Shermer on SHAM

Sham : How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless

I ran across this article the other day leading up to a book review of Sham : How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless (to which there is also a link). I am still waiting for my copy so I can read it for myself, but my order is being held up waiting for another book (free shipping and all).

Remember, I am not throwing out the baby with the bath water, I just want to explore the other side. I think they have some good points.

Shermer on Sham
Does self-help & actualization really work?

I have long wanted to investigate the self-help movement from a skeptical/scientific perspective. One of the problems I have had is finding any data on the subject, in terms of “do they work?”

I have nothing personally against self-help programs, and if individuals who use them say that they feel much better, or are happier, or wealthier, or whatever, well then that’s just fine by me.

But the larger and more important question, I think, is this: do these programs work better than doing nothing, or trying anything new and different, or just talking to a friend, or whatever? That is, from a scientific perspective, it is not enough for us to know that some self-help programs have helped some people. Of course. The law of large number guarantees that if you have enough people trying enough things, some are bound to appear to work since some people’s lives naturally improve (for example, some people hit rock bottom, and therefore no matter what they do will work because the only place to go is up).

So I am linking here my most recent column in Scientific American on the “Sham Scam,” based on a very interesting and well written book by the investigative journalist Steve Salerno, Sham : How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless

SHAM: The Self-Help and Actualization Movement

READ the Scientific American article by Michael Shermer.

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