Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

People: Stop using Myers-Briggs to measure anything. It is an unscientific test, developed by someone with no formal training in psychology. Its results are not replicable (the same person is likely to get different results if you take the same test on different days). It is the same kind of pseudo-science as astrology.

Worse, employers have been sued for giving this to their employees and sharing the results among their co-workers. This is bad juju, seriously.



the same person is likely to get different results if you take the same test on different days

Heck, I get different results from one minute to the next, almost every time I take it. I'm borderline on at least two of the criteria.


Hey, I'm fond of Myers-Briggs. It's useful, fun, and meaningful. It helps resolve interpersonal difficulties. It stimulates conversation. As for measuring, I'm always interested to see survey data on it. Way more than that other boring test I can't ever remember the name of and which I'm told is much more empirical.

Just because something isn't a law of nature is no reason to suppress it. Lots of things we care about are unscientific. Besides, what's considered "scientific" changes over time. (Remember when brain cells "couldn't" regenerate? "Junk" DNA, anyone?)

Let a thousand flowers bloom!


You could say all of those things about astrology.

There are great reasons to suppress pseudo-science, but the first and foremost reason is that it isn't true.


What about old science? Is that true? When scientists told women to give their babies "formula" in the 1960s instead of breast-feeding them, was that true? Or do you retroactively label it pseudo-science? It certainly had the blessing of the authorities (edit: the scientific authorities) at the time. What about the dietary fat hypothesis, currently falling apart after generations of being such dogma that people lost their jobs for questioning it? When did it go from being scientific to unscientific?

My point is that these boundaries are not nearly crisp and stable enough to bear your level of judgmentalism.

I'm guessing that in Myers-Briggs lingo, you're a J. I'm an extreme P. These two don't get along sometimes. Also, I'm an Aquarius.


I label it, and you, wrong. You seem pretty OK with that. Remind me never to hire you.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: