/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2890039]

What does /sci/ think about pseudo-sciences such as psychology? How can speculation and touchy-feely subjective bullshit be considered science?

[Anonymous No.2890053]

Most of us don't consider it a science. You can apply the scientific method to any area of human study, but that doesn't mean the stuff you find is scientific.

[Anonymous No.2890059]

If it has predictive power, then it is useful.

If it can better the lives of people in pain, then it is useful.

If it cannot be refuted, it is not science.

[Anonymous No.2890063]

>>2890053

The reason why most people on /sci/ don't think it's a science is because most people on /sci/ don't know shit about science.

You don't find parts of scientific stuff lying around, it's the study itself that makes it scientific. You're a bad person, and you should feel bad.

While on it, psychology is a science, and it baffles me how anyone could say anything else.

[Anonymous No.2890066]

You can make lots of money in that field. Idiots tend to respect people who make lots of money.

[Anonymous No.2890068]

Psychology is a tricky area. It's been historically plagued with a lot of bullshit.

However, nowadays, there's a lot of areas of psychology that are perfectly objective and capable of fulfilling every criteria for "science".

For example, neuropsychology. From wiki:

Neuropsychology studies the relation of structure and function of the brain related to specific psychological processes and behaviors. The term neuropsychology has been applied to lesion studies in humans and animals. It has also been applied to efforts to record electrical activity from individual cells (or groups of cells) in higher primates (including some studies of human patients).[1] It is scientific in its approach and shares an information processing view of the mind with cognitive psychology and cognitive science.

[Anonymous No.2890081]

>>2890068

> Psychology is a tricky area. It's been historically plagued with a lot of bullshit.

But this goes for all sciences. Physicist saying that stones falls to the ground because they belong there, Lamarck's theory of evolution, and ether to take a few examples.

[Anonymous No.2890099]

Psychology can be a science because it is capable of maintaining falsifiability. If you can compare people over a large enough sample size, you can start to make generalizations about the macroscopic workings of the human brain (the microscopic workings obviously being neuroscience).

[Anonymous No.2890106]

Psychology is cool, and it can be conducted in scientific ways. Unfortunately is attracts the loonies, good and bad. It also is unfortunately a very popular major and the prestige of being a psychologist gets deflated.

[Anonymous No.2890108]

>>2890039
i wish i could be an ignorant fuck like you

psychology is about how ppl think
why they think
what stimulates them to do anything
the same way we observe fucking animals behaviors
psychology observers human

[Anonymous No.2890119]

>>2890108

Butthurt psych major detected.

It's not a hard science
you can't test it and get the same results every
time
Thats what DEFINES a science, repeatability.

[Anonymous No.2890121]

>>2890119

How do you defined "get the same results every time"

there is always random variability, that doesnt mean the sample doesnt tell us valuable information.

[Anonymous No.2890136]

>>2890121

The information usually isn't as valuable as you make it out to be and is highly dependent on culture and status.

[Anonymous No.2890144]

>>2890136

Perhaps, but in that case you are studying, and learning about culture and status just like a physicist might learn about exceptions to a rule.

[Anonymous No.2890160]

The people who think psychology is a psuedo-science are people who know nothing about psychology or really even science in general outside of their one narrow field of study.

[Anonymous No.2890177]

>>2890119
umm wrong? you can never know that something will always produce the same results

[Anonymous No.2890205]

Science can be applied in all areas. The Latin root for science means knowledge. Science is more a form of honest inquiry directed to learning truth, or knowledge. Science is an extension of the common sense inquiry we use every day.

Chemistry, Physics, etc. are just areas where this inquiry takes place. Because of the success of these "natural science", the term science is used more as a badge of honor when it is applied to things.

I don't like psychology because of the people who practice it, but not in principle. Its practitioners tend to do far from honest inquiry into the subject matter.

[Anonymous No.2890207]

Psychology gets a bad press, mainly because of how psychiatrists behave. But here's the thing: Psychiatry =/= psychology. Psychologists aren't the ones handing out pills like candy, nor are they the ones telling people to nurture their inner child or any of the other new age bullshit psychiatrists get up to. Psychologists are mostly locked away in labs, painstakingly designing tests to get around the incredibly tough restrictions placed on psych by both the nature of its subject matter and by the strictest set of moral and ethical prohibitions facing practitioners of any science. To call what they do 'futile' might have some credit, but calling it pseudoscience just displays a complete ignorance of what psychology is.

[Anonymous No.2890209]

>>2890205

This, science is a method. Any study predicated on the scientific method, is a science.

[Anonymous No.2890222]

So where do Neuroscientist fall in this mess?

I'm currently studying Neurobiology and I get a lot of flak from my engineering/math/chem friends for choosing a soft science. Makes me want to drop the neuro part and just do straight biology.

[Anonymous No.2890234]

Psychology outside of Evolutionary Psych and Neuropsych is ALL bullshit. Mostly leftist garbage.

[Anonymous No.2890236]

>>2890207

Can we agree, then, that psychiatry is as much a science as scientology and the world would be a better place if these two institutions destroyed each other as they have been attempting to do all along?

[Anonymous No.2890243]

>>2890236
? are you retarded
Scientology literally has no proof not even statistics
at least psychiatry is based on things usually being to roots of problems

[Anonymous No.2890244]

>>2890209
>implying many social 'science' 'scientific' 'experiments' don't have unreproducible results

[Anonymous No.2890248]

>>2890236

Psychiatrists are not scientists, but they don't claim to be. Psychiatry is a branch of medicine, their basically a type of engineer. Nothing wrong with that, the world needs homosexuals, but the tendency of psychiatry to be conflated with psychology is a very harmful one.

