Ontario and Manitoba courts were unsparing in their assessment rejecting Peterson's "expert" testimony. And it's a pattern when it comes to Peterson's pronouncements.
Pointing out that someone has their facts wrong is not a hit piece. Judges are looking at Peterson's evidence and calling it junk science, and Holocaust historians say that Peterson has his facts wrong.
It's about facts and evidence. Peterson is not presenting facts and evidence. His method does not meet the basic standards required for something to be credible. Not on evidence, not on method. Peterson is demonstrably and provably false.
That means that we can actually check and see the historical record - archives, orders, diaries, financial accounts and see that Peterson is saying things that didn't happen
We can also see he is drawing conclusions that aren't justified, and what is more. He is getting the history of the Holocaust wrong, and he is going into court making unjustified claims that could determine child custody, and whether someone accused of killing someone goes to jail or goes free.
Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist. When he talks about the law, history, religion, politics, economics, and more, he gets it wrong. He is misinforming and miseducating people.
How is a judge able to distinguish what is or is not 'junk science' in psychology better than an actual psychologist, who is incidentally very well published and respected within his field? This was an astonishing claim to make. Perhaps the judge is justified, but you provide no evidence to support that idea.
It would seem at least as likely that the judge was simply in error as to what constitutes a valid basis for a professional opinion in the domain of clinical psychology. In fairness the entire field has been dismissed as 'junk science' at various times by various people, rightly or wrongly, because, unlike the 'hard' sciences, psychology involves both statistical and subjective interpretive paradigms. Unless a precisely applicable study had been done already to address a specific question asked in court by a lawyer (likely involving thousands of people so as to establish a reasonable level of objective certainty), an expert would otherwise need to draw heavily from professional judgement and experience - which is what seems to have happened here. The fact that Peterson seems to have undertaken a very small survey in order to test his own thinking rather than relying solely on his individual professional judgement in relation to a question posed would seem to do him credit rather than justifying the 'junk science' characterisation.
I have been an expert witness myself, in my own field (architecture). An expert witness is not tasked with creating the 'right outcome' in court, but is there to give a professional opinion on the plausibility of an argument made by the lawyer who engaged them, based on (and typically confined to) the evidence the lawyer provides to the expert. The underpinnings and limitations of which opinion are and should rightly be challenged by the opposing lawyer. In this case it sounds like Peterson was perfectly and appropriately transparent as to the limits of his analysis under cross examination.
As to the holocaust, it would be surprising indeed if every scholar in the field was in absolute agreement as to every fact.
This is a vast topic, with very many sources, experiences and interpretations on record. I think it is fair to assume that if any scholar in any field generates enough material that gets widely disseminated, there will always others with overlapping interests who read it and disagree on some things. This is not evidence that he is misinforming and miseducating people.
It is perfectly possible to hold and articulate a decent general understanding of a subject even while being wrong on some particulars - particularly in this case given Peterson's main interest seems to be in the psychology underpinning the behaviours and ideology of the Nazis, rather than exhaustively verifying the provenance of every historical source that may have informed his general understanding of those things - activities better left to the specialists historians.
Yes, Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist who talks about the law, history, religion, politics, economics, and more.
The value he adds for many lies precisely in the fact that he is not siloed in his thinking - that he does not 'stay in his lane'.
He is unusually smart and well read enough in multiple domains that he can integrate his thinking into a fairly coherent world view spanning those domains.
Whether you are ultimately convinced or not (I am certainly not convinced by everything he says), he is able to provide some interesting and sometimes challenging psychological insights and perspectives, and I believe it is a mistake to simply dismiss him out out of hand when he appears to be playing for the wrong team.
Because judges are experts in what constitutes valid evidence, in court.
Peterson is not. He got basic facts wrong and made basic errors in reasoning, which is common throughout his work. He is currently facing suspension for unprofessional behaviour and, as I point out, citing experts, he has no idea what he is talking about. It is a pattern that includes many of his writings. He does not know what he is talking about, but talks about it anyway.
The question is whether the evidence is valid, and it wasn't.
