Unknown Author, “Modern Aborigines `not the First Australians’ - MUNGO MAN,” The Australian, 2001.

19. Ibid.

20. Walke, “When It Comes to the Bare Bones, We’re Fair Dinkum.”

21. Keith Windshuttle and Tim Gillin, “The Extinction of the Australian Pygmies,” June 1, 2002, http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/history-wars/2002/06/the-extinction-of-theaustralian-pygmies/.

22. Ibid.

23. Joe Dortch and Michael Westaway, “Who We Should Recognise as First Australians in the Constitution,” The Conversation, March 13, 2015, http://theconversation.com/who-weshould-recognise-as-first-australians-in-the-constitution-38714; Groves, “Australia for the Australians.”

24. Groves, “Australia for the Australians.”

25. Ibid.

26. Louise Yaxley, “Leyonhjelm Questions If Aboriginal People Were First Occupants of Australia,” ABC News, June 25, 2015, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-25/davidleyonhjelm-raises-doubts-over-aboriginal-occupants/6572704.

27. Dortch and Westaway, “Who We Should Recognise as First Australians in the Constitution.”

28. Morten Rasmussen, Xiaosen Guo, Yong Wang, Kirk E. Lohmueller, Simon Rasmussen, Anders Albrechtsen, Line Skotte, Stinus Lindgreen, Mait Metspalu, Thibaut Jombart, et al., “An Aboriginal Australian Genome Reveals Separate Human Dispersals into Asia,” Science 334 no. 6052 (2011): 94–98.

Ibid.

30. Adcock et al., “Mitochondrial DNA Sequences in Ancient Australians.”

31. Walke, “When It Comes to the Bare Bones, We’re Fair Dinkum.”

32. Iain Davidson, “FactCheck: Might There Have Been People in Australia Prior to Aboriginal People?” The Conversation, June 30, 2015, http://theconversation.com/factcheck-mightthere-have-been-people-in-australia-prior-to-aboriginal-people-43911.

33. H. Heupink, Sankar Subramanian, Joanne L. Wright, Phillip Endicott, Michael Carrington Westaway, Leon Huynen, Walther Parson, Craig D. Millar, Eske Willerslev, and David M. Lambert, “Ancient MtDNA Sequences from the First Australians Revisited,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113 no. 25 (2016): 6892–97.

34. Porr, “Lives and Lines.”

35. Dani Cooper, “New DNA Technology Confirms Aboriginal People as First Australians,” ABC News, June 7, 2016, http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-06-07/dnaconfirms-aboriginal-people-as-the-first-australians/7481360.

36. Adcock et al., “Mitochondrial DNA Sequences in Ancient Australians.”

37. Trudy Harris, “Mungo Mad - Search for the Origin of Man,” The Australian, 2001.

38. Jenny Reardon and Kim TallBear, “‘Your DNA Is Our History’: Genomics, Anthropology, and the Construction of Whiteness as Property,” Current Anthropology 53 no. S5 (2012): S233-245.

39. Ibid.

40. Miki Perkins, “The Long Way: Fire and Smoke for Mungo Man and the Ancestors on Their Road Home,” The Age, November 17, 2017, https://www.theage.com.au/national/ victoria/the-long-way-fire-and-smoke-for-mungo-man-and-the-ancestors-on-their-roadhome-20171116-gzn45a.html.

Global Mental Health: a remedy for “medical imperialism”?

Clara Mills

The push for Global Mental Health (GMH) – made over recent decades by international bodies such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) – has been labelled by some critics as a form of “medical imperialism” and “epistemicide”.1 They argue that calls to increase ‘mental health literacy’ globally are in reality calls for the world to firmly subscribe to Western understandings of mental health and implicitly renounce other, perhaps more locally appropriate, “ways of knowing and responding to distress”.2 There are concerns that this will lead to the loss of alternative knowledge sources; that it will pathologize natural responses to different, perhaps unstable and less wealthy, environments; and “erode kinship-based and indigenous systems of support”.3 However, these feared damages from GMH have to an extent already been incurred through the forces of classical imperialism. The export of 19th-and 20th-century Western understandings of mental illness can be seen, concretely, in the institution of asylums across European empires; these asylums are,

in some cases, still in use today.4 The foundations of many present mental health services outside the West have been “organically linked” to this imperial practice.5 India represents a particularly grave example of this: a burdensome imperial asylum system has been recycled post-independence due to resource scarcity and thus remains the nation’s largest public provider whilst an unregulated private sector fills the gaps for alternatives such as community-based care.6 This formative influence has even been recognised in countries that never directly experienced imperialism directly such as Thailand.7 Thus, if Western approaches to mental health have already had such a defining impact on existing services in many countries, could elements of the GMH movement – particularly its focus on providing community-based services – in fact, help repair some of the damage done by classical imperialism? Rather than reject the GMH movement as simply imperialist, it could be seen as a vehicle for

adapting the systems established by classical imperialism to better serve local communities. For example, affected countries could be aided in moving on from services based on outdated Western practices that have since been disavowed as “ineffective and inhumane” and in violation of the largely post-imperial concept of human rights.8 This would primarily be argued with regard to one of the major aims and ‘Grand Challenges’ of the GMH movement: the provision of effective Community-Based Mental Health Services (CBMHS).9 There is significant consensus that CBMHS are more effective and humane than institutionalisation and thus have been regarded as a necessary forefront of mental health services in the West since the 1970s. Additionally, CBMHS are likely more amenable to “kinship-based and indigenous systems of support” and better able to integrate local knowledge and treatment.10 In this way, communitybased services have the potential to repair some of the epistemological damage of imperialism by facilitating the reintegration of local alternatives to Western treatments. At the very least, they represent a more humane alternative to recycling imperial imports such as asylum-based care. This essay will explore the impact

of classical imperialism on the development of mental health services in four South Asian countries and assess whether this has produced a reliance on an asylum-style system at the expense of alternatives such as CBMHS. The chosen nations – India, Singapore, Thailand and Nepal –embody a range of socio-economic conditions as well as imperial experiences. India and Singapore both experienced direct imperial rule under the British; however, this rule lasted more than a decade longer in Singapore during a vital period of global change following the Second World War. Neither Thailand nor Nepal experienced direct rule within their modern borders; however, Thailand directly sought Western influence in the development of their services from at least the 19th century whilst Nepal was largely uninfluenced until the mid-20th century. This selection of case studies intends to demonstrate how extensively Western influence affected the development of mental health systems in some non-Western countries, even those never directly subjugated by a Western power. From this basis, it is argued that much of the feared epistemological damage of the GMH movement has already been incurred and that some of GMH’s ‘Grand Aims’ should,

in fact, be pursued to remedy this –particularly in countries burdened by mental health institutions based upon outdated Western practices.

India

India has faced a unique set of challenges in providing effective mental health services: it’s not only burdened by poverty, inequality and insufficient resources to fund basic services, but the Indian state also attempts to unite an array of diverse groups with diverse needs, and historic rivalries, across the entire subcontinent that it spans. British imperial rule in India has been a topic of extensive academic interest both in exacerbating the aforementioned challenges and in establishing the foundation for its modern mental health system which continues in poor condition.11 It should be noted that the effectiveness of India’s mental health system does vary across the state, as did the impact of imperial rule, particularly in areas where it was indirect, such as the princely states. Nevertheless, the influence of the British Raj echoed across the subcontinent: for example, on a national level, the 1912 Indian Lunacy Act – an imperial relic – remained India’s guiding mental health legislation until 1987.12

India’s system of asylums was also a direct product of British Raj, which erected the first of these in Calcutta in 1787. 13 Many asylums built under imperial rule are still in use, with some remaining unchanged since.14 Originally, asylum admissions were initiated only by British and, earlier, East India Company officials, but these institutions were later adopted by local communities and families as a means to shift the burden of care of “non-productive members” onto the governing system – a practice that still continues today.15 In the last decades of British rule there were calls to reform this system and to at least raise conditions close to the standards in England. The poor state of India’s asylums was illuminated in 1943 through the findings and recommendations of the Bhore Committee, set up to address these issues.16 However, there were neither the financial resources nor “political inclination” for the British to act on most recommendations, and following India’s independence in 1947 these issues were dwarfed by the demands of state-building following the horror of partition.17 Consequently, India was left with an asylum system, deemed ineffective and inhumane even by the standards of the time, as its major public mental health service.

This system remained the primary public service until the 1970s when Indian psychiatrists sought influence from, and collaborated with, the World Health Organisation and other international institutions, in what they considered to be an essential marker of modernisation.18 Indian psychiatrists also sought training in Western institutions and imported their curricula. However, these new Western practices were then privatised during an era of neoliberal reforms.19 This reportedly poorly regulated private sector has become “the de facto face of community care” whilst the poor majority’s primary access to public mental health care remains the outdated mental hospitals, that are generally avoided “due to their association with custodial care and human rights abuse”.20 In this case, some Indians have returned to older healing practices, but others are still involuntarily admitted by burdened communities and families into hospitals.21 This de facto division of services could potentially produce conceptions of mental health in India that diverge along class lines, with those able to afford private services being socialised into Western ideas whilst poorer people sustain local or imperial knowledge. Overall, British rule in India undoubtedly had a formative effect on its existing

mental health services. The reliance on recycled imperial asylums during a particularly resource-scarce postindependence period appears to have embedded these institutions into India’s public system and community practice – eroding “kinship-based and indigenous systems of support” and contributing to “epistemicide” –whilst CBMHS largely remain a luxury for the minority that can afford it.22 The case of India demonstrates how deeply Western approaches to mental health have already diffused into some non-Western contexts through classical imperialism. Furthermore, it presents a case in which the GMH movement, through its focus on CBMHS provision, could foster the reintegration of local knowledge into the public health system or, at least, support the movement away from outdated Western practices such as asylum care Singapore

Singapore’s imperial experience was significantly different to India’s and has ultimately allowed it to develop a more effective and humane mental health system. For one, Singapore was utilised as a centre for trade rather than primarily an area of extraction,

leaving it in a better economic position post-independence. Additionally, independence wasn’t gained until 1959, more than a decade after India – and thus, Singapore had sufficient time to reap some of the benefits of a changed global context. As a citystate, Singapore is also conceivably more easily governed. The first asylum was built by the British in 1841: though more than fifty years after India’s it had similarly meagre conditions, such as poor sanitation that resulted in high fatality rates.23 However, following World War Two – and a brief period of Japanese rule – the British approached Singapore and its other colonial possessions differently. Decolonisation had become a major concern of the U.S. and the United Nations, established in 1945, and Britain’s power and resources had been damaged by the war; therefore, maintaining an empire was increasingly unfeasible. As a result, Britain had a vested interest in aiding the development of viable institutions in its colonies and establishing good relations, in order to maintain influence and access in various world regions. Thus, during the 1940s and 50s Britain sought to modernise the institutions of the future Singaporean state, including its mental health services.24 This meant a reduction of the role of asylums and

instead a focus on the development of Community Based Mental Health Services (CBMHS).25 Five outpatient clinics were established in Singapore during the 1950s – the first in 1953, six years before self-rule.26 Following independence, Singapore sent future psychiatrists to London for training, and in 1983 received aid from the UK in setting up the state’s first Master of Medicine (Psychiatry) at the National University.27 Through these means, Singapore kept abreast with successive developments and rewrites in the Western mental health system it had inherited. Singapore’s modern mental health services have, like India’s, been based primarily on Western practices imported through classical imperialism; and as such, much of the feared epistemological damage of GMH has already been incurred. However, Singapore’s later decolonisation and more favourable economic conditions have allowed these imported institutions to be better reformed to contemporary standards and for CBMHS to be established as common practice over asylum-based care.28 Thus, Singapore’s mental health services are not only already based on Western practices but also already aligned with significant aims of the GMH movement.

Neither Thailand nor Nepal experienced direct imperial rule within their modern-day borders, however, the development of mental health services in Thailand was heavily influenced by British imperial practices in Singapore. Thailand’s Siamese Kings, reportedly, “pursued an active policy of adopting Western knowledge and techniques” from the mid-19th century.29 This policy adoption coincided with a major enlargement of the asylum system across the British Empire.30 Thailand’s first asylum was built in November 1889 and was inspired by ‘The Lunatic Asylum’ in Singapore, which King Rama V visited in 1871.31 In 2019, Thailand plans to celebrate “one hundred and thirty years of psychiatry” as it dates its inception to the building of this Western-style asylum.32 Before its establishment, Thai treatment of mental illness was based in traditional Siamese medicine such as “local herbs and Thai massage” and only rarely involved custodial-style care.33 Although no other asylums were built until 1937, between 1889 and 1909 detention, along with these traditional medicines, became a “primary treatment method” and reportedly a “Western-influenced administration system was also implemented”. 34

Much as in Singapore, Thai doctors sought training in Western institutions, though much earlier: training began from 1927, with the first course in psychiatry was “devised in 1933”.35 This led Thai doctors to import contemporary Western practices themselves, such as fever therapy in 1937 and later CBMHS. Thailand’s first CBMHS facility opened in 1964, along with a “rehabilitation village” and the introduction of day facilities at its first asylum.36 Thus, though never directly colonised, Thailand’s leaders voluntarily chose to develop their mental health systems in line with the West, based on British practices in South Asia. As this was voluntarily pursued, it continued from its initial base in asylum-centred care to CBMHS and, at least initially, incorporated traditional medicines rather than supplanting them. Like Singapore, Thailand also had the resources to maintain and develop its voluntarily imported services in response to changes in accepted practices; and as a result, its services similarly already align with some of the aims of the GMH movement such as the provision of CBMHS.

Nepal

Unlike in India, Singapore and Thailand, specific services targeting mental health were only officially established in Nepal in the late 20th century – after successive advances in Western approaches to humane and effective treatment. As a result, CBMHS were set up before mental hospitals and remain the primary source of public care.37 Before the first outpatient service was set up in 1961, public services were available only “in a general hospital setting”.38 Nepal’s first mental hospital was established only in 1984, and even then was “organisationally integrated with mental health outpatient facilities”.39 As “the poorest country in South Asia” this development was also likely influenced by Nepal’s practical limitations in resourcing different forms of care.40 This economic situation – along with the 1996- 2006 internal conflict that displaced and killed thousands – has frustrated the development of mental health services across the country.41 The majority of Nepal’s services are centred in its capital, Kathmandu, whilst many of its districts remain without official support. However, this disparity, paired with the delayed development of public services, has meant that “traditional healers and/

or religious leaders [remain] a primary source of mental health treatment”.42 Overall, the absence of direct imperial rule – in combination with economic and political factors – has meant adoption of Western practices in Nepal primarily occurred postdeinstitutionalisation. Thus, CBMHS have been prioritised over mental hospitals and traditional healing practices have survived, remaining a key source of care.

Conclusion

These histories demonstrate how significantly Western understandings of mental health have already influenced the institutions of many non-Western countries through the impacts of classical imperialism, even in countries never directly controlled by a Western power. This foundational influence is seen most clearly in the contrast of India and Nepal’s services: resource scarcity has frustrated the development of mental health services in both countries, however, as Nepal was unburdened by an imperial-asylum system its current public services still embody a mix of modern Western practices and local practices. Conversely, in India poor economic conditions impeded efforts

to move on from an outdated and inhumane asylum system imported under British Raj. Historically, service withdrawal has created new problems: in the West “re-institutionalisation” saw the closure of asylums lead to an increased prison population as ex-patients struggled without care. Therefore, the provision of effective and humane alternatives to inherited imperial systems are necessary. In cases such as India, the push for Global Mental Health could potentially offer a remedy to some of the damage already inflicted by “medical imperialism” if focused on aiding the development of public networks that provide community-based care, even if it cannot reverse the “epistemicide” begun under classical imperialism.43

1. Derek Summerfield, “How scientifically valid is the knowledge base for global mental health?” British Medical Journal 336 no. 7651 (2008): 992-994, at 992; China Mills, “Decolonizing Global Mental Health,” in Decolonizing Global Mental Health: The Psychiatrization of the Majority World (Taylor and Francis Group, 2014), 122-23.

2. Mills, “Decolonizing Global Mental Health,” 123, 128-29.

3. Mills, “Decolonizing Global Mental Health,” 129; Summerfield, “How scientifically valid is the knowledge base for global mental health?” 993.

