I've commented on Ed Realist claim before and I won't rehash it all.
There are too many districts in leftist areas that lack huge populations of brown people that closed their schools for this to make sense. My own school district is one.
It also doesn't explain the phenomenon of local school districts decisions being overturned by state authorities in leftist states. Or of the attempt to control what private schools did.
All of this was also true after schools "opened", as the conditions upon which they were "open" was itself subject to all the same issues as above.
What I did hear from many people is that they would prefer to keep their kids home from school under the conditions on which school was operating during COVID. The masks, the quarantining, the social distancing, the lack of activities or their constant interruption, etc. They would have preferred to send their kids to NORMAL school, but if the choice was between COVID school or staying home many wanted their kids to stay home.
I can only imagine that in the case of awful inner city schools many didn't even want to go to school during normal school. Normal school in Baltimore City for instance literally having prisons in the school. COVID simply became an excuse.
Re: "I am willing to bet Bryan that over the next three years, the most credible, high-quality research on depression helps to justify and support pharmacological treatment for it."
Research already justifies pharmacological mood management, not because the drugs remedy a "chemical imbalance," but because the drugs often replace alcohol use, a form of self-medication that often has more harmful side-effects than do new prescription medications for mood-management.
See David Cutler's 2004 summary of this research, "Prozac and the Revolution in Mental Health Care," chapter 4 of his book, Your Money or Your Life (Oxford U. Press, 2004). Prof. Cutler finds that Prozac *greatly* reduced prevalence of alcoholism among women.
Distinguish three kinds of justifications for pharma mind drugs:
a) Pharma mind drugs beat self-medication by drinking (and presumably also self-medication by illegal mind drugs).
b) Pharma mind drugs beat bootstrapping, diet, exercise, therapy, or various other non-pharmacological remedies. (A complication here is the possibility that pharma mind drugs and these non-pharmacological remedies might be complements rather than substitutes.)
c) Pharma mind drugs beat inaction.
If I understand correctly, decades of research have yet to establish large effects for "b" and "c".
I am a little more sympathetic to Caplan's point on depression. I have been dealing with depression for about a decade, and the psychiatric process really is very slip shod. The diagnosis is entirely self reported, as are results of treatment. That's fine, but very prone to Hansonian medicine effects. I may have had worse than average psychiatrists but the structure was basically try some drugs for a bit, if they don't work try more until they do, if they never do try another drug or a combination and see if they work, repeat. Why any of it works is entirely irrelevant to the process because the only question that matter is "how have you been feeling since I saw you last?" Which chemicals are in imbalance never comes up because they have no way of checking, before, during or after treatment. That cause of depression, whether in mind, brain, body, whatever, never comes up. Never. But the answer is always the same: try some drugs for a bit, if they don't work try more until they do, if they never do try another drug or a combination and see if they work, repeat.
That isn't confidence inducing. It certainly doesn't suggest they are keen on applying the insights of chemical imbalance theory to their efforts.
Now maybe the drug makers are, tweaking formulas to better balance chemicals. There again, however, since no measurement of chemical balance is ever made, how does one then decide what drugs to take based on getting them back into balance?
" It seems that non-white parents wanted learning to be remote, and school districts gave them what they wanted—good and hard, as it were."
Yes.
I don't wish to excuse teachers unions at all. Their behavior was repulsive.
However, there isn't a single case of schools being closed because of unions. The closest case, that of Chicago in 2021, is actually a case where Lightfoot *wouldnt* do what she did the next year (shut down remote education) and the reason she didn't, again, is because most parents wanted remote. So the teachers took advantage of that fact and refused to come in to teach in empty classrooms. The next year, when they tried the same thing, Lightfoot didn't blink and wouldn't make remote available. Why? Not because of parents, who largely wanted remote as well. But because Illinois had banned remote for all but a few cases and this didn't qualify and LIghtfoot didn't want to lose funding.
Ed reformers would achieve more if they understood that unions are at best amplifiers, and are usually amplifying parents.
I think Caplan would argue that because many behaviors associated with psychiatric disorders can be modified by changing the incentives, they are less inevitable than they would be if they were chemically mediated. I have no idea if the predicate is true or not.
There are certain topics that the esteemed Mr. Caplan chooses to opine on where his output is simply not worth engaging. Psychology is one of those topics.
I've commented on Ed Realist claim before and I won't rehash it all.
There are too many districts in leftist areas that lack huge populations of brown people that closed their schools for this to make sense. My own school district is one.
It also doesn't explain the phenomenon of local school districts decisions being overturned by state authorities in leftist states. Or of the attempt to control what private schools did.