It is self-evident from the judge's criticisms. It doesn't take a PhD in psychology, or the years of training as a lawyer and a judge to see that Peterson's testimony was worthless for the reasons laid out.
He jumped to conclusions where there was clear contradictory evidence, and was totally one-sided, had no expertise, knowledge, experience or understanding of either interrogations, custody cases, and made accusations that were not warranted or supported by the evidence.
In a manslaughter case, he did not watch a video confession, and got the transcript wrong on a key piece of testimony. The accused admitted to using the weapon that had never been disclosed to the public and Peterson thought the opposite. It was there, on video, and in black and white in the transcript. Instead, he based his test on a non-peer-reviewed, online employment test to suggest that the individual was not the type of person to kill someone. That is junk science.
In the custody case, he never spoke to the mother, made statements that were unsupported by evidence, and just believed everything the husband said. He took an assessment, turned it into a test and sent it to a random group of people. That is worthless information, and he was willing to offer it up to try to influence a custody case.
The list goes on. He gets the Holocaust wrong. He gets history wrong. He gets philosophy and politics wrong. He gets biology wrong. He gets the law wrong. He gets economics and finance wrong. He makes basic errors in reasoning, and gets his facts wrong. And he is unaware that his statements don't pass the basic test of critical thinking.
Each of these disciplines is a meaningful because they have standards for critical thinking, evidence and scholarship, which Peterson is either unaware of, or ignores. Not ideological attacks, not political disagreements, but claims that are not provable or justifiable - in fact, they are disprovable, based on evidence and reason.
He makes errors in reasoning and repeats pseudoscientific claims that don't pass muster for critical thinking, in court, where people's freedom is at stake.
Being "respected" and published doesn't get him a pass. Peterson is largely famous because he doesn't understand freedom of speech, the charter, his workplace, or the law. I don't know of any significant contribution to science or ideas that he has ever made.
Too many allegations to attempt a response to them all there, so I will pick just a few.
I don't know about the cases you refer to as I have no access or information as to the court proceedings themselves, so can only go on what you tell me about them, and my own knowledge and experience as an expert witness.
Judges and lawyers are certainly experts in what constitutes evidence they are convinced by, but are not necessarily experts in the material itself, or the various means by which a professional opinion on a matter can be reached. The lawyers for the defendant in each case will have run through the arguments they intended to make ahead of time with Peterson, and were obviously convinced that Peterson's opinion on the plausibility of those arguments was credible or Peterson would never have made the stand. If a better option, with more direct experience or academic research in the specific matter at hand was available to them, they would presumably have taken it.
I can say that expert witnesses themselves are not required to be convinced as to the overall merits of the their employer's case - their role is confined to providing testimony as to the plausibility of specific arguments that they are briefed to address themselves to. Even the guilty party is entitled to the best defence that their lawyer can muster in court, which includes the best expert testimony they can muster, however weak that may be in the context. The fact that a lawyer is compelled to draw a long bow and make arguments that are only barely plausible to the expert does not make the expert witness somehow incompetent or complicit in wrongdoing.
If the employing lawyer briefed the expert witness poorly, did not supply them with all the material that would be used in evidence, or did not anticipate the opposing lawyer's line of cross examination, the credibility of the expert witness's opinion will of course be undermined in that context. I can also say that a professional's opinion on the plausibility of an argument presented ultimately boils down to the judgement and experience of that professional, particularly if there is no directly applicable peer reviewed objective study that can be relied upon. The lack of peer reviewed studies that the expert can draw from in relation to a specific question is not the expert's fault - they then have no choice but to lean more heavily on what alternative sources and methodologies are available and seem somewhat relevant. This does not make that expert's basis for reaching a professional opinion 'junk science' - the fact that the label 'science' was applied at all by the judge. suggests a poor grasp of what an expert practitioner must otherwise rely on in forming a professional opinion when peer reviewed studies are unavailable.
The same expert witness tasked to address the opposing viewpoint may equally be able to support the plausibility of that argument as well - and if it happens that relevant objective material is available to support that argument, the witness will be in a position to provide stronger testimony in support of that argument. The fact that a witness is tasked with providing evidence, however weak, in support of the 'bad guy' in court should not be used to impugn them.
