Without casting Enlightenment rationalism as categorically evil, Wright details some of the problematic consequences of Enlightenment assumptions
regarding the biblical text:
false claims to absolute objectivity, the elevation of «reason» («not as an insistence that exegesis must make sense with an overall view of God and the wider world,» Wright notes, «but as a separate «source» in its own right»), reductive and skeptical readings of scripture that cast Christianity as out - of - date and irrelevant, a human - based eschatology that fosters a «we - know - better - now» attitude toward the text, a reframing of the problem of evil as a mere failure to be rational, the reduction of the act of God in Jesus Christ to a mere moral
teacher, etc..
Many of the scales demonstrated weak psychometrics in at least one of the following ways: (a) lack of psychometric data [i.e., reliability and / or validity; e.g., HFQ, MASC, PBS, Social Adjustment Scale - Self - Report (SAS - SR) and all perceived self - esteem and self - concept scales], (b) items that fall on more than one subscale (e.g., CBCL - 1991 version), (c) low alpha coefficients (e.g., below.60) for some subscales, which calls into question the utility of using these subscales in research and clinical work (e.g., HFQ, MMPI - A, CBCL - 1991 version, BASC, PSPCSAYC), (d) high correlations between subscales (e.g., PANAS - C), (e) lack of clarity
regarding clinically - relevant cut - off scores, yielding high
false positive and
false negative rates (e.g., CES - D, CDI) and an inability to distinguish between minor (i.e., subclinical) and major (i.e., clinical) «cases» of a disorder (e.g., depression; CDI, BDI), (f) lack of correspondence between items and DSM criteria (e.g., CBCL - 1991 version, CDI, BDI, CES - D, (g) a factor structure that lacks clarity across studies (e.g., PSPCSAYC, CASI; although the factor structure is often difficult to assess in studies of pediatric populations, given the small sample sizes), (h) low inter-rater reliability for interview and observational methods (e.g., CGAS), (i) low correlations between respondents such as child, parent,
teacher [e.g., BASC, PSPCSAYC, CSI, FSSC - R, SCARED, Connors Ratings Scales - Revised (CRS - R)-RSB-, (j) the inclusion of somatic or physical symptom items on mental health subscales (e.g., CBCL), which is a problem when conducting studies of children with pediatric physical conditions because physical symptoms may be a feature of the condition rather than an indicator of a mental health problem, (k) high correlations with measures of social desirability, which is particularly problematic for the self - related rating scales and for child - report scales more generally, and (l) content validity problems (e.g., the RCMAS is a measure of anxiety, but contains items that tap mood, attention, peer interactions, and impulsivity).