4. Sanjeev Jain, Alok Sarin, Nadja van Ginneken, Pratima Murthy, Christopher Harding, and Sudipto Chatterjee, “Psychiatry in India: Historical Roots, Development as a Discipline and Contemporary Context,” in Mental Health in Asia and the Pacific, eds. H. Minas and M. Lewis (Springer Science + Business Media: New York, 2017), 54.

5. Jain et al., “Psychiatry in India: Historical Roots,” 41.

6. Saiba Varma, “Disappearing the asylum: Modernizing psychiatry and generating manpower in India,” Transcultural Psychiatry 53 no. 6 (2016): 783-803, at 788.

7. Alex Cohen, “A Brief History of Global Mental Health,” in Global Mental Health: Principles and Practice, eds. Alex Cohen, Harry Minas, Vikram Patel, and Martin J. Prince. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 7.

8. Cohen, “A Brief History of Global Mental Health,” 8.

9. Pamela Y. Collins, Vikram Patel, Sarah S. Joestl, Dana March, Thomas R. Insel, Abdallah S. Daar, Isabel A. Bordin, E. Jane Costello, Maureen Durkin, Christopher Fairburn, et al., “Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health,” Nature 475 no. 7354 (2011): 27-30; Cohen, “A Brief History of Global Mental Health,” 8.

10. Mills, “Decolonizing Global Mental Health,” 129.

11. James Mills, “Modern psychiatry in India: The British role in establishing an Asian system, 1858 – 1947,” International Review of Psychiatry 18 no. 4 (2016): 333-343, at 333.

12. Idem, 334, 343.

13. Idem, 336.

14. Idem, 343.

15. Idem, 341.

16. Jain et al., “Psychiatry in India: Historical Roots,” 42, 44.

17. Ibid.

18. Mills, “Modern psychiatry in India,” 343; Jain et al., “Psychiatry in India: Historical Roots,” 47, 52; Varma, “Disappearing the asylum,” 787.

19. Varma, “Disappearing the asylum,” 788; Ashutosh Varshney, “India’s Democracy at 70: Growth, Inequality and Nationalism,” Journal of Democracy 28 no. 3 (2017): 41-51, at 44-45.

20. Jain et al., “Psychiatry in India: Historical Roots,” 51, 55.

21. Varma, “Disappearing the asylum,” 784.

22. Mills, “Decolonizing Global Mental Health,” 10.

23. Kah Seng Loh, Ee Heok Kua, and Rathi Mahendran, “Mental Health and Psychiatry in Singapore: From Asylum to Community Care,” in Mental Health in Asia and the Pacific, eds. H. Minas and M. Lewis (Springer Science + Business Media: New York, 2017), 196.

24. Idem, 194.

25. Idem, 199.

26. Idem, 199-200.

27. Idem, 201.

28. Idem, 93.

29. Kitikan Thandaudom, Nattakorn Jampathong, and Pichet Udomratn, “One Hundred Thirty Years of Psychiatric Care in Thailand: Past, Present, and Future,” Taiwanese Journal of Psychiatry 32 no. 1 (2018): 9-27, at 10.

30. Sally Swartz, “The Regulation of British Colonial Lunatic Asylums and The Origins of Colonial Psychiatry, 1860–1864,” History of Psychology 13 no. 2 (2010): 160-77; Mills, “Modern psychiatry in India,” 334.

31. Thandaudom, Jampathong, and Udomratn, “Psychiatric Care in Thailand,” 10-11; Loh, Kua, and Mahendran, “Mental Health and Psychiatry in Singapore,” 196.

32. Thandaudom, Jampathong, and Udomratn, “Psychiatric Care in Thailand,” 10-11.

33. Idem, 10.

34. Idem, 11.

35. Idem, 11.

36. Idem, 12.

37. Tapas Kumar Aich, “Contribution of Indian psychiatry in the development of psychiatry in Nepal,” Indian Journal of Psychiatry 52 no. 7 (2010): 76-79, at 76.

38. Aich, “Contribution of Indian psychiatry in the development of psychiatry in Nepal,” 76.

39. Aich, “Contribution of Indian psychiatry in the development of psychiatry in Nepal,” 76. See also: The World Health Organization Assessment Instrument for Mental Health Systems (WHO-AIMS) Report on Mental Health Systems in Nepal (2006), iv.

40. Nagendra P. Luitel, Mark JD Jordans, Anup Adhikari, Nawaraj Upadhaya, Charlotte Hanlon, Crick Lund, and Ivan H Kompro, “Mental Health care in Nepal: current situation and challenges for development of a district mental health care plan,” Conflict and Health 9 no. 3 (2015): 1-11, at 3.

41. Ibid.

42. Luitel et al., “Mental Health care in Nepal,” 5.

43. Summerfield, “How scientifically valid is the knowledge base for global mental health?” 992; Mills, “Decolonizing Global Mental Health,” 122-23.

The Galileo Affair: An Analysis of Bellarmine’s Letter to Foscarini

Bettina Chan

With the invention of the telescope, the ability to observe celestial motion was vastly expanded. Galileo’s observations of celestial bodies provided an exemplar of the far-reaching impact of this expanded view and its demand for new understandings of the cosmos. In Galileo’s view, many of his observations, including the phases of Venus, demanded that Copernicus’ heliocentric system be taken as physical reality. Galileo’s propositions soon grew well beyond mere intellectual speculation and were perceived as threats to religious authority. In 1611, allegations against Galileo began to arise. He was accused of teaching knowledge that contradicted the prevailing interpretation of Holy Scriptures. In response, Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine, a Jesuit, was made responsible for the investigation of Galileo’s publications. He wrote a letter addressed to another cleric and outspoken supporter of the heliocentric system named Foscarini, to elucidate flaws in the Copernican account and to provide arguments against Galileo’s interpretation of the Copernican system1. This article

provides an analysis of Bellarmine’s distinction between Copernican’s theory as a mathematical model and as a description of physical reality. It also discusses how he upheld the authority of the church through rational argumentation while attempting to preserve Galileo’s theories as merely suppositional.

For modern readers, Bellarmine, views might be understood in terms of instrumentalism. Instrumentalism, proposed by Dewey and Popper in the 20th century, is a school of thought that understands scientific theories as useful and suppositional tools, rather than absolutely true descriptions of reality. 2 Instrumentalists hold that theories are only useful in explaining and predicting phenomena3. Similarly, Bellarmine contended that Copernican theories were merely mathematical hypotheses. In the letter, Bellarmine said:

‘For there is no danger in saying that, by assuming the Earth moves and the sun stands still, one saves all of the appearances

better than by postulating eccentrics and epicycles; and that is sufficient for the mathematician. However, it is different to want to affirm that in reality the sun is at the center of the world and only turns on itself, without moving from east to west, and the earth is in the third heaven and revolves with great speed around the sun; this is a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false.’ 4

He drew clear distinctions between wanting to affirm cosmological reality and wanting to formulate mathematical laws to predict observable phenomena. He made reference to Plato’s notion of ‘saving the phenomena’. This might be sufficient for mathematicians like Copernicus because it is plausible to claim that one theory is better than the other in terms of mathematical prediction. Yet, Bellarmine held that this was still rather different from describing reality since one shall have the authority of the Holy Scriptures in mind while considering it. Any case where scriptures were contradicted becomes very dangerous because they were divine and were considered to be infallible but open to fallible interpretation.

Bellarmine adopted an approach such

that cosmological theories should be aligned with Holy Scriptures. The distinction between scriptures and their interpretation is important such that fidelity to the authority of the Church can be maintained. He said:

‘The Council prohibits interpreting Scripture against the common consensus of the Holy Fathers…, you will find all agreeing in the literal interpretation that the sun is in the heavens…’ 5

Part of the reason why Bellarmine insisted that reinterpretation would be rejected was the Protestant Reformation, which had destabilised the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Reinterpretation of the scripture would harm the Church’s credibility and Bellarmine did not want to exacerbate the challenge to Catholic scriptural authority. To strengthen his point, Bellarmine quoted Solomon, who was wise and inspired by God himself, to support his argument: ‘The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.’ 6 It was unreasonable for a man as wise as him to make claims contrary to the truth. Therefore, the church could not tolerate interpretation contrary to the Holy Fathers and commentators because it would be heretical.