Maybe a change of name? Psychiatrists can be called "Mind Engineers", or "Mind Doctors", or something.

[Anonymous No.2890258]

The majority of ALL humanities is cultural marxism.

It's just a way to spread the leftist religion through academia.

[Anonymous No.2890259]

>>2890248

>psychiatrists are basically engineers

[Anonymous No.2890260]

>>2890244

People within a discipline can produce garbage without the discipline itself being garbage. There is a great deal of extremely well done and very interesting research in psychology, that you are ignorant of it is your loss, not psychology's.

[Anonymous No.2890271]

>>2890209
This. I wouldn't sage the thread though. You combat ignorance with education, not scorn.

Science is anything which employs the scientific method. Additionally, science is based on one pretty heavy assumption (exemptions include chaos theory and the like):

Continual, causal processes occur without supernatural intervention.

So yes, this does make psychology a science. Deal with it.

[Anonymous No.2890274]

>>2890258

This has been true in many social sciences, but is beginning to be less so. Psychology broke with cultural determinism back in the 70's/80's, and even sociology is showing signs of recovery.

[Anonymous No.2890276]

>>2890234
Evolutionary psych is usually just people trying to make sense of modern people using the idea of natural selection to assume to know what our ancestors went through to get us to this point. In other words, it's guess work.

[Anonymous No.2890279]

>>2890276

Evolutionary psyche is awesome. But unfortunately it is a lot of guess work.

Very believable, and extremely compelling guesses.

[Anonymous No.2890285]

It's not that psychology is an illegitimate science. It's just that psychology is the easiest science major. Right below marine biology. Not much would be lost if these two groups just disappeared, considering that psychiatry and biology would still be around.

[Anonymous No.2890287]

>>2890243

lrn2 dianetics and Narconon

They have plenty of people (ie 8M+ stastics) who say it works great for them. They also have quite a successful drug rehab program that works just as well as psychiatry for curing addictions in many cases.

[Anonymous No.2890290]

>>2890276
>>2890279

Not true, EP is entierly falsifiable:

www.psychegames.com/evolutionary-psychology.htm

www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2002/evolutionary-psychology-and-its-enemies-an-interview-with-steven-p
inker/

[Anonymous No.2890295]

>>2890287
>drug rehab program that works just as well as psychiatry

This is true. What they fail to mention is that the cure rate for ALL treatments is close to 5%, roughly the same as the cure rate for people who DON'T seek help.

[Anonymous No.2890306]

Also, my friend is majoring in Neurobiology at the Berk. I would consider this the proper way to begin studying psychology.

[Anonymus No.2890309]

the fact that most of the things that it says cannot really be proved for *hur philosofy hur* make it a really tricky area.
there a lot of stupid people in the area as well, a lot of stupid theories, and for the fact that is affected for different point of view just hads shit to the problem.
but, the ones that apply the knowledge as a science, really gets results, and really makes progress.
still, it really need some help cleaning old stuff and trowing away some stupid phylosophic points of view.

[Anonymous No.2890310]

>>2890271
No. Shut the fuck up. Psychology is not a science. End of debate.

[Anonymous No.2890316]

>>2890310
good argument you have there bro

[Anonymous No.2890319]

>>2890316
It's as good an argument I need against irrational bullshit, like creationism, leftism, and psychology.

[Anonymous No.2890325]

>>2890319
Just because you feel like something is irrational doesn't make it so.

The irony in your post is laughable.

[Anonymous No.2890326]

>>2890309
>>2890319

It's fine to remain willfully ignorant of a subject, but try to avoid pontificating on it in public unless you enjoy looking the fool.

[Anonymous No.2890332]

>>2890295

which is my point exactly... To say scientology is as much a science as psychiatry is not to add credibility to scientology, but to take it away from psychiatry since a piece of shit scifi derived pseudo religion can produce such similar results without the need to chemically (or otherwise) lobotomize people or electrocute your brain.

[Anonymous No.2890336]

>>2890306

This. Or better, try to get straight into cognitive science, and work your way to psychology from their. That way, you avoid all the HURR and stick to the science.

Whatever you do, don't sign up for psych as an undergrad. Psych departments are filled with angry middle aged women still fighting the culture wars.

[Anonymous No.2890338]

>>2890332

Psychiatry does not claim to be a science. Its a branch of medicine.

[Anonymous No.2890344]

>>2890336

>implying neurology as a backdoor path to psychology

[Anonymous No.2890347]

I don't understand why /sci/ thinks that just because something isn't 100% quantifiable means it isn't a science.

Psychology is heavily qualitative. And if we're talking about cognitive neuroscience, it gets heavily into chemistry. This doesn't make it any less of a science; it's just a different type of science.

[Anonymous No.2890360]

>>2890344

It can be. I went from bio (not even specifically neurobio) to psych for my postgrad work. Psych is a 'daughter' of Biology, the two have many principles in common and much of psych is already predicated on an evolutionary framework.

Sage for anecdote.

[Anonymous No.2890363]

>>2890347
It's a science in the same manner that sociology is a science.

[Anonymous No.2890364]

>>2890234
>Mostly leftist garbage
Truth. I voted for Obama because my psychology textbook told me to.

[Anonymous No.2890367]

>>2890347

What's more strange is that NO science is 100% quantifiable. Physics is all about the probabilities, but somehow that's 'exact'. Well, the margins of error get bigger the higher you climb the ladder of the sciences, but the difference is in scale, not in kind.

