Questionable Science
Myers-Briggs® Type Indicator
Myers-Briggs phyco-babble test -
Daily horoscopes are more useful
The main problem is that the people who suggest taking this test
only present positive ideas, once again, there
is no negative information
This is no more science than feeling the bumps on a person's head
These test
- Ignore that fact that people behave differently in different situations
- They make no effort to identify people that are both A & B,
but instead assign them to either A or B
- Age, matureity, and experiences greatly affect people - but that is not discussed.
People aged 20 and 70 are directly compared and the younger ones lives are
screwed with with no real evidence.
I should suggest many alternate tests
- One based on which TV shows you enjoy
and political questions - global warming, abortion, and the like
- The second based on ... SiFi shows - quotes of Spock and the like
One of the questions should be - Do tests like this have any value?
Results need shades of gray
http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/isabel-myers.htm
http://skepdic.com/myersb.html
Several studies have shown that when retested, even after intervals as short as five weeks, as many as 50 percent will be classified into a different type.
There are only 3 types
- People who "think" for a living - Engineers, scientists - design, create
- People who "do something" for a living - craftsmen, machine shop, store clerk, assembly, farmers
- People who "bs" for a living - salesmen, polititians, lawers
Managers are good at combining "doing" and "bs".
Many people do one at home and another at work.
If you can't bs, then you can not rise to the level of manager.
Then there are the
- Packrats
- Neatfreaks
- Control freaks
- People who enjoy watching sports / doing sports
- Fixing things
- change your own oil / pay to have it done / have never done it yourself
- repair your own toliet, plunger, flapper, float
- All homes have leaking faucets - do you call a plumber, do it your self, have your parent do it
- Believe in God, prayer, heaven, devil ...
- Fear God, devil ...
- Believe in government conspiracies, UFOs,
- If a polititian says xyz, do you
- Accept it as true
- Do additional research
- Don't care
- If the polititian is wrong, what do you do
- Tell friends
- Write a letter
- Vote against him
- Always vote the same party no matter what
- Number of hours watching TV - sitcom, police, CSI, underdog wins - Rockford, Dr Who, Blake 7 -
sports, news, politics/talk, gay
- How do you use the Internet - news, research, ...
Just ask people to rate themselves instead of asking some nonsense questions, like
Do you save the brick or throw it away?
I can't even discuss the actual details because this fraud is copyrighted
and the name is trademarked. However, I will discuss it generally
because it is such a bogus bunch of nonsense.
(even though there are 40 years of research to support it - but where is the link to that ...
oh, I understand, we're just supposed to trust them)
We are forbidden - by law - from asking religious type questions eventhough
those may be the best indicators of all ... or not.
We are not allowed to know ... it is forbidden.
But this test, which we are not allowed to actually discuss because it is copyrighted,
is used to hire and promote because the human resources department
(ie, paper pushers that produce no product)
think it is a good idea.
Author: Robert Clemenzi -
clemenzi at cpcug.org