RIP Scott Lilienfeld

[DynamicDidactic]

News starting to filter through ilstservs.

I have never met the guy but admired his work (and I am not much for admiring others). I use his textbook for intro psych, I assign a lot of his readings to my students, and even co-authored a paper related to his work.

I think he was an important and influential figure in clinical science.

RIP

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[WisNeuro]

This is a big blow, was a strong advocate for science and debunking poor methodology. He was still young, he'll be missed.

 

[WisNeuro]

Do we know how he died?

 

[Temperance]

Lilienfeld's work in debunking pseudoscience has been a huge influence on how I approach clinical psychological science. He will indeed be missed.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

Do we know how he died?

I don't. It came out that he was ill a few months back.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Oh wow, I was going to say that I thought he was relatively young. Very sad news.

 

[Indiana_Jane]

This is incredibly sad news and a huge loss.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

Very sad indeed.

 

[R. Matey]

This is heart-breaking news. He will be missed indeed.

 

[DynamicDidactic]

He was still young,

Apparently, only 59.

 

[Justanothergrad]

Yup, sad news. Big loss to the field. He has had a huge impact. Hope to see someone step into those shoes and continue the strong line of important work he made so central to our science.

 

[AbnormalPsych]

too early

 

[NotTheHoff]

Do we know how he died?

Pancreatic cancer.

He was really influential, but more importantly, pretty much everyone that talks about him talks about how kind & supportive he was behind the scenes.

 

[AcceptingUncertainty]

Learned of him only through his recent microaggressive critique of, ironically, microaggressions research. Haven't read his earlier work. Thoughts to his family.

 

[PsychPhDone]

I was so very sad to see this news today. I met him in person once and was immediately put at ease - I enjoyed all the things he had hanging in his office.

This might identify me to the very few people who know this anecdote but whatever. He misspelled my name in his editorial role in my first first-author pub. A few years later I was teaching Intro using his textbook and discovered that he not only cited my paper in the book, but he spelled my name right there. I was tickled and really appreciated him thinking to cite me.

He will be missed.

 

[WisNeuro]

Learned of him only through his recent microaggressive critique of, ironically, microaggressions research. Haven't read his earlier work. Thoughts to his family.

Not ironic at all. He spent most of his career examining larger concepts in the literature that got by on poor methodology. This area just happens to be one. There are no golden calves in science. You want to be taken seriously as a scientific concept, do the work. He was great at elucidating that.

 

[Ollie123]

Met him once at a very small (skeptics - not psychology) conference I attended as an undergrad. Don't think I truly understood how prominent he was at the time, but he was kind, supportive and seemingly elated to see myself and a female friend (both age 20) at a conference that was otherwise almost exclusively 50+ year old men. One of the only ones who seemingly made it a point to come to talk to the young'uns. It meant a lot.

Very sad news for his loved ones and for the field. His attention to scientific rigor was several steps above even most of the elites in the field. He is also one of just a handful of prominent psychologists who walked the careful line between rigorous thinking and rigorous scientific work. Its easy to follow the data, it is quite another to understand that even seemingly solid data may not mean what we think it means. One of the few people brave enough to throw himself on some scientific landmines in an attempt to save the rest of us in the case of some of his criticisms. I imagine many of those came at great personal expense.

He will be missed.

 

[PhDToBe]

This was sad news indeed. For those who asked, he died from pancreatic cancer.

 

[LadyHalcyon]

Wow. So young. I had to read a lot of his work during grad school.

Scott Lilienfeld, Psychologist Who Questioned Psychology, Dies at 59 (Published 2020)

Dr. Lilienfeld disturbed the order in his own field by questioning the science behind many of its conceits, therapies and tools.

www.nytimes.com

 

[DynamicDidactic]

RIP Scott Lilienfeld

News starting to filter through ilstservs. I have never met the guy but admired his work (and I am not much for admiring others). I use his textbook for intro psych, I assign a lot of his readings to my students, and even co-authored a paper related to his work. I think he was an important and...

forums.studentdoctor.net

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Wow. So young. I had to read a lot of his work during grad school.

Scott Lilienfeld, Psychologist Who Questioned Psychology, Dies at 59 (Published 2020)

Dr. Lilienfeld disturbed the order in his own field by questioning the science behind many of its conceits, therapies and tools.

www.nytimes.com

Merged this into the extant thread. And yes, it was surprising to me (as well as sad).