Furthermore, to consolidate the

church’s authority with regards to true demonstrations and reason, Bellarmine said:

‘If there were a true demonstration…, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than that what is demonstrated is false.’ 7

Bellarmine did not insist that Galileo abandon Copernicanism outright. Instead, he provided an exception to his claim. He said that if true demonstrations were provided, the church would inevitably re-interpret the scriptures. However, he thought that demonstrations were difficult to provide and in such circumstances, one should follow the interpretation of the Holy Fathers.8 By doing so, Bellarmine was trying to defend reason. As Augustine had it, ‘in [reason] we are made unto the image of God.’

9 He emphasized that the Scriptures were divine, yet their interpretation was human. Thus if reason points towards a reinterpretation, the church would reinterpret the relevant verses to align with new claims.10 Not only did he defend human reason; he also defended the church’s privilege to represent it. Bellarmine, as a church official, set out the requirements for the demonstration himself and

the standards by which it would be satisfied.11 This reasserted the authority of the Catholic Church as the institution able to adjudicate contradictions between scriptural interpretation and philosophical propositions instead of natural philosophers or astronomers like Galileo.

In conclusion, this article has demonstrated Bellarmine’s instrumentalist approach by drawing a distinction between utilising Copernican theories in a mathematical model and them being truly descriptive of reality. The Protestant Reformation played an important role in his approach because it was crucial at this time to uphold the authority of the Catholic Church. Lastly, the article explained why Bellarmine did not reject Galileo immediately by referring to the importance of reasoning to the Church authorities.

1. Ofer Gal, The Birth of Modern Science: Chapter 3. The University of Sydney, 2018.

2. Ibid.

3. Anjan Chakravartty, “Scientific Realism,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/ (Retrieved 8 January 2019).

4. Maurice A Finocchiaro, ed., The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989) .

5. Ibid.

6. Ecclesiastes 1:5 (NIV).

7. Maurice A Finocchiaro, ed., The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

8. Ibid.

9. Ofer Gal, The Birth of Modern Science: Chapter 7. The University of Sydney, 2018.

10. Maurice A Finocchiaro, ed., The Galileo Affair: A Documentary History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989).

11. Ibid

The Raven’s Paradox: Does Context Determine the Relevance of Evidence?

Julian Ubaldi

Inductive reasoning is critical to the practice of current science and so it is necessary to be able to understand just what “evidence” means when it is derived from induction. Often this means translating inductive reasoning into a deductive form, with the addendum that the argument supports, rather than proves, the hypothesis. However, treating an inductive argument with the same kinds of logical constraints as deductive reasoning can result in counter-intuitive claims.

The Raven’s Paradox was first proposed by Carl Hempel in 1945 and highlights some of the problems of inductive reasoning.1 His solution was to accept the paradox’s conclusions and hence widen the scope of what could be considered evidence. In contrast, Peter Godfrey-Smith proposes a more limited account of evidence which additionally considers the experimental context of evidence.2

The basic Raven’s Paradox is as follows. Suppose that after encountering a series of black ravens and no ravens of any other colour, we come up with the

hypothesis that “all ravens are black” (H), or as a conditional statement “if x is a raven, then it is black”. If we are to formalise the argument which links our data to the hypothesis, we end up with a series of “black raven events”, each of which provides some support to the statement “all ravens are black”. We can generalise for a definition of inductive evidence so that observations which are examples of a hypothesis provide support for that hypothesis. However, a paradox occurs when we consider the hypothesis “all non-black things are non-ravens” (H*). This is logically equivalent to H; in any world where H is true, the H* will be as well. This suggests that observations which seem completely unrelated to our subject matter, a white shoe for instance, support H.

While the raven’s paradox may seem strange, it can be resolved simply by accepting this conclusion. White shoes provide evidence for black ravens, but just to an infinitesimally small degree. If we were to check every non-black object and find none of them to be

ravens, then we would have proven that there were no ravens which were not black. So, each non-black object we observe is a very tiny proportion of the counter-examples to H which have been ruled out.

However, Godfrey-Smith outlines a different perspective through an expanded Ravens Paradox.3 In this version of the paradox, we are presented with a hidden object and told either the colour or the type of the object. We are then asked if we would like to see it. Godfrey-Smith suggests from this that whether or not the object will count as support for H will depend on the order in which we learn its properties. If we are given the information that the hidden object is a raven (Situation 1), H can be either true or false, depending on which colour the object is revealed to be. The antecedent is true, so the conditional statement will be true when the consequent is true and false when consequent is false. When we are told that the object is black (Situation 2), the H will be true regardless of whether or not the object turns out to be a raven. The conditional relationship will always be satisfied when the consequent is true.

Godfrey-Smith’s argument goes as follows.4 Suppose that the hidden

object happens to be a black raven. In Situation 1, where we know the object is a raven, we do not know whether the reveal will help or hurt H and so we ask to see it. The raven turning out to be black then supports H. In Situation 2, where we know the object is black, we do not have the possibility of H being refuted and so we need not ask to be shown the object. Thus, the black raven seems to not count as evidence in that context. If we then suppose that the object is a white shoe, being told the object is white or that it is a shoe will similarly change our perspective of the object’s importance. If we are told it is a shoe, we don’t ask to be shown the object. If we are told it is white, we could find a white raven and disprove our theory and so we ask to see what it is. When it turns out to be a shoe, we gain some information which supports H. So, the context determines whether a black raven or a white shoe is evidence for H.

Godfrey-Smith uses this example to make the claim that there is a substantial difference in not just what we learn from the observation but also in the events’ status as experimental. Because the experiment is not set up in a way that could even potentially tell us something about

our hypothesis, the situation, and specifically the object, is irrelevant. The potential paradox is that a black raven is simultaneously supportive and irrelevant to the hypothesis that all ravens are black. The example is used to support the idea that, since you do not need to observe the object in Situation 2, the observation as a whole is irrelevant; in Situation 1, you need to make an observation to determine if it is consistent with H, and hence it is relevant.

This is in my opinion a source of the structural error in the proposed paradox. It is not that the hidden object itself does not matter when you are told that the object is black, but that the given information is sufficient to satisfy the conditional relationship and so the type of the object does not matter. The question “would you like to see the object” is useful only as a demarcation of the information that is necessary in order to determine whether H is true or false. That is, you only need to observe data in which either the antecedent, ‘the object is a raven’ is true, or the consequent ‘the object is black’ is false. This is merely a matter of which cases need to be observed, not indications of which different cases are relevant evidence for H. The paradox occurs as a result of conflating the terms “evidence”

and “observation”.

I would argue that the necessity of checking the truth value of the unknown variable is not a determining factor in providing relevance as evidence. In the case where the object is indeed a black raven, there is the same amount of support given to H in either scenario. Not observing the colour of the object is in some ways simply skipping a step because all the relevant data has already been gathered to know whether the conditional relationship will be satisfied. To say that the relevant data has been gathered does not thereby mean that the event as a whole is irrelevant or offers no evidence. The relevance of the raven being black is not changed by the order in which you discover the quality of the object ‘being a raven’ and ‘being black’. Instead, all that is changed is the data which is necessary to determine if the conditional relationship is satisfied.

This returns us to the original problem of the raven paradox: inductive reasoning is conceptually weakened when support for a hypothesis can come from evidence that seems to be unrelated. An approach to this problem is to say that the only meaningful data is the case where a

hypothesis is falsified. That is to say, no support is given to a hypothesis when observations are consistent with expectations, but it can be proven to be false if observations are inconsistent with the hypothesis. The paradox is resolved by stating that none of the examples provide support for the hypothesis. However, under this definition, there are only false hypotheses and an infinite supply of equally likely ‘possible’ hypotheses. Why should we believe a tested and as yet unfalsified theory over an untested one? This seems to be an unsatisfactory solution as it prevents any practical or predictive usage of inductive reasoning.

I argue that the most effective method of resolving this paradox, while retaining the practical applications of inductive reasoning, is to restrict inductive support to cases in which the antecedent is true. When approaching inductive arguments in the conditional form, cases where the antecedent is false are informationally empty with respect to the hypothesis. This change means that “all ravens are black” is no longer logically equivalent to “all nonblack things are non-ravens”. From this, the paradox is resolved, as we have a definition of “evidence” which requires the hypothesis to be directly demonstrated.