Remember that 50% of expert witnesses any given case will provide testimony that the judge or jurors find unconvincing - airing he best that either side can muster is the whole point of the exercise.
People also simply make mistakes - sometimes even in court. I cannot think of any profession where this does not occur. This is why we have an adversarial court system. The whole indemnity insurance industry is based on this fact.
In relation to bill C-16, my understanding is that Peterson's point of principal was that this bill enables the possibility /opens the door to situations where legal sanctions could arise against someone who refuses to use words they don't believe to be true. Those who oppose him seem to be saying that for practical purposes the situation would not arise within the narrow currently intended scope of applicability of the bill.
Peterson seems to be saying that scope-creep is a thing, and that the legislation creates a dangerous precedent - and his position seems to have the support of at least some lawyers.
Peterson's interests traverse a lot of territory, spanning domains in which there is already often heated internal debate and controversy as to the facts and their correct interpretation. Given that his views are widely heard, It would be surprising if they did not attract academic pushback from those taking one side or the other in each of those domains.
The fact of opposing evidence and argument does not make him the 'pseudo intellectual hack' that he is made out to be by his politically progressive opponents . A much higher standard of evidence is required to make that case.
You list a lot of claims made against him and his credibility, but provide no good faith accounting of Peterson's own responses to those claims.
All of the links are available in the article. You just have to click on them. They are not allegations. They are findings by courts and people with actual expertise.
You've been an expert witness. While I am not a lawyer, I have been a public policy researcher for 30+ years. I studied philosophy of law. I have lectured in political science. I was a legislator in Canada for five years. I have written, amended and passed legislation, and in my work I have successfully had a person charged criminally as well as found to have broken the law on civil charges in a private prosecution I brought myself.
Testifying as a professional expert providing insight into whether or not a professional was doing their job properly.
Peterson was doing none of that. He was trying to testify as an expert witness in areas in which he has no expertise.
Peterson was testifying in one case in a manslaughter trial, and another in a family court case. In the former, he was testifying about the reliability of a confession, yet has no expertise in confessions, and claimed that his personality test was infallible, and had no evidence to back that up either.
In the family law case, he did much of the same. He was willing to testify about a parent's fitness without ever meeting them, or the children. Instead, he took a report of the assessment, wrote a test about it, asked people to fill it out, and tried to submit that instead.
OK, thanks for those links, I have browsed them, and without attempting to relitigate the cases found nothing particularly untoward in relation to his conduct in them.
It seems reasonable enough to me that he should testify as to his opinion on psychological matters if the lawyers who hired him felt he was the one who was best placed to support their arguments , to the extent of his knowledge and experience as bought to bear on those cases, despite whatever weaknesses might exist in his testimony - just as it was perfectly reasonable that his testimony should picked apart, and weighted accordingly.
Doing your job properly as an expert witness is not the same as being able to provide uncontestable case-winning testimony. It consists of reporting on your opinion, and responding honestly when the basis for that opinion is challenged.
This all looks a lot like the justice system in action to me, and raises questions in my mind as to why someone might want to spin this differently.
You don't seem to have cited any cases where his expert testimony was accepted as convincing - does this mean there are none? Equally, you don't seem to have referenced any of Peterson's responses to the accusations levelled at him, or even referenced the responses of other experts in the domains he traverses who might happen to support his conclusions or understanding as to the facts. Does this mean there are none?
You don't need to agree with him in order to represent his views and conduct in good faith.
Lacking any such pretense at balance, the article reads unambiguously as a hit piece; quite clearly intended as an attack on Peterson's credibility and reputation.
Yeah, right. Milton Friedman is in the same boat as Jordan Peterson, justsayin. Peterson has made the same sorts of "contributions to his field" as Friedman. 😉
I'm not praising Milton Friedman, I think he's terrible. His contributions are real, though real and negative. He did have at least one worthwhile idea, the one he later said he regretted disowned, which was for government to collect taxes on a monthly basis.
Very insightful are conversations Peterson has with Sam Harris. Peterson gets to sputtering every time while Harris is knowledgeable and polite.