[Anonymous No.2890386]

>>2890338

True, psychiatry attempts to piggyback its scientific credibility on the scientific discipline of medicine, but only fools and governments buy into that bullshit (at an average rate of $125/hr) because even scientologists know it is complete bullshit and they aren't the best detectors of bullshit who ever lived.

[Anonymous No.2890387]

>>2890347
>>2890347
its not about it being "quantifiable"
its about actually explaining something from the lowest level on up. neuroscience actually talks about neurons firing and chemicals bonding, in certain parts of the brain, leading to certain behaviors.

psychology doesn't explain, it only predicts. it can predict biases, but anytime when pure non-neuroscience psychologists try to EXPLAIN they end up coming up with COMPLETE SHIT like freud did.

this is also why physics, chemistry, and biology are all sciences, because they use a reductionist approach that tries to explain actual matter moving through time and space, unlike psychology

[Anonymous No.2890390]

>>2890347

>implying chemistry is not a science

[Anonymous No.2890393]

>>2890387
Freud doesn't apply to the fucking field anymore!

[Anonymous No.2890395]

>>2890387
>psychology doesn't explain, it only predicts.

It is not the job of science to explain, only to predict. Besides which, there are several models in use in psychology that do seek to explain, the most promising of which is evolutionary psychology. So not only is your complaint irrelevant, it is also wrong.

[Anonymous No.2890417]

>>2890395
ok evolutionary psychology is legit. but the rest can go suck a dick.

[Anonymous No.2890424]

>>2890367

F = ma
where is the probabilistic assumption?
Physics has nothing to do with probabilities and has everything to do with naturally maintaining equilibrium through balancing ratios and equations of physical phenomena.
Find me a psychiatric equation that is as simple and straightforward to apply as F=ma, but has still managed to maintain its validity over the course of the last century... I will wait, but it will be quite hard, since the methodologies of psychiatry and psychology CHANGE DRAMATICALLY with every passing generation.

[Anonymous No.2890425]

>>2890395
and I stand by my claim that something is only science if it can explain why something happens.

[Anonymous No.2890439]

>>2890425

And you'll continue to be wrong.

>>2890424

You're just too stupid and angry for me to waste more time on.

[Anonymous No.2890441]

>>2890424
Real life situations always fuck up the equations slightly.

[Anonymous No.2890443]

>>2890425

thats stupid

why does mass exist
why do atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons
why can't we see most EM waves
why was the universe created
why do organisms evolve
why do things die

since when has science been in the business of explaining why something happens rather than documenting known phenomenon and using that documentation to create models for future predictions?

[Anonymous No.2890457]

>>2890439
>>2890443

you are both fags. science is all about explaining phenomenon. if you can't explain it, then you don't know how it works, and its not science, dipshits.

you think chemists just sit in a lab and mix random chemicals and write down what happens?

FUCK NO. they woudln't be able to do shit, if that is what they did. they have to be able to explain what is happening in the reactions, and then use math to figure out new reactions.

asking "why does mass exist" is a total strawman, because that is currently beyond the scope of scientific knowledge.

but within the scope, you can ask why questions.

if sciences only goal was to predict, then scientsits would just taken measurements about dropping various objects and how fast they fall, put them into a huge book like an engineer, and then stopped.

they wouldn't have figured out gravity, inertia, forces, ect.

[Anonymous No.2890460]

>>2890441

even then, its usually due to unaccounted variables (wind, friction, surface tension, etc)

that being the case most of the time, properly applying physics equations results in a ~1% error rate unlike psychiatry which is only successful ~5% of the time

[Anonymous No.2890465]

>>2890457

Ignorant AND arrogant? You must be quite a hit with the ladies.

[Anonymous No.2890466]

>>2890460
There are far more possible variables to account for in psychological research. Also, I have no idea where you're pulling that 5% from.

[Anonymous No.2890470]

>>2890443
why does mass exist
>this question doesnt make sense
why do atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons
>because they have nuclear forces which hold them together
why can't we see most EM waves
>evolution. some animals can see uv and some can see infared, so there is nothing fundamental stopping it within a range.
why was the universe created
>because two branes crashed into each other (according to M-theory)
why do organisms evolve
>because DNA and genes, you idiot. if you couldn't explain that, you are dumb as shit.
why do things die
>evolution only needs to pass on the genes, and then the molecular repair mechanisms get crappier, DNA errors compound, causing cells to commit apoptosis, and from entropy, oxidation, causing essential organs to fail.

[Anonymous No.2890474]

>>2890460

You keep talking about psychiatry, but that has never claimed to be a science. It is a branch of medicine.

[Anonymous No.2890476]

>mfw I want to be a psychologist but the field is filled with ignorant fucks and terrible "how does that make you feel" bullshit.

The few gems of knowledge psychology has are very powerful though.

[Anonymous No.2890477]

>>2890465
>butthurt psychologist with poor reasoning abilities tries desperately to defend his shitpile of a subject

[Anonymous No.2890480]

>>2890477

I'm not a psychfag, and I've already pointed out that not only is your "if it doesn't explain why, it isn't science" position is bullshit, AND why it doesn't apply to psych anyway.

[Anonymous No.2890482]

>>2890476

Don't be put off by the peabut gallery. Just avoid undergrad Psych, do bio or comp sci and transfer to a psych postgrad program.

[Anonymous No.2890483]

>>2890466

estimated successful treatment rate of addiction through psychiatric intervention

[Anonymous No.2890489]

>>2890470

good job answering hows and not whys

[Anonymous No.2890490]

>>2890480
no. you didn't explain anything, as a matter of fact. maybe if you know that if you werent half retarded.

