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Nodrog · 31 Mar 2006, 10:02

The problem with body language and NLP (especially NLP because holy shit theres a lot of bullshit there) is the complete lack of supporting evidence for the claims made in popular accounts So, person X doing Y means that they think Z. Well ok, how do you know this? Are we honestly meant to believe that the author has performed a controlled survey to find these things out, or is it more likely that he's basing his claims purely on anecdotes and intuition, perhaps backed up by the notorious spectre of common wisdom? The handshake thing someone mentioned earlier in this thread is a pretty blatent example of this - "you can tell a lot about a person from the way they shake hands". Can you? How the hell do you know? You might as well claim that people who see penises in inkblots are gay (lol Rorschach).

31 Mar 2006, 10:02	#27
Nodrog Registered User Join Date: Jun 2000 Posts: 8,476	Re: body language The problem with body language and NLP (especially NLP because holy shit theres a lot of bullshit there) is the complete lack of supporting evidence for the claims made in popular accounts So, person X doing Y means that they think Z. Well ok, how do you know this? Are we honestly meant to believe that the author has performed a controlled survey to find these things out, or is it more likely that he's basing his claims purely on anecdotes and intuition, perhaps backed up by the notorious spectre of common wisdom? The handshake thing someone mentioned earlier in this thread is a pretty blatent example of this - "you can tell a lot about a person from the way they shake hands". Can you? How the hell do you know? You might as well claim that people who see penises in inkblots are gay (lol Rorschach).