All of this was also true after schools "opened", as the conditions upon which they were "open" was itself subject to all the same issues as above.
What I did hear from many people is that they would prefer to keep their kids home from school under the conditions on which school was operating during COVID. The masks, the quarantining, the social distancing, the lack of activities or their constant interruption, etc. They would have preferred to send their kids to NORMAL school, but if the choice was between COVID school or staying home many wanted their kids to stay home.
I can only imagine that in the case of awful inner city schools many didn't even want to go to school during normal school. Normal school in Baltimore City for instance literally having prisons in the school. COVID simply became an excuse.
Re: "I am willing to bet Bryan that over the next three years, the most credible, high-quality research on depression helps to justify and support pharmacological treatment for it."
Research already justifies pharmacological mood management, not because the drugs remedy a "chemical imbalance," but because the drugs often replace alcohol use, a form of self-medication that often has more harmful side-effects than do new prescription medications for mood-management.
See David Cutler's 2004 summary of this research, "Prozac and the Revolution in Mental Health Care," chapter 4 of his book, Your Money or Your Life (Oxford U. Press, 2004). Prof. Cutler finds that Prozac *greatly* reduced prevalence of alcoholism among women.
Distinguish three kinds of justifications for pharma mind drugs:
a) Pharma mind drugs beat self-medication by drinking (and presumably also self-medication by illegal mind drugs).
b) Pharma mind drugs beat bootstrapping, diet, exercise, therapy, or various other non-pharmacological remedies. (A complication here is the possibility that pharma mind drugs and these non-pharmacological remedies might be complements rather than substitutes.)
c) Pharma mind drugs beat inaction.
If I understand correctly, decades of research have yet to establish large effects for "b" and "c".
I am a little more sympathetic to Caplan's point on depression. I have been dealing with depression for about a decade, and the psychiatric process really is very slip shod. The diagnosis is entirely self reported, as are results of treatment. That's fine, but very prone to Hansonian medicine effects. I may have had worse than average psychiatrists but the structure was basically try some drugs for a bit, if they don't work try more until they do, if they never do try another drug or a combination and see if they work, repeat. Why any of it works is entirely irrelevant to the process because the only question that matter is "how have you been feeling since I saw you last?" Which chemicals are in imbalance never comes up because they have no way of checking, before, during or after treatment. That cause of depression, whether in mind, brain, body, whatever, never comes up. Never. But the answer is always the same: try some drugs for a bit, if they don't work try more until they do, if they never do try another drug or a combination and see if they work, repeat.
That isn't confidence inducing. It certainly doesn't suggest they are keen on applying the insights of chemical imbalance theory to their efforts.
Now maybe the drug makers are, tweaking formulas to better balance chemicals. There again, however, since no measurement of chemical balance is ever made, how does one then decide what drugs to take based on getting them back into balance?
What a drag it is getting old
"Kids are different today, " I hear every mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill, there's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day
"Things are different today, " I hear every mother say
Cooking fresh food for her husband's just a drag
So she buys an instant cake, and she burns a frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper
And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day
Doctor, please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old
"Men just aren't the same today, " I hear every mother say
They just don't appreciate that you get tired
They're so hard to satisfy, you can tranquilize your mind
So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight
Doctor, please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old
"Life's just much too hard today, " I hear every mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day
Hey
" It seems that non-white parents wanted learning to be remote, and school districts gave them what they wanted—good and hard, as it were."
Yes.
I don't wish to excuse teachers unions at all. Their behavior was repulsive.
However, there isn't a single case of schools being closed because of unions. The closest case, that of Chicago in 2021, is actually a case where Lightfoot *wouldnt* do what she did the next year (shut down remote education) and the reason she didn't, again, is because most parents wanted remote. So the teachers took advantage of that fact and refused to come in to teach in empty classrooms. The next year, when they tried the same thing, Lightfoot didn't blink and wouldn't make remote available. Why? Not because of parents, who largely wanted remote as well. But because Illinois had banned remote for all but a few cases and this didn't qualify and LIghtfoot didn't want to lose funding.
Ed reformers would achieve more if they understood that unions are at best amplifiers, and are usually amplifying parents.
I think Caplan would argue that because many behaviors associated with psychiatric disorders can be modified by changing the incentives, they are less inevitable than they would be if they were chemically mediated. I have no idea if the predicate is true or not.
There are certain topics that the esteemed Mr. Caplan chooses to opine on where his output is simply not worth engaging. Psychology is one of those topics.
Freddie DeBoer broadly impugns the motives of people who are skeptical of the "chemical imbalance" theory of depression.
Are any of his broad assertions, about what makes skeptics tick, supported by evidence beyond his first-hand impressions?