[Anonymous No.2890496]

>>2890483
That's not a source.

[Anonymous No.2890501]

>>2890474

what is medicine?
a science you say?
No, I will not let you to gain credibility for your pseudoscience by allowing you to piggyback it onto a legitimate science. Scientology is as much a medicine as psychiatry
Meaning neither one is a science nor a medicine... how have you not understood this yet?

[Anonymous No.2890502]

>>2890395
>>2890439
>>2890465
>>2890474
>>2890480
Shut.
The fuck.
Up.

[Anonymous No.2890507]

>>2890489
good job being confused as to what "why" means.

>protip: "how" is a synonym of "why"
http://thesaurus.com/browse/why

[Anonymous No.2890508]

>>2890496

neither is that... or anything you have said... or anything in this thread because there is not one single outside source provided... so if you think psychiatry is such a good medicine or science, get off your high horse and lets see a source for the success rate of addiction treatment with psychiatry.

[Anonymous No.2890521]

>>2890508
You're the only one who has been stupidly quoting percentages.

[Anonymous No.2890523]

That's a funny way of spelling sociology, OP.

[Anonymous No.2890528]

>>2890507

aha I get it now, no wonder master of psychiatry is the most you could hope to achieve.

[Anonymous No.2890551]

>>2890528
>>2890501
>>2890483
>conflating psychiatry with psychology
fullretard.jpg

[Anonymous No.2890556]

>>2890521

because psychiatry is notorious for wildly varying statistical data, but here

http://www.national-drug-rehab-treatment-centers.org/
>Most of these drug addiction treatment centers had less than 10% of their graduates leaving their care and being free of their addiction. This meant that over 90% returned to their destructive behavior
> inpatient programs rarely have an outcome better than 10%
>The majority of treatment facilities get between 2% and 15% success. Research shows that about 10% of the drug addicts and alcoholics will recover without any treatment.

[Anonymous No.2890566]

>>2890556
>Biophysical Drug Rehab
>Drug Rehab Programs with this method are having a success rate of over 78%. This is why Biophysical drug treatment centers are the most highly recommended and fastest growing form of treatment.
Do you even read your own sources?

[Anonymous No.2890568]

>>2890528
>Implying i was not the one arguing that psychology was not a science

try to follow along faggot.

[Anonymous No.2890571]

>>2890566
>>2890556
And beside that, this site also cites no sources.

[Anonymous No.2890576]

>>2890551
>implying psychiatrists aren't the major beneficiaries of psychological methods
They are so deeply intertwined like creationists and christians that it is impossible to discuss one without discussing the other. Also one ATTEMPTS to use legitimate scientific means, but that is all ultimately lost because of the larger branch that puts it into practice.

[Anonymous No.2890582]

>>2890576
>implying they are
That's like saying biology as a field serves only cosmetic surgeons.

[Anonymous No.2890583]

>>2890566

did YOU read it?
Because you picked the one method that has almost nothing to do with psychology or psychiatry or religion.

[Anonymous No.2890584]

>>2890576
Maybe you should read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology#Subfields
I think a lot of the hatred of psychology comes from a lack of understanding of what psychologists actually study and what they do.

[Anonymous No.2890585]

>>2890576
sigh. I hate /sci/ so much for its hypocrisy.

[Anonymous No.2890589]

>>2890583
>nothing to do with psychology or psychiatry
Then what is it?
>The Biophysical method uses a purification technology in conjunction with vitamins and minerals to release these toxic residues stored in fat tissue, back into the blood stream where they are then forced out of the body, leaving the person free of this contamination and free of the cravings, anxiety or depression caused by the side effects of these drugs.
Psychiatry
>This type of drug rehabilitation center uses a social educational model to restore ethics and build life-skills to ensure their graduates are drug free and productive members of society.
Psychology
And you're still the only one arguing about psychiatry.

[Anonymous No.2890604]

>>2890589
That's not a source

[Anonymous No.2890608]

>>2890604
What are you talking about? It's from the source you posted.

[Anonymous No.2890632]

>>2890608

I don't see the biophysical method called a form of psychiatry or psychology anywhere on that page in fact all I see is pretty much the exact opposite since psychiatry assumes addiction itself is a disease (ie psychiatry is medicine).
>It has been shown that drug rehab centers that operate on the idea that addiction is a disease believe that an addicted person cannot take on the responsibility of a demanding curriculum and, therefore, the clients begin to feel as though they are victims and go into agreement that they are incapable of handling a demanding schedule or the responsibility of not taking alcohol or other drugs.

[Anonymous No.2890636]

>What does /sci/ think about pseudo-sciences such as psychology? How can speculation and touchy-feely subjective bullshit be considered science?
it has no direct correlations to the physical world
it's based on observance
every new theory is greeted with skepticism
it sure is a science that's what physics was 1000 years ago
psychologists just haven't found a direct way to relate human behavior with DNA and experience(we can see some relation but it's not accurate enough it can't be described by mathematics)

[Anonymous No.2890648]

>>2890632
First of all, the source is worthless and cites no evidence anyway. Drugs have very different mechanisms and addiction to each will necessarily be very different.
Second, the methods I quoted are very clearly psychological and psychiatric, respectively. The biological intervention described is psychiatry: it's a physical, medical intervention.
And you're STILL the only one talking about psychiatry. Psychiatry and psychology are not the same, and saying drug relapse rates are high says nothing about the validity of psychology.

[Anonymous No.2890698]

>>2890648

Fine, I will now refer to the false psychology/psychiatry dichotomy as Brain Alchemy.