Petersons PhD is not in "Jungian psychology"
This reads as a hit piece to me - I am seeing no evidence of any good faith effort to represent Peterson's position on any of the topics traversed.
Pointing out that someone has their facts wrong is not a hit piece. Judges are looking at Peterson's evidence and calling it junk science, and Holocaust historians say that Peterson has his facts wrong.
It's about facts and evidence. Peterson is not presenting facts and evidence. His method does not meet the basic standards required for something to be credible. Not on evidence, not on method. Peterson is demonstrably and provably false.
That means that we can actually check and see the historical record - archives, orders, diaries, financial accounts and see that Peterson is saying things that didn't happen
We can also see he is drawing conclusions that aren't justified, and what is more. He is getting the history of the Holocaust wrong, and he is going into court making unjustified claims that could determine child custody, and whether someone accused of killing someone goes to jail or goes free.
Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist. When he talks about the law, history, religion, politics, economics, and more, he gets it wrong. He is misinforming and miseducating people.
How is a judge able to distinguish what is or is not 'junk science' in psychology better than an actual psychologist, who is incidentally very well published and respected within his field? This was an astonishing claim to make. Perhaps the judge is justified, but you provide no evidence to support that idea.
It would seem at least as likely that the judge was simply in error as to what constitutes a valid basis for a professional opinion in the domain of clinical psychology. In fairness the entire field has been dismissed as 'junk science' at various times by various people, rightly or wrongly, because, unlike the 'hard' sciences, psychology involves both statistical and subjective interpretive paradigms. Unless a precisely applicable study had been done already to address a specific question asked in court by a lawyer (likely involving thousands of people so as to establish a reasonable level of objective certainty), an expert would otherwise need to draw heavily from professional judgement and experience - which is what seems to have happened here. The fact that Peterson seems to have undertaken a very small survey in order to test his own thinking rather than relying solely on his individual professional judgement in relation to a question posed would seem to do him credit rather than justifying the 'junk science' characterisation.
I have been an expert witness myself, in my own field (architecture). An expert witness is not tasked with creating the 'right outcome' in court, but is there to give a professional opinion on the plausibility of an argument made by the lawyer who engaged them, based on (and typically confined to) the evidence the lawyer provides to the expert. The underpinnings and limitations of which opinion are and should rightly be challenged by the opposing lawyer. In this case it sounds like Peterson was perfectly and appropriately transparent as to the limits of his analysis under cross examination.
As to the holocaust, it would be surprising indeed if every scholar in the field was in absolute agreement as to every fact.
This is a vast topic, with very many sources, experiences and interpretations on record. I think it is fair to assume that if any scholar in any field generates enough material that gets widely disseminated, there will always others with overlapping interests who read it and disagree on some things. This is not evidence that he is misinforming and miseducating people.
It is perfectly possible to hold and articulate a decent general understanding of a subject even while being wrong on some particulars - particularly in this case given Peterson's main interest seems to be in the psychology underpinning the behaviours and ideology of the Nazis, rather than exhaustively verifying the provenance of every historical source that may have informed his general understanding of those things - activities better left to the specialists historians.
Yes, Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist who talks about the law, history, religion, politics, economics, and more.
The value he adds for many lies precisely in the fact that he is not siloed in his thinking - that he does not 'stay in his lane'.
He is unusually smart and well read enough in multiple domains that he can integrate his thinking into a fairly coherent world view spanning those domains.
Whether you are ultimately convinced or not (I am certainly not convinced by everything he says), he is able to provide some interesting and sometimes challenging psychological insights and perspectives, and I believe it is a mistake to simply dismiss him out out of hand when he appears to be playing for the wrong team.
Because judges are experts in what constitutes valid evidence, in court.
Peterson is not. He got basic facts wrong and made basic errors in reasoning, which is common throughout his work. He is currently facing suspension for unprofessional behaviour and, as I point out, citing experts, he has no idea what he is talking about. It is a pattern that includes many of his writings. He does not know what he is talking about, but talks about it anyway.
The question is whether the evidence is valid, and it wasn't.