References

1. Carl G. Hempel, “Studies in the Logic of Confirmation,” Mind 54 no. 213 (1945): 1-26.

2. Peter Godfrey-Smith, Theory and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of science. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

3. Godfrey-Smith, 48.

4. Godfrey-Smith, 48.

Mental Health Interventions in Aboriginal Communities: Suicide in The Tiwi Islands

Pola Cohen

Aboriginal peoples largely agree that suicide was unheard of in Australia prior to colonisation.1 However, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people now commit suicide at twice the rate of the general population.2 In the Tiwi Islands – located 80km north of Darwin in the Northern Territory – suicide did not exist prior to 1989.3 However, by the turn of the 21st century, suicide was epidemic in Tiwi, peaking in 2002 when 10 people in a population of under 2000 committed suicide. This raises several important questions. What precipitated the emergence of suicide on the islands? Why did it reach such epidemic proportions? What factors contributed to ending the epidemic –and in particular, what role did mental health professionals play? Colin Tatz argues that Aboriginal suicide, unlike non-Indigenous suicide, has little to do with the Western concept of mental illness.4 He asserts that to understand it according to an individualistic medical model is to disregard significant contextual factors, effectively perpetuating the problem rather than dealing with

its sociohistorical causes. This essay therefore tries to re-contextualise Aboriginal suicide without imposing Western assumptions. I will first summarise the history of the islands, in order to place the epidemic in context, before analysing the epidemic itself and the varying measures which are credited with reducing the suicide rate. It appears that suicide became a way of escaping culturally unintelligible problems for Tiwi people, and was particularly related to alcohol consumption rather than to diagnosable mental illness, with the possible exception of substance abuse disorders. Interventions which reduced violence and access to alcohol, restored pride in identity, and focused on the community as a whole proved most effective. Ultimately, the Tiwi people themselves understood the problem and its solution, which had to take shape within their cultural framework rather than through replication of Western mental health structures.

Before examining the suicide epidemic

itself, it is necessary to situate it within the historical context of colonisation in the Tiwi Islands. Tiwi people have inhabited Bathurst and Melville Islands for 15,000 to 20,000 years, defending their lands against Macassans, mainland Aboriginal peoples and Europeans until the late 19th century, when Europeans began to take over parts of the islands.5 Tiwi people live according to a rich and complex culture, involving Skin Groups (passed down through the mother) and connection to land (passed down through the father). This culture is communal, placing huge importance on connection to land and to community. Prior to colonisation, different land groups belonged to and lived in different parts of the Islands, but Tiwi remained one people with one language. In 1911, however, a Catholic mission was established on Bathurst Island.6 Father Gsell, the Mission’s head, Christianised the community by buying marriage rights to young girls (who would otherwise be placed into polygamous relationships with older men), raising them as Catholics on the Mission’s premises, and only allowing them to enter monogamous Christian marriages with Tiwi men. This induced other Tiwi people to move to the Mission, particularly as flour, sugar and tea were given out in return for labour. Education became Westernised. A second

Mission at Garden Point, established in 1940, included an orphanage for mixed-descent (often Tiwi–Japanese) children, whose existence was seen as a threat to the White Australia Policy aims of preventing Asian immigration and ‘breeding out the colour’ in Aboriginal communities. After WWII, other mixed-descent children were also brought to this Mission: these children were part of the Stolen Generations, a deliberate attempt to erode Aboriginal cultures which has generated intergenerational trauma in Tiwi and across other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.7 During the ‘Mission days’, Tiwi lifestyle, diet, education, religion and marital customs thus underwent a significant transformation.8 The 1967 referendum, which resulted in the inclusion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the census, also engendered broad social change on the Tiwi Islands, as inhabitants were no longer wards of the state. Significantly, this allowed a social club to open on Bathurst Island, which introduced alcohol to the community.9 Norris et al. describe the changes in psychiatric care prior to the suicide epidemic: from the 1980s, care was provided at Darwin Hospital, with visits from a psychiatric nurse beginning in 1986.10 By the 1990s, the communities were

experiencing growing rates of alcoholrelated violence, cannabis use, and kidney disease.11 It was against this background of cultural rupture that suicides began to occur on the islands.

Fifty Tiwi people committed suicide between 1985 and 2010, peaking at 10 suicides in 2002 out of a population of under 2000 people.12 Of these 50 dead, 47 were men. Hanssens’ chronology of the 38 suicides between 1989 and 2008 reveals that 28 suicides were linked to alcohol use, 21 to cannabis use, and 18 to domestic disputes.13 Of the 38 people who committed suicide in this period, 9 had previously attempted and only 7 had a mental health diagnosis or previous experience of psychosis. This may support Tatz’s thesis that “it is impossible, unreasonable and immoral to maintain ‘mental illness’ as the key causation in Aboriginal suicide.”14 He argues that pathologising suicidal Aboriginals is a way of explaining socially unacceptable behaviour within a Western biomedical psychiatric framework, rather than considering the social and historical factors that make suicide seem a rational choice in a given situation. So, what circumstances precipitated Tiwi individuals’ choice to suicide? As mentioned, the most common factor appears to be alcohol intoxication or a history of alcohol abuse. In at least one other Aboriginal

community, a significant increase in suicide rates occurred 20–30 years after the introduction of alcohol.15 This means that the young adults in the community – those most likely to complete suicide – had been exposed to alcohol-fuelled violence and cultural disruption since early childhood.16 Generally, Aboriginal people who have completed suicide are also far less likely to have sought help for alcohol abuse problems than non-Aboriginal people who have completed suicide.17 Given the relationship between alcohol and suicide in Tiwi, this lack of help-seeking behaviour for alcohol abuse problems may have exacerbated the suicide epidemic. Substance abuse in Aboriginal communities is arguably the legacy of colonisation, disempowerment and cultural fracturing – as Tatz suggests, harmful substance use may reflect “a preference for obliteration rather than life” among Aboriginal youth due to social circumstances.18 Therefore, it may be useful to understand both alcohol intoxication and suicide (and, for that matter, harmful cannabis use) as deliberate acts of self-destruction.

As Hanssens also found, many suicides followed domestic disputes or relationship problems, particularly in the context of alcohol intoxication.19

Several suicides occurred directly after violence towards a partner, perhaps in response to feelings of depression or remorse.20 Other cases suggest that cultural and familial responsibilities were implicated in the person’s decision to end their own life. For example, one young man committed suicide following a family argument over his failure to raise funds to attend a funeral. Funerary rites are a significant part of Tiwi culture, and the man was worried about the consequences of his absence from the ritual.21 However, in this particular case the young man had previously attempted several days earlier and had a history of cannabisinduced psychosis. Nevertheless, it appears that shame and anger over his inability to meet cultural obligations was the catalyst for his second, completed attempt. Aboriginal Mental Health Worker (AMHW) Apuatami suggested that in such cases, suicide was a “way for [Tiwi] people to deal with their problems.”22 She noted the propensity for men to threaten suicide in the midst of conflict, as a solution to volatile situations. A lack of culturally intelligible means for dealing with the negative consequences of Western influence leaves no cultural coping mechanisms for distress, with suicide as the only way out. Thus, suicide was seen as a rational solution to inescapable problems, rather than

being the consequence of severe mental illness.

Reviewing Tiwi suicides up to 1998, Parker and Ben-Tovim noticed similarities between suicides in terms of temporal and geographical proximity, as well as method.23 Hanssens terms these “suicide clusters,” and notes the emergence of “echo clusters,” which are “subsequent but distinct clusters of suicide emerging after an initial cluster of suicide.”24 The first example of suicide contagion – that is, suicidality seemingly being passed on – occurred in 1998, when two apparently unrelated suicides occurred within 24 hours, with a further two suicides in the following three months. The first two suicides were both by hanging – a method almost universal amongst the suicides discussed in this paper. The third was by falling from a power pole, which, Hanssens argues, was later emulated in “copycat” suicides.25 The suicide of an Aboriginal Mental Health Worker whose brother had committed suicide two years earlier is suggestive of familial contagion, whilst several suicides directly referenced previous deaths –for example, one man suggested that a previous suicide was due to “woman troubles” before hanging himself after a domestic violence incident.26 A cluster in 2004–5 sheds further light

on this phenomenon. A SistaGirl –Tiwi transgender woman – committed suicide in November 2004, apparently because of feeling discriminated against due to her sexuality and gender identity. One year later, her cousin, another SistaGirl, also committed suicide after telling a friend that she “wanted to be like her cousin” [Note: pronouns here have been changed from Hanssens’ article in order to respect the preferred gender identity of the SistaGirls]. Another SistaGirl suicided in the same month, also due to feeling socially vilified. All three suicides were by hanging.27 None of these SistaGirls had a psychiatric diagnosis, and only one had previously attempted suicide (by jumping from a power pole). Yet all three chose to end their own lives in response to feelings of exclusion because of their gender identity, and at least one of the victims directly referenced another. Hanssens sees these clusters as evidence that Tiwi suicide is about dealing with culturally-unsolvable problems or communicating deep distress.28 Methods of problem-solving are learned and emulated, even when –like suicide, or substance abuse – they don’t effectively deal with the root of the problem, but merely appear to offer a way out. This corroborates Tatz’s thesis that Aboriginal suicide isn’t necessarily a mental health issue

and can’t be understood through a Western psychiatric lens. The meaning of suicide is culturally contingent.29