Brain Alchemy claims to make predictions about behaviors and create cures for addictions, yet it is only valid within a small cultural landscape and is still only successful 2-15% of the time.

>Drugs have very different mechanisms and addiction to each will necessarily be very different
Then why does Brain Alchemy make use of addiction centers where they corral people with different various addiction and attempt to validate cure-alls that they themselves recognize as effective over a very small subset of humanity?

>Second, the methods I quoted are very clearly psychological and psychiatric, respectively.
see >>2890604

>saying drug relapse rates are high says nothing about the validity of psychology.
Except its not just drug relapse rates, it is human behavior as a whole (treating violent people, pedophiles, homosexuals, deviants, etc) that Brain Alchemy thinks it can model as a science and "cure" when there is far too much variability and most of it is based on assumptions of morals or cultural absolutism to begin with. Maybe some day, when real scientists come along, they will scrap the shit parts of brain alchemy and create an actual science out of the results, but for now Brain Alchemy is a pseudoscience bordering a soft science at best.

[Anonymous No.2890722]

Maths uses axioms to determine truths.
Physics uses axioms to determine truths.
Psychology uses axioms to determine truths.

An axiom is an idea that holds true to all evidence the mind is aware of.

Consider that all axioms are subjective and merely illustrating an objective process.

Psychology studies human behaviour and gives a method for predicting behaviours. It doesn't pretend to be a theory of everything. It bases its axioms on higher level material for the sake of convenience. You're free to use neuroscience, with its application of the other sciences in describing behaviour but you'll end up using psychological descriptors out of convenience.

[Anonymous No.2890727]

>>2890698
>Fine, I will now refer to the false psychology/psychiatry dichotomy as Brain Alchemy.
Wait, so you're still conflating the two? I'm arguing against just that. Why would you do that?
>Brain Alchemy claims to make predictions about behaviors and create cures for addictions, yet it is only valid within a small cultural landscape and is still only successful 2-15% of the time.
Except when it's successful 78% of the time, amirite?
>Then why does Brain Alchemy make use of addiction centers where they corral people with different various addiction and attempt to validate cure-alls that they themselves recognize as effective over a very small subset of humanity?
They don't. That shows exactly how little you know about addiction treatments. Opiate addiction is treated very differently than, say, cocaine addiction.
>see >>2890604
Where's you're source showing that they aren't psychiatric? After all, you're the one making the original claim that it isn't. And the listed interventions are biological treatments of psychological ailments, that's the definition of psychiatry.
>Except its not just drug relapse rates, it is human behavior as a whole (treating violent people, pedophiles, homosexuals, deviants, etc) that Brain Alchemy thinks it can model as a science and "cure" when there is far too much variability and most of it is based on assumptions of morals or cultural absolutism to begin with. Maybe some day, when real scientists come along, they will scrap the shit parts of brain alchemy and create an actual science out of the results, but for now Brain Alchemy is a pseudoscience bordering a soft science at best.
1. This is the realm of psychiatry. AGAIN, you're the only one talking about psychiatry.
2. You don't know what a science is. Psychology is based on experimentation.

[Anonymous No.2890731]

>>2890698
>mfw neuroscience

[Anonymous No.2890785]

>>2890731

exactly

>>2890727
whatever... you can sit by and be surprised in your dwindling institution as brain alchemy erodes into a purely historical discussion while the real scientists advance neuroscience by leaps and bounds and snicker at your superstitions and shortcomings

[Anonymous No.2890797]

>>2890785
Protip: I'm a neuroscientist. And a psychologist. What now?
You really have no idea what the terms you're using mean. At least you admit you have no counter arguments.

[Anonymous No.2890846]

>>2890797

Sorry, I don't believe you for one minute (unless you mean you are currently in your freshmen year pursuing a dual degree), you don't even understand how citations or statistics work, so having prepared a thesis or doctoral dissertation is completely out of the question. You can only say I don't understand what things are and are never actually able to provide references or information or fill in the information you imply I am missing. Also, you lack a serious historical perspective on Brain Alchemy if you think it is as scientific as you claim it is.

[Anonymous No.2890863]

>>2890846
>Sorry, I don't believe you for one minute (unless you mean you are currently in your freshmen year pursuing a dual degree)
That's cool, I didn't expect you to. I can't really offer any proof except my paystub.
>you don't even understand how citations or statistics work
You're right, your incredibly scientific citation with all those references was the definitive word on addiction treatment.
>You can only say I don't understand what things are and are never actually able to provide references or information or fill in the information you imply I am missing
Let me spell it out for you, then: neuroscience is interdisciplinary. There are neuroscients primarily trained in biology, psychology, computer science, chemistry, etc.
>Also, you lack a serious historical perspective on Brain Alchemy if you think it is as scientific as you claim it is.
Apparently you lack any understanding of psychology past or present since you deny its scientific basis and conflate it with psychiatry.

[Anonymous No.2890869]

>>2890863
>>2890846
And the argument for addiction as an indicator of the strength of the field is a poor one. It's like saying "Lots of people with cancer die, therefore biology isn't a science."

[Anonymous No.2890883]

>>2890869

What is the scientific value of a science that is mostly unfalsifiable and who's results are often not better than faith?

[Anonymous No.2890897]

>>2890869

Also, if biology's primary claim was that it existed to treat and cure cancer yet was only 10% effective, then yes that would put its scientific credibility in question.