It is self-evident from the judge's criticisms. It doesn't take a PhD in psychology, or the years of training as a lawyer and a judge to see that Peterson's testimony was worthless for the reasons laid out.
He jumped to conclusions where there was clear contradictory evidence, and was totally one-sided, had no expertise, knowledge, experience or understanding of either interrogations, custody cases, and made accusations that were not warranted or supported by the evidence.
In a manslaughter case, he did not watch a video confession, and got the transcript wrong on a key piece of testimony. The accused admitted to using the weapon that had never been disclosed to the public and Peterson thought the opposite. It was there, on video, and in black and white in the transcript. Instead, he based his test on a non-peer-reviewed, online employment test to suggest that the individual was not the type of person to kill someone. That is junk science.
In the custody case, he never spoke to the mother, made statements that were unsupported by evidence, and just believed everything the husband said. He took an assessment, turned it into a test and sent it to a random group of people. That is worthless information, and he was willing to offer it up to try to influence a custody case.
The list goes on. He gets the Holocaust wrong. He gets history wrong. He gets philosophy and politics wrong. He gets biology wrong. He gets the law wrong. He gets economics and finance wrong. He makes basic errors in reasoning, and gets his facts wrong. And he is unaware that his statements don't pass the basic test of critical thinking.
Each of these disciplines is a meaningful because they have standards for critical thinking, evidence and scholarship, which Peterson is either unaware of, or ignores. Not ideological attacks, not political disagreements, but claims that are not provable or justifiable - in fact, they are disprovable, based on evidence and reason.
He makes errors in reasoning and repeats pseudoscientific claims that don't pass muster for critical thinking, in court, where people's freedom is at stake.
Being "respected" and published doesn't get him a pass. Peterson is largely famous because he doesn't understand freedom of speech, the charter, his workplace, or the law. I don't know of any significant contribution to science or ideas that he has ever made.
Too many allegations to attempt a response to them all there, so I will pick just a few.
I don't know about the cases you refer to as I have no access or information as to the court proceedings themselves, so can only go on what you tell me about them, and my own knowledge and experience as an expert witness.
Judges and lawyers are certainly experts in what constitutes evidence they are convinced by, but are not necessarily experts in the material itself, or the various means by which a professional opinion on a matter can be reached. The lawyers for the defendant in each case will have run through the arguments they intended to make ahead of time with Peterson, and were obviously convinced that Peterson's opinion on the plausibility of those arguments was credible or Peterson would never have made the stand. If a better option, with more direct experience or academic research in the specific matter at hand was available to them, they would presumably have taken it.
I can say that expert witnesses themselves are not required to be convinced as to the overall merits of the their employer's case - their role is confined to providing testimony as to the plausibility of specific arguments that they are briefed to address themselves to. Even the guilty party is entitled to the best defence that their lawyer can muster in court, which includes the best expert testimony they can muster, however weak that may be in the context. The fact that a lawyer is compelled to draw a long bow and make arguments that are only barely plausible to the expert does not make the expert witness somehow incompetent or complicit in wrongdoing.
If the employing lawyer briefed the expert witness poorly, did not supply them with all the material that would be used in evidence, or did not anticipate the opposing lawyer's line of cross examination, the credibility of the expert witness's opinion will of course be undermined in that context. I can also say that a professional's opinion on the plausibility of an argument presented ultimately boils down to the judgement and experience of that professional, particularly if there is no directly applicable peer reviewed objective study that can be relied upon. The lack of peer reviewed studies that the expert can draw from in relation to a specific question is not the expert's fault - they then have no choice but to lean more heavily on what alternative sources and methodologies are available and seem somewhat relevant. This does not make that expert's basis for reaching a professional opinion 'junk science' - the fact that the label 'science' was applied at all by the judge. suggests a poor grasp of what an expert practitioner must otherwise rely on in forming a professional opinion when peer reviewed studies are unavailable.
The same expert witness tasked to address the opposing viewpoint may equally be able to support the plausibility of that argument as well - and if it happens that relevant objective material is available to support that argument, the witness will be in a position to provide stronger testimony in support of that argument. The fact that a witness is tasked with providing evidence, however weak, in support of the 'bad guy' in court should not be used to impugn them.
