One of the classes I’m taking for my General Education requirements is Psychology. It has a 1 credit hour lab, which is separate from the lecture class. The very first night of class in the Lab, the professor went over Credibility and Critical thinking.

This week we talked about Facial Emotions and Goal Driven Imagery. He stated up front that he didn’t like either topic and was going to push through them as quick as he could. Which is fine if you’re a professor and don’t like the topics. Even if you admit that you use one in your daily clinical work.

So on the Facial Emotion (and on body language) he was talking about how it was bunk, and when we started talking about the work of Paul Ekman, the professor started going off about how Ekman was recently completely discredited, proven to be a fraud, etc. Now I have a couple of Ekman’s books, and I’ve skimmed them. So I asked the professor what research hew as talking about. To which he destroyed his credibility by saying he wasn’t sure.

Enter twitter: I asked @humanhacker (Chris Hadnagy) about it. He provided quick background (after a little prodding) to @PaulEkman’s public reply. The reply also links to the original article. Which is both interesting stuff.

However, my point is, if you’re an “authority” figure by being a professor, and you don’t agree with a branch of your industry, don’t show your bias and take glee in saying it’s been debunked, while not having the proof to back it up. Your first night told us to question you on that stuff. Don’t be surprised when there is a non-psych major willing to call you on it, and be able to quote your sources.