I now turn to the role of mental health professionals in dealing with the suicide epidemic, and particularly the significance of Aboriginal Mental Health Workers. In most Aboriginal communities, mental illness is understood in a holistic way, related to the land, the community, and sociocultural wellbeing.30 As such, there is a tendency for Aboriginal people to enter the ‘mainstream’ (Western) mental healthcare system only in severe cases that cannot be dealt with by the community. Sveticic et al. corroborate this, noting that “many Indigenous people feel that Western models of treatment do not take account of their holistic beliefs about health and mental illness.”31

Mental health services’ response to the suicide epidemic therefore needed to be appropriate to Tiwi culture and beliefs. Hence, from 1995, Aboriginal Mental Health Workers (AMHWs) became the primary responders to mental health cases in the Tiwi communities, working with the visiting psychiatric nurse.32 However, AMHWs are expected to respond to emergencies at any time, and at the height of the epidemic the stress of

this position contributed to the suicide of one AMHW, whilst another person about to complete their training also committed suicide (though there is no strong evidence that the AMHW position contributed to their becoming suicidal). As a consequence, a support network of medical staff and visiting psychiatric workers was developed for the AMHWs under the Tiwi Health Service, and no AMHW was left to work independently.33 Yet even with Aboriginal workers, the implementation of an intervention based on Western mental health concepts proved problematic. Tiwi culture has highly complex rules regarding interpersonal relationships, particularly relationships between genders and in terms of power hierarchies. AMHWs working within their own community may be unable to relate to others in certain ways, based on their cultural relationship to that individual. Equally, people seeking help may not feel comfortable contacting healthcare workers who are members of their family.34 However, Norris et al. praise the effectiveness of the Tiwi Health Service’s suicide prevention program in decreasing suicide rates after 2002.35 They note the role of AMHWs in encouraging community members to participate in Strong Men’s and Women’s meetings, effectively a form of social governance

which enables the community to work through problems. The support provided to those with a psychiatric diagnosis, including provision of medication, counselling, and assistance with financial management, is further commended. As a part of the program, a full-time psychiatric nurse was also employed in the Tiwi community to support the AMHWs.36 Norris et al. conclude that the strengths of this intervention were due to its focus on community psychosocial wellbeing, based on a Tiwi understanding of mental health.37

Several other scholars also point to the importance of interventions that are culturally appropriate and communityled. Hanssens, for example, notes that the community, councils and police consistently saw alcohol as one of the key causal factors in the suicide epidemic and had been requesting alcohol restrictions for several years.38 As a result, both Islands were Alcohol Restricted Areas by 2004, with the restrictions justified in terms of the impact of alcohol on mental and physical health.39 Changes to policing also made an important difference – introducing nonIndigenous police officers (where previously the community only had Aboriginal Community Officers)

meant that authorities could intervene in outbreaks of violence without contravening cultural relationships. Infrastructural changes, advocated for by the community, had further impact – Ridani et al. observe that fences were placed around power poles to prevent climbing, alongside the increased police presence and restricted access to alcohol.40 But the clearest example of the importance of culturally-appropriate mental healthcare is the Wurrumiyanga Well Being Centre, located in the largest community on Bathurst Island. The Well Being Centre, a community initiative, focuses on positive mental health rather than sickness, and services combine Western and Tiwi knowledges.41 Treatment is not limited to medication, but also includes taking clients out on Country – on their traditional lands – where they can reconnect with the land, their culture, and their identity.42 One AMHW, Danny Munkara, explains that “the bush is like a medicine for us… we feel good in the bush… like freedom.”43 Engaging in cultural practices directly alleviates symptoms. As psychiatric nurse Julie Hughes concludes, mental illness “can be managed in a lot of ways, rather than a medical model.” Holistic, culturally appropriate healthcare which incorporates Tiwi understandings of mental wellbeing is

key for an effective intervention.

Mental health frameworks and treatments are culturally contingent, and are vulnerable to failure when imposed upon a different cultural group. In the Tiwi Islands, a century of cultural disruption and rapid change meant that people were facing problems which couldn’t be easily understood within traditional ways of thinking. Suicides became a way out of seemingly hopeless situations, emulated by other community members suffering from the same worries. But dealing with these troubles by reconnecting with culture and using Tiwi frameworks to understand mental distress has proved effective. Interventions which listened to the community and responded to their concerns and recommendations lowered the suicide rate and – through the Well Being Centre – took steps towards cultural healing. The Tiwi Islands thus exemplify the importance of tailoring mental healthcare to community needs and cultural structures when working in Aboriginal communities. To impose a Western mental healthcare system onto Indigenous peoples is to continue the colonialist practices from which these problems originate.

1. Glenn Norris, Robert Parker, Carol Beaver, and Jude van Konkelenberg, “Addressing Aboriginal Mental Health Issues on the Tiwi Islands,” Australasian Psychiatry 15 no. 4 (2007): 310–14.

2. Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Main Features - Intentional Self-Harm in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People,” September 27, 2017, http://www. abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/3303.0~2016~Main%20 Features~Intentional%20self-harm%20in%20Aboriginal%20and%20Torres%20 Strait%20Islander%20people~8.

3. Leonore Hanssens, “Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into Suicide in Australia 2009,” accessed February 19, 2013.

4. Colin Tatz, Aboriginal Suicide Is Different: A Portrait of Life and Self-Destruction (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2005).

5. Griffith University, “Bathurst Island Mission 1911-1938-1978,” German Missionaries in Australia, accessed 17 April 2018, http://missionaries.griffith.edu.au/mission/ bathurst-island-mission-1911-1938-1978.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Wendy E. Hoy, Susan Anne Mott, and Beverly June McLeod, “Transformation of Mortality in a Remote Australian Aboriginal Community: A Retrospective Observational Study,” BMJ Open 7 no. 8 (2017) at doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016094.

9. Ibid.

10. Norris et al., “Addressing Aboriginal Mental Health Issues on the Tiwi Islands.”

11. Hanssens, “Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into Suicide in Australia 2009”; Hoy, Mott, and McLeod, “Transformation of Mortality in a Remote Australian Aboriginal Community.”

12. Hanssens, “Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into Suicide in Australia 2009”; Hoy, Mott, and McLeod, “Transformation of Mortality in a Remote Australian Aboriginal Community.”

13. Hanssens, “Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into Suicide in Australia 2009.”

14. Tatz, Aboriginal Suicide Is Different.

15. Ben-Tovim, “A Study of Factors Affecting Suicide in Aboriginal and ‘Other’ Populations in the Top End of the Northern Territory through an Audit of Coronial Records,” Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 36 no. 3 (2002): 404–10.

16. bid.

17. Jerneja Sveticic, Allison Milner, and Diego De Leo, “Contacts with Mental Health Services before Suicide: A Comparison of Indigenous with Non-Indigenous Australians,” General Hospital Psychiatry 34 no. 2 (2012): 185–91.

18. Tatz, Aboriginal Suicide Is Different.

19. Hanssens, “Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into Suicide in Australia 2009.”

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid.

23. Parker and Ben-Tovim, “A Study of Factors Affecting Suicide in Aboriginal and ‘Other’ Populations in the Top End of the Northern Territory through an Audit of Coronial Records.”

24. Hanssens, “Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into Suicide in Australia 2009.”

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid.