Remember that 50% of expert witnesses any given case will provide testimony that the judge or jurors find unconvincing - airing he best that either side can muster is the whole point of the exercise.
People also simply make mistakes - sometimes even in court. I cannot think of any profession where this does not occur. This is why we have an adversarial court system. The whole indemnity insurance industry is based on this fact.
In relation to bill C-16, my understanding is that Peterson's point of principal was that this bill enables the possibility /opens the door to situations where legal sanctions could arise against someone who refuses to use words they don't believe to be true. Those who oppose him seem to be saying that for practical purposes the situation would not arise within the narrow currently intended scope of applicability of the bill.
Peterson seems to be saying that scope-creep is a thing, and that the legislation creates a dangerous precedent - and his position seems to have the support of at least some lawyers.
Peterson's interests traverse a lot of territory, spanning domains in which there is already often heated internal debate and controversy as to the facts and their correct interpretation. Given that his views are widely heard, It would be surprising if they did not attract academic pushback from those taking one side or the other in each of those domains.
The fact of opposing evidence and argument does not make him the 'pseudo intellectual hack' that he is made out to be by his politically progressive opponents . A much higher standard of evidence is required to make that case.
You list a lot of claims made against him and his credibility, but provide no good faith accounting of Peterson's own responses to those claims.
This was indeed a hit piece.
All of the links are available in the article. You just have to click on them. They are not allegations. They are findings by courts and people with actual expertise.
You've been an expert witness. While I am not a lawyer, I have been a public policy researcher for 30+ years. I studied philosophy of law. I have lectured in political science. I was a legislator in Canada for five years. I have written, amended and passed legislation, and in my work I have successfully had a person charged criminally as well as found to have broken the law on civil charges in a private prosecution I brought myself.
Testifying as a professional expert providing insight into whether or not a professional was doing their job properly.
Peterson was doing none of that. He was trying to testify as an expert witness in areas in which he has no expertise.
Peterson was testifying in one case in a manslaughter trial, and another in a family court case. In the former, he was testifying about the reliability of a confession, yet has no expertise in confessions, and claimed that his personality test was infallible, and had no evidence to back that up either.
In the family law case, he did much of the same. He was willing to testify about a parent's fitness without ever meeting them, or the children. Instead, he took a report of the assessment, wrote a test about it, asked people to fill it out, and tried to submit that instead.
OK, thanks for those links, I have browsed them, and without attempting to relitigate the cases found nothing particularly untoward in relation to his conduct in them.
It seems reasonable enough to me that he should testify as to his opinion on psychological matters if the lawyers who hired him felt he was the one who was best placed to support their arguments , to the extent of his knowledge and experience as bought to bear on those cases, despite whatever weaknesses might exist in his testimony - just as it was perfectly reasonable that his testimony should picked apart, and weighted accordingly.
Doing your job properly as an expert witness is not the same as being able to provide uncontestable case-winning testimony. It consists of reporting on your opinion, and responding honestly when the basis for that opinion is challenged.
This all looks a lot like the justice system in action to me, and raises questions in my mind as to why someone might want to spin this differently.
You don't seem to have cited any cases where his expert testimony was accepted as convincing - does this mean there are none? Equally, you don't seem to have referenced any of Peterson's responses to the accusations levelled at him, or even referenced the responses of other experts in the domains he traverses who might happen to support his conclusions or understanding as to the facts. Does this mean there are none?
You don't need to agree with him in order to represent his views and conduct in good faith.
Lacking any such pretense at balance, the article reads unambiguously as a hit piece; quite clearly intended as an attack on Peterson's credibility and reputation.
Yeah, right. Milton Friedman is in the same boat as Jordan Peterson, justsayin. Peterson has made the same sorts of "contributions to his field" as Friedman. 😉
I'm not praising Milton Friedman, I think he's terrible. His contributions are real, though real and negative. He did have at least one worthwhile idea, the one he later said he regretted disowned, which was for government to collect taxes on a monthly basis.
I'd agree with all that. Cheers.