How I Started Living a Double Life in Psychological Science

My personal history as an applied cognitive psychology researcher is short, dating 15 years back when I became aware of the field of eyewitness psychology, hitherto neglected in Norway. This short paper describes the development of eyewitness psychology in Norway, which, not accidentally, parallels the development of my own interests in this important field of applied cognitive psychology. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

《科学与无神论》给我的启示

初识<科学与无神论>是在"如何在青少年中开展科学无神论教育座谈会"上.当拿着那装帧精致,还散发着油墨清香的<科学与无神论>时,对它还很陌生.<科学与无神论>,名字并无奇特,只感觉理论性应该很强,高度应该很高,并没有引起我特别的注意.随手翻来,眼前一亮,就好像是我寻找了好久的东西一样,终于寻到了.特异功能是怎么回事?相面算命是怎么回事?通灵人是什么人?这里都有它的答案.     

I Talked to a Genius and All I Got was Knowledge

Bryan Frances’s recent argument is for the epistemic position called Live Skepticism. The Live Skepticism Argument (LSA) attempts to establish a restricted set of skeptical conclusions. The LSA’s “skeptical hypotheses” are scientific and philosophical positions that are “live actual possibilities” in an intellectual community. In order to “rule out” live hypotheses, an expert must know them to be false. However, since these are live hypotheses in this expert’s intellectual community—endorsed by others who have parallel levels of knowledge, intelligence, and understanding—this expert is unable to rule them out. Consistent with the LSA is the outcome that people not exposed to these live hypotheses can know what these experts cannot. However, in this paper, I defeat the LSA by developing and defending a counterexample that focuses on the phenomenon of genius testimony. Everyone, including the LSA’s proponent, can and should allow that expertise comes in degrees. While in many cases a person’s intelligence, understanding, and knowledge are parallel to others in the field, there are some who are extraordinary in their intelligence, understanding, and knowledge (geniuses). If an expert meets with a genius, it is possible that the genius provides this individual with beliefs that can rule out a skeptical hypothesis. Therefore, an expert can have knowledge, even if the skeptical hypothesis is live and endorsed by others who have parallel levels of knowledge, intelligence, and understanding. After providing this counterexample, I present three potential objections, and show how people can know global warming exists and that smoking does not give someone cancer. I conclude by defending this counterexample from a likely reply by proponents of the LSA involving luck and knowledge.     

How I got Started: Drawn Into the Life of Crime: Learning from,by, and for Child Victims and Witnesses

In this paper, the author describes the origins of a research programme focused on children's testimony, noting that it was prompted initially by a focus on the effects of abuse. Growing evidence of failed communication between researchers and investigative interviewers led his research group to develop a detailed guide, based on extensive research, which forensic interviewers could use to structure their interactions with alleged victims, offenders and witnesses. Considerable research has since documented the value of that tool, and it has also been instrumental in research exploring children's communicative and cognitive development. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.