May 14, 2006

The depravity expert.

"When is a murder like many other murders and when is a murder truly the worst of the worst?" says Dr. Michael Welner, an NYU forensic psychiatrist who's designed a "depravity scale":
In 39 states, including New York, judges and juries can mete out harsher sentences for crimes described with words such as "depraved," "vile" and "atrocious."...

Using a Web-based poll (www.depravityscale.org), Welner asks 25 nuanced questions that gauge why a person thinks one crime is more depraved than another.
A web-based poll? Isn't that an atrocious research method? I'll analyze the comments to this post in my quest to become a reseach methods expert. And I'm counting on you to keep it nuanced.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The real problem of course is the sample population. It would seem to a) be very non-random and self-selected, and b) hard to validate that the demographic responses are accurate, although I would think that could be a problem in many sample populations. But you can (and should) direct your questions to: questions at depravityscale.org

offtopic but timely, you can visit C&L to see last night's S&L opening....

Anonymous said...

Um, wasn't I telling you about the junk science of psychology and psychiatry like just yesterday?

SippicanCottage said...

No, no, we all know George Bush's evil plan to...gasp...inconvenience a narcoleptic unkempt whoopie cushion salesman is the personification of depravity. Stay on topic, monkeyman!

Ann Althouse said...

That SNL skit was pretty lame. The part about the glaciers was funny, but it dragged on...

Ann Althouse said...

Senescent: That was hilarious. And way better than Al Gore on Saturday Night Live. Two clips have been recommended in this thread. Watch them both. One is way funnier.

Anonymous said...

That was truly excellent S. Wasp. I had heard the song of course, but never seen this animation.

Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Yes, Ann is right. A song that came from a Broadway Show, written and developed over many months upon which an entire cast of people will either be employed for years or for a few nights is in fact far far funnier than a five minute skit for put together in a day or two for SNL. for porn.

Here is a direct link to the Al Gore skit on YouTube.

Ann Althouse said...

Writing for SNL is a plum job. There's an obligation to make a better script than that, especially for lines you're making a celebrity deliver at the beginning of the show.

As for the song, I was hearing it for the first time -- it's from "Avenue Q" -- so that made the clip funnier to me than it deserves credit for.

SippicanCottage said...

Now, Ann. I call shenanigans on your headline.

We have our own depravity expert right here in house. Spends all his time fantasizing about cabinet members and their cattle prod collections while downloading nipple slip pictures of Janice Karpinski at her shoplifting tribunal, for his, well, you know, personal collection.

Qxxo aparently has a partner in his Karl Rove cover band duo now, named Gardner. He's changed his name again, though.

Peter Patau said...

I thought the guy was a charlatan when a plug for his "survey" appeared as a comment on my fledgling blog. I deleted it as comment spam. I'm not a lawyer, but his Forensic Panel, a referral service for expert witnesses, sure looked dubious -- and the research seems designed to generate more junk science for his crew of "experts" to testify about.