[Anonymous No.2890902]

>>2890883
It's not unfalsifiable, and the fact that you think so shows how little you know. There are entire journals, very many of them in fact, dedicated to psychological experimentation and scrutiny. Even the less concrete subfields (e.g. social psychology) are based on experimentation, although the data yielded by these experiments can often be interpreted in more than one way. But that's the essence of science; if data couldn't be interpreted in more than one way, Newtonian physics would be the be-all-end-all of physics.

[m1ckey !dkJI/P7Y32 No.2890904]

>>2890846
I can say with a 99.9% confidence level that he's one of the very few sensible participants in this discussion.

[Anonymous No.2890908]

>>2890897
So the main goal of psychology is to treat and cure addiction? Don't think so, Tim.

[Anonymous No.2890920]

>>2890785
I wasn't supporting your point, dickhead.

Neuroscience and psychology go hand in hand.

[Anonymous No.2890947]

>>2890908

I was referring to psychiatry and yes, studying and curing mental illness is the primary claim of psychiatry.

But if psychology is so different and if it is such a crucial science:
What has psychology contributed to humanity that didn't (or couldn't have) primarily come from a harder science discipline.
Why has psychology rid itself of most of its original or fundamental methodologies/axioms/assumptions?
Why is personal bias (often from popular figures in psychology ie Freud) so much more evident in psychology than in other sciences?

[Anonymous No.2890954]

>>2890920

No, neuroscience is what psychology would have been if it wasn't institutionalized and overrun by personality cults and crack pots.

[Anonymous No.2890968]

>>2890947

Also, I have to go, but just to add, legalized abortion accomplished by accident, in 30 years, what psychology/psychiatry could not accomplish in almost 200 years

[Anonymous No.2890969]

>>2890039
Let's first all get rid of pseudo-science like parapsychology, homeopathy, theology, astrology, etc.
Then we can discuss the status of some human sciences. Until then, we should unite against that bullcrap.

[Anonymous No.2890974]

>>2890947
>I was referring to psychiatry and yes, studying and curing mental illness is the primary claim of psychiatry.
1. Again, not talking about psychiatry.
2. Yes, the treatment of disease, not addiction in general, is its aim, so the failing, real or imagined, in that area does not destroy the validity of the field, just as the inability to find a "cure" for cancer doesn't destroy the validity of biology.
>What has psychology contributed to humanity that didn't (or couldn't have) primarily come from a harder science discipline.
Developmental psychology has identified normal ranges of development, as well as classified disorders in development. Psychophysics has quantified the sensory modalities and related most of them to mathematical concepts (see: Fechner's law). Those are two examples, there are obviously very many more.
>Why has psychology rid itself of most of its original or fundamental methodologies/axioms/assumptions?
Every other science does this. Again, see Newtonian physics. Think about how many times the idea of what an atom is and what constitutes it has changed.
>Why is personal bias (often from popular figures in psychology ie Freud) so much more evident in psychology than in other sciences?
Two reasons as far as I can tell. First, Freud was a very early theorist, and his "theories" were essentially philosophy. Some have held up to experimentation, most have not. Second, trying to analyze something that is inherently subjective (i.e. the mind) comes with its own difficulties, which is all the more reason for psychology as a scientific discipline to exist.

[Anonymous No.2890978]

>>2890968
>legalized abortion accomplished by accident, in 30 years, what psychology/psychiatry could not accomplish in almost 200 years
lolwut
What the hell are you even talking about?

[Anonymous No.2890984]

>>2890978
Abortion is passive eugenics. Turns out most abortions are preformed on low-income blacks thus the crime rate goes down.

[Anonymous No.2890985]

>>2890969

Do you think if the large scale government/society sanctioned bullcrap was eliminated (religion, psychiatry, psychology, etc), the rest would quickly errode as people grew to adulthood without being raised to accept bullcrap as fact?

[Anonymous No.2890987]

>>2890984
And here I thought we were having a reasonable discussion.

[Anonymous No.2890988]

Psychology largely exists to enforce whatever the social norms are of today. Communism and homosexuality were listed as mental disorders just a couple decades ago; convenient how they were taken off the books as attitudes changed.

100 years from now eating meat will probably be considered signs of sociopathy...

[StormTroll !GnYU8vo7lA No.2890992]

>>2890987
>BAWWWW FACTS ARE RACIST

[Anonymous No.2890994]

>>2890987
It's true whether it considering with your preexisting worldview or not.

Turns out poor people raise shitty kids.

[Anonymous No.2890996]

>>2890984

Not the racist thing, but abortions have been shown to drastically increase the standard of living for everyone because they do significantly decrease unwanted, neglected children who would have grown to be mentally unstable adults.

[StormTroll !GnYU8vo7lA No.2890997]

>>2890974
Newton's physics was never disproven. It was just expanded upon. GTFO.

[Anonymous No.2891000]

>>2890992
>>2890994
>implying this has anything at all to do with psychology
>implying psychology as a discipline was trying to implement but failed to accomplish a system of eugenics
See pic: >>2890987

[Anonymous No.2891002]

As a Psychology major I don't really approach it as a science. But, as a "Shaman" replacement in our current society. Simply, when people have emotional issues they do not think they can handle on their own, when they indeed are the only ones who can deal with it. They will go to someone they trust, a family member or instead of that a psychologist or a psychiatrist (people who hand you pills and then say GTFO)

The basic idea is that it gives them an environment to face their own issues with a "guide" who is professional trained to help point them in the right direction. Its seems to me more a craft than a science and rightfully how it should be.

[Anonymous No.2891006]

>>2891002
That is clinical psychology. You should probably study harder if you think this is the entirety or even most of what psychology concerns itself with, or that there isn't science involved even in clinical psychology.