29. Tatz, Aboriginal Suicide Is Different.

30. Anton Neville Isaacs, Priscilla Pyett, Mark A. Oakley-Browne, Hilton Gruis, and Peter Waples-Crowe, “Barriers and Facilitators to the Utilization of Adult Mental Health Services by Australia’s Indigenous People: Seeking a Way Forward,” International Journal of Mental Health Nursing 19 no. 2 (2010): 75–82.

31. Sveticic, Milner, and De Leo, “Contacts with Mental Health Services before Suicide.”

32. Hanssens, “Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into Suicide in Australia 2009.”

33. Norris et al., “Addressing Aboriginal Mental Health Issues on the Tiwi Islands.”

34. Isaacs et al., “Barriers and Facilitators to the Utilization of Adult Mental Health Services by Australia’s Indigenous People.”

35. Norris et al., “Addressing Aboriginal Mental Health Issues on the Tiwi Islands.”

36. Rebecca Ridani, Fiona L. Shand, Helen Christensen, Kathryn McKay, Joe Tighe, Jane Burns, and Ernest Hunter, “Suicide Prevention in Australian Aboriginal Communities: A Review of Past and Present Programs,” Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior 45 no. 1 (2015): 111-140.

37. Norris et al., “Addressing Aboriginal Mental Health Issues on the Tiwi Islands.”

38. Hanssens, “Submission to the Senate Community Affairs Committee Inquiry into Suicide in Australia 2009.”

39. “Tiwi Islands Restricted Area VIII,” accessed April 21, 2018, https://webcache. googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:uegRdxRmuVkJ:https://justice.nt.gov. au/__data/assets/word_doc/0003/252579/040712_Tiwi_Islands_Restricted_ Area_VIII.docx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au.

40. Ridani et al., “Suicide Prevention in Australian Aboriginal Communities.”

41. Department of Social Services, Australian Government, Wurrimiyanga’s (Nguiu) Holistic Approach to Mental Health, accessed April 14, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=jQWqBWy8HRE.

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

Is psychology really a science? A critical examination of the ongoing use of significance tests in psychology.

Roanna Vohralik

Significance testing involves testing a substantive theory through comparison of two different groups, which is the dominant practice of statistical inference within psychology. This is done through the construction of a null hypothesis of no experimental effect in the population (H0) and a contrasting alternative hypothesis of an experimental effect (H1), also known as null hypothesis significance testing (NHST).1 Specifically, this procedure entails the researcher’s decision to either reject or accept the null hypothesis depending on whether the value of the sample statistic, derived from an experimental process, is within a prespecified “rejection region” of its possible values.2 In this paper I will firstly explicate the various logical and methodological flaws in significance testing and will secondly examine the underlying reasons for the perpetuation of significance testing despite such faults. Specifically, I will show that significance tests embody a false probabilistic modus tollens logic and a confusion of inverse probabilities, resulting in numerous erroneous

implications and misconceptions. Further, a comparison with confidence intervals, which are often postulated as an alternative approach to NHST, will illustrate the shared flawed logic upon which significance tests are frequently misinterpreted. Finally, I will argue that the ongoing use of significance tests are partially attributable to the role of external factors, and inadequate American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines.

The flawed logic of significance testing

To begin, significance tests in psychology are based on false logic. The valid modus tollens logic involves denying the antecedent by denying the consequent: If A, then B. Not B. Therefore, not A. However, this has been translated into probabilistic terms for the purpose of null hypothesis rejection3. Specifically, the syllogistic reasoning is invalidated by assigning a probabilistic, rather than an

absolute, quality to the major premise in order to increase its sensibility, resulting in an insensible conclusion4. Likewise, NHST, which is the process of falsifying the null hypothesis in order to conclude that its logical contradictory is true, also becomes erroneous5. Such misemployment of deductive syllogistic reasoning is evident in significance tests in the following way:

If the null hypothesis is correct, then this result is highly unlikely. This result has occurred. Therefore, the null hypothesis is highly unlikely6.

Similarly, Falk and Greenbaum7 labelled this logical error (i.e. misinterpreting the null hypothesis as improbable after obtaining a significant result) as the ‘illusion of probabilistic proof by attaining improbability’. Specifically, a low probability of the data (D) arising if H0 were true, expressed statistically as P(D|H0), does not indicate a low probability that H0 is true given the data, expressed statistically as P(H0|D), and therefore the rejection of H0 is not permitted. In other words, a conditional probability represents the likelihood of event B occurring given the occurrence of event A; however, it is false to conclude that the improbability of a conditioning hypothesis can be implied from obtaining data in an area containing

a low conditional probability under the given hypothesis8. Thus, applying a probabilistic form of modus tollens logic to significance tests in psychology is highly problematic9.

Furthermore, significance testing in psychology often relies on the flawed assumption that the two inverse conditional probabilities are equal, known as ‘confusion of the inverse’.10 Cohen argued that a significance test reveals P(D|H0), whereby it can be concluded that D is unlikely and H0 is true if a low probability is found.11 However, the significance test does not provide the inverse probability, P(H0|D), which is the information required in order to attempt to reject the null hypothesis. Lambdin demonstrated the foolishness of confusing P(D|H0) with P(H0|D) through an example: clearly, the probability of an abused child experiencing nightmares, P(N|A), is not equivalent to the probability that a child who experiences nightmares is abused, P(A|N).12 Lastly, Rozeboom denounced psychological significance testing for being a non-inferential method unfit for science, as even a highly improbable observation under the hypothesis is treated as confirmatory as long as its likelihood under the alternative hypotheses is even smaller.13 As a result, the statistical method fails to

move towards calculating the probability of the hypothesis given the observation. Therefore, the failed attempt of NHST to determine the odds of the null hypothesis being true emphasises the inadequacy of NHST for psychological significance testing14. This is particularly concerning given that NHST is the prevailing practice across multiple scientific domains, such as psychology and biomedical science, yet is still widely misinterpreted and exclusively taught to undergraduate students.15

Problems arising from the fundamental flaws of significance testing

Additionally, there are a number of fundamental issues stemming from the aforementioned misconceptions regarding the illusion of improbability and confusion of the inverse. First, despite popular belief, it is incorrect to assume that after a successful H0 rejection, there is also a high likelihood of research replications resulting in rejection of the H0. 16 In fact, after five replications, it is estimated that there is only a 50:50 chance that three of them would be significant.17 Second, it is erroneously believed that the psychological theory under examination can be corroborated if the H0 is rejected. In actuality, H0 rejection may

be attributable to the falsity of various auxiliary theories with which the H0 simultaneously operates, as well as or instead of the substantive theory upon which the research is based.18 Similarly, Lambdin asserted that P(D|H0) does not imply the probability of the alternative hypothesis given the data, P(H1|D).19 However, misinformed scientists frequently extrapolate this common misconception to infer that H0 rejection indicates that the treatment is causing an effect, despite there being many reasons as to why a difference between group means could be found.20 Therefore, the failure of replication and incorrect conclusions regarding the substantive theory evidence the flawed understandings arising from psychological significance testing.

A major misconception about the meaning of p-values additionally undermines the validity of significance tests. This is known as the oddsagainst-chance fallacy which involves interpreting the p-value as the probability that the results are due to chance.21 It is ubiquitously yet falsely believed by scientists that a significant result, depicted through a p-value of .05, means it has odds of 5 out of 100 of occurring due to chance.22 However, since a p-value is the probability of obtaining the research results, whilst assuming that the null

hypothesis is true in the population, it is not possible for the p-value to be the probability that the mean difference, in this case, between the researched groups was due to chance.23 Therefore, a p-value cannot inform the researcher about the odds that their results are due to chance, as it is calculated based on the belief that the probability is 100%. That is, a p-value can only be used to inform the researcher about the odds of their results given that they, in fact, occurred due to chance.24 Hence, the ongoing use of significance testing in psychology is underpinned by flawed understandings of the meaning of statistical terms.

A brief comparison of NHST with confidence intervals: Are confidence intervals an appropriate alternative?