[Anonymous No.2891011]

>>2891002

Although I am not taking Psychology practice on the state level with normally unwilling patients for a reason.

That tends to be a whole other ballpark.

[Anonymous No.2891014]

>>2891006

just because science is loosely involved in the process, does not mean that the discipline is a science unto itself

[Anonymous No.2891017]

>>2891006

There is science involved, I am simply stating that when it comes to clinical psychology it is my personal preference to approach it as our cultures, "Shaman". then again, maybe that's my bitchy anthropology major girlfriend talking...

I actually, I am going for a psychology with both clinical and criminal credentials.

[Anonymous No.2891019]

>>2891014
Then
>You should probably study harder
Let me guess, Psych101?
Start here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%291097-4679

http://www.bps.org.uk/publications/journals/journaltitles/bjcp.cfm

[Anonymous No.2891024]

>>2891017
>Although I am not taking Psychology practice on the state level with normally unwilling patients for a reason.
>criminal credentials.

[Anonymous No.2891028]

>>2891000

A goal of (the application of) psychology is to help people with "mental health problems". Turns out the main thing you need to decrease mental health problems is to not be raised by or constantly surrounded by shitty people with mental health problems.

[Anonymous No.2891032]

>>2891028
Therefore eugenics. Makes perfect sense. That was definitely what psychology was trying to accomplish for 200 years.

[Anonymous No.2891041]

>>2891019

laughinggirls.png

why would I pay money to get involved with that piece of shit discipline even at the most basic level when computational physics calls my name?

Also
>implying creationism is a valid science

[Anonymous No.2891046]

>>2891041
see>>2890987
Also,
>He has to pay for his education instead of having it paid by an academic scholarship

[Anonymous No.2891056]

>>2891032

Yes, voluntary eugenics accidentally solved many of the problems your heros were unable to solve with electroshock, lobotomization, institutionalization, traumatization, castration, or induced drug addiction.

[Anonymous No.2891061]

>>2891056
Yep, that's why mental illness no longer exists.

[Anonymous No.2891062]

>>2891046
>implying money would not still be directed toward the shittiest discipline of the shittiest college on campus

[Anonymous No.2891073]

>>2891061

You would think that looking at the current asylum population compared to what it used to be, but we still have religion and superstition to get rid of, then finally death if we wish to eliminate mental illness completely.

[Anonymous No.2891079]

>>2891073
That's great, except the rates of mental illness aren't decreasing. Your argument is invalid.

[Anonymous No.2891087]

ITT: people thinking psychology is just applied (clinical) psychology.

Most psychologists are clinical psychologists and clinical psychology doesn't even try to be a science most of the time.
So basically most of you are putting up a strawman.

Psychology as science (the thing you should be discussing) has fields like experimental psychology, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology,... The experiments done in these fields are perfectly repeatable, falsifiable,etc.

People saying psychology research is useless are just dead wrong. Do you consider neuroscientific research useless? Well, a good amount of research in neuroscience is done by psychologists. Not only that, but using different methods (reaction time experiments done by psychologists and fmri studies done by others) provide more convincing evidence than using only one method.

Also I'll remind you that psychologists are responsible for connectionnism/neural networks, this will prove a great asset into understanding how the mind works and might eventually aid us into developing AI.

[Anonymous No.2891098]

>>2891079

Hard for mental illness rates to decrease when the number of documented mental illnesses increases with every new drug they put on the market. Have you checked out the DSM lately or compared it to the original text?

That highlights the major problem with Brain Alchemy as a science, to be successful, it has to diagnose everybody with something, so they can be sold a drug and a counselor.

[Anonymous No.2891103]

>>2891087

A lot of Alchemists provided invaluable research material for actual scientists, does that make alchemy a valid science?

[Anonymous No.2891105]

>>2891098
That's great and all, but even if you take a single disorder (say, schizophrenia) that was defined the same way, there is a similar rate of occurrence across time, at least since the advent of legal abortion.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9067063
>Each year 1 in 10,000 adults (12 to 60 years of age) develops schizophrenia. Based on a restrictive and precise definition of the diagnosis and using standardized assessment methods and large, representative populations, the incidence rates appear stable across countries and cultures and over time, at least for the last 50 years.

Your argument is still invalid.

[Anonymous No.2891106]

>>2891103
Are you braindead?

[Anonymous No.2891109]

>>2891098
Again, you're talking about psychiatry, not psychology.

[Anonymous No.2891117]

>>2891109

what text do psychologists use to treat and diagnose mental illnesses?

[Anonymous No.2891124]

>>2891117
But most clinical psychologists (those you're talking about) are not scientists and are not trained enough to be scientists. Ergo, you're not talking about the science of psychology.

[Anonymous No.2891126]

>>2891117
Most psychologists do not treat or diagnose mental illnesses, and there is no single text that serves as a standard for those that do.
If you're talking about the DSM, that's published by the American PSYCHIATRIC Association, and is used in psychiatric diagnoses.

[Anonymous No.2891131]

>>2891124
This. Medicine (i.e. psychiatry, which is what you're talking about AGAIN) is not a science, it's an art. Any doctor will readily admit that. It may involve the application of science, but it is not in itself a science.

[Anonymous No.2891136]

>Find somebody in a domestic abuse relationship
>Were they also abused and/or exposed to abuse as a child?
>Yes, they were

Repeat that fucking experiment

[Anonymous No.2891148]

>>2891124
>>2891126
>>2891131

Good finally you admit, at least psychiatry is not a science. I guess I can't convince you of the innate entanglement of psychology and psychiatry, but one last question and I really need to go, if psychology is a correct science, why is it named after a nonscientific premise (the soul) - isn't that a big red flag concerning the original intentions of the discipline and if something as fundamental as the name is so wrong what reason is there to not abandon it and just run the same ideas under a different banner (ie neuroscience)?

[Anonymous No.2891151]

Dunno OP, Lawfag here but Im doing a PSYC class this year and it's kind of a science but fucking stupid bullshit at the same time.

Overall its fucking awful + the class is full of weird psuedo-intellectual outcasts of society and uncool dorks.


Sociology even worse though.

[Anonymous No.2891152]

>>2891148
You're responding to different posters.

Your question is stupid, I think you're just trolling now.

[Anonymous No.2891153]

>>2891148

that's stupid and you're stupid

[Anonymous No.2891155]

>>2891151
>weird psuedo-intellectual outcasts of society and uncool dorks.

Tough luck, mine's filled with nothing but hot bitches.

[Anonymous No.2891156]

>>2891151

Imo Psychology shouldn't even be separated from Biology because it's mostly just Animal Behavior blown up out of proportion.

[Anonymous No.2891158]

>>2891148
That's a pretty poor argument. The name "chemistry" derives from the same place as "alchemy".

[Anonymous No.2891166]

>>2891155

Haha ae lucky cunt, the only classes I got with all the hot chicks and people with swagg are my Law and acct classes, its fucking deece.

[Anonymous No.2891170]

Pretty much the tl;dr of this thread is read more about psychology before you bash it, you will probably discover it is not what you thought it was.

[Anonymous No.2891174]

>>2891170

my tl;dr is that psychology needs to be abandoned in favor of neuroscience, since psychology today barely resembles what it was when it was originally founded as a way to enforce religious ideas onto the public and bypass the whole separation of church and state thing

[Anonymous No.2891179]

>>2891170
+ Acta Psychologica
+ Applied Psychological Measurement + Attention and Performance
+ Behavior Research Methods
+ Behavioral and Brain Sciences
+ Bilingualism: Language and Cognition
+ Brain & Cognition
+ British Journal of Psychology
+ British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology
+ Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive - European Bulletin of Cognitive Psychology (CPC)
+ Canadian Journal of (Experimental) Psychology + Cognition
+ Cognition and Emotion
+ Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural Neuroscience
+ Cognitive Development
+ Cognitive Psychology
+ Cognitive Science (vanaf 1994)
+ European Journal of Cognitive Psychology
+ Experimental Psychology
+ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes
+ Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
+ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning, Memory and Cognition
+ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
+ Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
+ Journal of General Psychology
+ Journal of Mathematical Psychology
+ Journal of Memory and Language
+ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
+ Language and Cognitive Processes
+ Learning and Motivation
+ Memory
+ Memory and Cognition
+ Neuropsychology
+ Perception and Psychophysics
+ Psychologica Belgica
+ Psychological Research
+ Psychometrika
+ Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Section Human Experimental Psychology
+ Thinking and Reasoning
+ Applied Cognitive Psychology
+ Behaviour and Information Technology
+ International Journal of Man-Machine studies
+ Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

The people who bash psychology and claim it's not science are the ones who've never read a serious article.

[Anonymous No.2891180]

>>2891174
>Implying neuroscience isn't a subset of psychology

[Anonymous No.2891184]

>>2891174
What approach or person specifically are you talking about? Psychology was not founded on principles resembling those at all.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Wundt
And none of that was in the thread, so it can't very well serve as a tl;dr description, can it?

[Anonymous No.2891186]

>>2891180
>Implying neuroscience isn't a subset of biology
fixed it for you

[Anonymous No.2891187]

>>2891180
I wouldn't go that far, but the two do overlap quite a bit. Neuroscience is very interdisciplinary.

[Anonymous No.2891190]

>>2891180
Indeed, scientometric studies have shown that psychology is in fact a hub of science.
Hubs:
social sciences
psychology
earth sciences
math
physics
chemistry
medicine

[Anonymous No.2891197]

>>2891190
>sociology
>science
Pick one

[Anonymous No.2891215]

>>2891190
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=2203

[Anonymous No.2891220]

>>2891197

This.

Sociology is the most immensely retarded,pile of shit ever created.

[Anonymous No.2891226]

>>2891197
Quantitative sociology or qualitative sociology?

[Anonymous No.2891238]

>>2891226
Both.
Scientific method does NOT apply to either.

[Anonymous No.2891242]

>>2891238
I'm pretty sure it applies to quantitative sociology. If it doesn't then we should reject all history, all natural history and all economics as well.

[Anonymous No.2891244]

>>2891242
>implying history and economics are under the category of pseudo-science (sociology).

[Anonymous No.2891250]

>>2891242

Except Economics is actually valuable to society.

[Anonymous No.2891257]

>>2891250
Yeah, bringing society to the brink of collapse sure was great

[Anonymous No.2891262]

>>2891257
>implying anyone was listening to the economists' warnings of overspending.

[Anonymous No.2891263]

>>2891257

Just saiyan, I'd rather have a Bcom than anything with Psych or Sociology

[Anonymous No.2891265]

>>2891244
>>2891250
They are all sciences that cannot rely on repeatable experiments and where the only facts are statistical or subjective in nature and have to be interpreted with wide margins of error and not taken literally.

[Anonymous No.2891274]

Psychology can be science. Similarly something like, say, physics can sometimes *not* be science. It all comes down to the methodology and the rigour involved. It looks like plenty of posters above have already said as much though, so I don't know why I'm bothering to post. Probably something to do with the Palmtop Tiger.