It has been postulated that researchers should adopt the use of confidence intervals in interpreting significant results within psychology; however, confidence intervals merely endorse the same flawed logic pertaining to null hypothesis rejection embedded within NHST. A confidence interval is a specified interval containing the population parameter a certain number of times (usually 95% of the time) across randomly drawn population samples, and it is constructed on the foundation of significance testing.25

As a scholar who endeavours to reform scientific research, Cumming recommended reporting confidence intervals due to their provision of precise estimation of the experimental hypothesis in terms of an interval estimate around the point estimate.26 This results in the higher likelihood of making a correct interpretation of the research results, unlike the p-value. Although a number of confidence interval interpretations are suggested, it is disconcerting that Cumming still elucidated the relationship between confidence intervals and NHST; specifically, Cumming states that the H0 is rejected if a null value (expressed as μ0) falls outside the confidence interval, as the p-value would be less than the accepted .05 cut-off.27

Hence, it is often argued that confidence intervals reflect the same logical form as NHST, despite misconceptions that providing the range the parameter should be, rather than, should not be, circumvents NHST logic.28 Specifically, Grayson proposed that the oddsagainst-chance fallacy re-emerges in the context of confidence intervals: issues of evidential inference and probability are illustrated through the understanding that 95% confidence intervals include the estimated population parameter 95% of the

time in repeated samples.29 Moreover, Abelson contended that confidence intervals invite width changes in order to include the zero point to thereby reject the H0, such as from 95% confidence limits to 93% limits, which is essentially equivalent to using a cut-off level of .07 instead of .05.30 Thus, criticisms of confidence interval usage are valuable in elucidating the shared flawed logic also underpinning significance tests. Whilst other alternatives to NHST have been suggested, such as effectsize analyses and meta-analyses, these too are controvertible and further underscore the current methodological and unresolved dispute confronting psychology, and more broadly, science.31

External reasons for the ongoing use of flawed significance testing in psychology

Moreover, it is important to recognise the role of extrinsic factors in perpetuating the ongoing use of significance testing in psychology, despite such fundamental flaws. Firstly, significance testing has become a ritualised practice due to its ubiquity in psychology education and research, resulting in the succumbing to social pressures in order to circumvent cognitive dissonance of deviating from the norm.32 Specifically, the use of significance tests is reinforced through

their centrality in university courses, exposing students to the social-academic atmosphere endorsing hypothesistesting. Moreover, academic publication is frequently dependent on complying with journal editors’ requirements of significant results reported in terms of low p-values, resulting in an omnipresent tokenistic perception of p-values.33 Secondly, the odds-againstchance fallacy is largely encouraged by journals, statistics textbooks, and undergraduate statistics discourses, and the entrenchment of NHST is partially attributed to the seductive attraction of declaring ‘statistical significance’ in the results section which falsely becomes translated to ‘significant’ in the discussion.34 Thirdly, Meehl posited that minimal mathematics education of psychology majors contributes to poor understandings of quantitative concepts, as opposed to the expectation that Physics students understand complex formulas and proofs of theorems, as mathematical knowledge is considered vital for understanding logic.35 Perhaps a lacking emphasis on mathematical and quantitative concepts is the reason why self-criticism is absent amongst psychologists in regard to the illusion of attaining significance through probability.36 Therefore, multiple external factors are responsible for the continued yet incorrect use of

significance tests in psychology.

Further, the APA has substantially contributed to the ongoing use of NHST in psychology. For example, the 1983 APA Manual on research guidelines provided uncomprehensive definitions of significance level and probability level, and little advice was given on how to interpret data and NHST results.37 Additionally, the 1994 APA Manual did not reform previous editions, as there remained a strong focus on NHST without any indication of its misconceptions, such as a lack of cautioning about the confusion of the terms ‘significant’ and ‘statistically significant’.38 Therefore, the APA Manuals solely endorsed NHST as the method of analysis, with minimal indication of its problems. Further still, the Task Force on Statistical Inference (TFSI) was formed in 1996 in response to the NHST debate in order to stipulate principles of statistical practice; however, despite efforts to include such recommendations in the 2001 APA Manual, it failed to include detailed TFSI proposals and examples of confidence interval use, thereby preserving the accustomed use of NHST.39 Consequentially, APA Manuals have functioned as a socialisation device encouraging quantitative information (e.g. p-values) within significance testing in psychology that are often avoided in

other disciplines, such as Biomedicine, which circumvents sole reliance on NHST. Thus, the APA’s strong emphasis on NHST has majorly propelled the ongoing influence of significance testing in psychology.

Concluding remarks

In conclusion, the ongoing use of significance tests in psychology is fundamentally problematic. This is due to the erroneous logical assumptions which underlie NHST, resulting in frequent logistically impossible conclusions regarding empirical research data. Furthermore, in spite of such illegitimate grounds, significance tests have remained as the most ubiquitous and ritualised practice within psychological research, most likely due to the endorsement of NHST in APA Manuals and its centrality within educational contexts. Thus, psychology would benefit from methodological reform, perhaps through endorsing the successes within other domains, in order to improve its credibility and validity in science. Further critical evaluation of appropriate alternatives, such as the use of confidence intervals, effect size comparisons and meta-analyses are therefore essential to the cogency of scientific practice within psychology.

1. Ruma Falk and Charles W. Greenbaum, “Significance tests die hard,” Theory & Psychology 5 (1995): 75-98.

2. William W. Rozeboom, “The fallacy of the null-hypothesis significance test,” Psychological Bulletin 57 (1960): 416-428.

3. Jacob Cohen, “The earth is round (p<0.05),” American Psychologist 49 (1994): 997-1003.

4. Ibid.

5. Raymond S Nickerson, “Null hypothesis significance testing: a review of an old and continuing controversy,” Psychological Methods 5 no. 2 (2000): 241-301.

6. Ibid.

7. Falk and Greenbaum, “Significance tests die hard.”

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Cohen, “The earth is round (p<0.05).”

11. Charles Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery: Science is empirical – significance tests are not”, Theory & Psychology 22 (2012): 67-90.

12. Rozeboom, “The fallacy of the null-hypothesis significance test.”

13. Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery.”

14. Denes Szucs and John Ioannidis, “When null hypothesis significance testing is unsuitable for research: a reassessment,” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 11 (2017) at doi: 10.3389/ fnhum.2017.00390.

15. Cohen, “The earth is round (p<0.05).”

16. R. Rosenthal, “Cumulating evidence,” in A handbook for data analysis in the behavioral sciences: Methodological issues, eds. G. Keren & C. Lewis (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaumas, 1993). Cited in Cohen, “The earth is round (p<0.05).”

17. Cohen, “The earth is round (p<0.05).”

18. Paul. E Meehl, “Theory testing in psychology and physics: A methodological paradox,” Philosophy of Science 34 (1967): 103-115. See also: Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery.” It is worth noting the similarity of this common misconception to the Duhem-Quine thesis, also known as the underdetermination of scientific theory. This thesis postulates that inferences

cannot be made based on the experimental results stemming from a single hypothesis; but rather, a comprehensive consideration of other hypotheses, beliefs and assumptions is required. See Kyle Stanford, “Underdetermination of Scientific Theory,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford. edu/archives/win2017/entries/scientific-underdetermination.

19. Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery.”

20. Ronald P. Carver, “The case against statistical significance testing,” Harvard Educational Review 4 (1978): 378-399.

21. Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery.”

22. Ibid.

23. 25 Carver, “The case against statistical significance testing.”

24. 26 Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery.”

25. 27 D. A. Grayson, “The frequentist façade and the flight from evidential inference,” British Journal of Psychology 89 (1998): 325-345. See also: Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery.”

26. 29 Geoff Cumming, “The new statistics: Why and how”, Psychological Science 25 (2014): 7-29.

27. 30 Ibid.

28. 31 Richard L. Hagen, “In praise of the null hypothesis statistical test,” American Psychologist 52 (1997): 15-24.

29. 32 Grayson, “The frequentist façade and the flight from evidential inference.”

30. 33 Robert P. Abelson, “On the surprising longevity of flogged horses: why there is a case for the significance test,” Psychological Science 8 (1997): 12-15.

31. 34 Cumming, “The new statistics.”

32. 35 Falk and Greenbaum, “Significance tests die hard”; Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery.”

33. 37 Falk and Greenbaum, “Significance tests die hard.”

34. 38 Cumming, “The new statistics”; Lambdin, “Significant tests as sorcery.”

35. 40 Meehl, “Theory testing in psychology and physics.”

36. 41 Falk and Greenbaum, “Significance tests die hard.”

37. Sue Finch, Neil Thomason and Geoff Cumming, “Past and future American Psychological Association guidelines for statistical practice,” Theory & Psychology 12 (2002): 825-853.

38. 43 Idem, 835.

39. 44 Idem, 825-853.

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