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/sci/ - Science & Math

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3139081 No.3139081 [Reply] [Original]

Is psychology a pseudoscience?

>> No.3139134

yes.

>> No.3139164

I'm sure it has its use's. What those are I have no idea

>> No.3139262

No, and anyway to says otherwise is an ignorant pretentious teenager.

>> No.3139273

>>3139262

Well fuck.

But it depends. Studying the human mind is like studying how a computer works. It's just an absurdly complex computer that nature created over billions of years.

>> No.3139282

>>3139273

True, but it routinely runs experiments that are both verifiable and repeatable, and produce results that have predictive and explanatory power.

That, if nothing else, is science.

>> No.3139292

No it's not.

Learn what science is before asking redundant questions

>> No.3139297
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3139297

>>3139292

>> No.3139299

>>3139081
No. Psychology (when used with the scientific method and an appropriate measure for the massive amount of variables) is not a pseudoscience. Unfortunately, there's a lot of bullshit psychology that drags down the validity of the whole field.

>> No.3139315

when psychology is used properly it really becomes neuroscience and neurobiology....b/c psychology has been founded on a lot of non-emperical evidence and the fact that the human brain is extremely difficult to observe compared to other systems, psychology, as of now is a behavioral science....and a lot of it is not very convincing or satisfactory....however take into account its basically just started....when physics first started we though the earth as the center of the universe etc etc...things get better overtime....although any one serious about psychology now should study neuroscience instead

>> No.3139325

>>3139299
You forgot to point out that laymen are only familiar with Freud, do not know of a distinction between psychology and psychiatry and furthermore don't know of any actual and current research.

Conceptual [mis]understanding of outdated concepts does not mean that you know of a thing related to psychology. It's a diverse field with a wide variety of applications, many of which are unknown to laymen who evidently like to express their naivety by saying that the whole field is a sham

>> No.3139343

>>3139325
please elaborate

>> No.3139346

>>3139299

I kind of resent the notion of "bullshit psychology" being so prevalent and equated with psychology. It's like saying timecube is just bullshit physics and it drags down the validity of the field.

That isn't how it works. We just call the timecube inane drivel, and it's creator a retard.

Just because someone makes uneducated claims about a field shouldn't invalidate it.

Psychology was just given a bad rap because of Freud and people's ignorance about the field. (Freud did actually have *some good ideas about psychology)

It's kinda the same thing with Philosophy, it gets down graded because everyone willy nilly thinks they can be a philsopher ("HUrr DuRr What if we are all playing cards in a cosmological poker game?!?!) It's a much deeper discipline than that and like philosophy has been conflated with sort of new age ridiculousness.

Obviously, any one can take any field and make it seem retarded, but people /SHOULD/ (read: often aren't) be astute enough to say ok what this person is saying is retarded, but the underlying field isn't affected by some retard.

*read: very few

>> No.3139353

>>3139315
It was unscientific until the 1940's or so.

>psychology, as of now is a behavioral science....and a lot of it is not very convincing or satisfactory....

It employs the scientific method, it is both verified by means of peer review and falsifiable. Your statement that it's not convincing, nor satisfactory suggests that you're either biased and ignorant, or that you have a flawed understanding of what science is and how research is performed.

The only domain wherein psychology differs from things such as chem or physics is that the fundamentals are not always constant or wholly understood. The evidence from good research in psychology, much like the fields above, is sound.

>> No.3139365

>>3139343
What do you want to know? Psychology in the public domain is conflated by ignorant bullshit.

>> No.3139368

the problem is the the course work for getting an undergrad degree in psychology is bad..simply put....many psyc degrees do not require any organic chemistry, very little upper level biology, no physics and a large emphasis on assumptions....ive read through many of the books 4 year universities use for psychology undergraduate courses and there horrible and not scientific at all....you will literally read things such as "boys are more likely to be aggressive" and similar assumptions are made consistently throughout other textbooks....not to mention freud is still taught in introductory psyc courses

>> No.3139382

in the next 20 years with more advancements in neuroscience and neurobiology i believe psychology will end up like philosophy is today....useless

>> No.3139390

>>3139368
>not to mention freud is still taught in introductory psyc courses
Not a psych major, but Freud is examined more or less through the historical perspective. His views gave way to greater theories.

If any university treats Freud as anything but a footrest for psychological advancement, then that's pretty fishy. Otherwise, learning about Freud isn't harmful.

>> No.3139398

Adventure therapist here,

Yes, psychology still has uses.

>> No.3139403

It's basically in the same tier as alchemy or occultism.

It's findings are rarely applicable in a universal manner, and when they are, they are correlative rather than causative.

>> No.3139411

>>3139390
true freud is taught in a historical context....but u tiptoed over my whole statement,

there's a reason why psyc is still given as a BA and only when taking the other sciences you can get a BS

>> No.3139415

>>3139368
You say that you've read UNDERGRADUATE textbooks which cite evidence from past research that you've not bothered to explore. I should also mention that most undergrad books [esp first year] are largely conceptual.

Freud is still a staple of first year psych as he had good ideas. His concept of defence mechanisms, although unverifiable by scientific means, is sound. His theory of personality, much like Maslow's hierachy of needs is subject to debate. But this doesn't mean that the concepts are stupid an ineffective.

Psychoanalytic approaches to therapy have shown to be effective in treating a variety of disorders and conditions.

Fact of the matter is that first year psych is a bit of a feeler and gives kids a few concepts to explore. I don't see a problem with this

>> No.3139416

Here's the problem. Psychology shows the infancy of our understanding of human behavior.

But if you've seen Feynman's talk about magnets he essentially elaborates on how there are mechanisms and then there are underlying mechanism of those mechanisms, and ultimately we don't really know how magnets work.
However, physics has had the luxury of being an incredibly advanced field. We have a lot deeper understanding of things in that area. We knows the mechanisms, and the mechanism of those mechanisms, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum.

But, with human behavior and psychology in specific we're looking at the tip of the iceberg of a nascent field.

We can observe certain epiphenoma with fairly good accuracy, and in a way we don't have to know the underlying phenomena.

Think of it this way. We can see a ball, and we can see how it moves, and measure it. Then we can derive a formula to explain it's motion. We don't have to know what every single atom in the ball is doing. We don't have to know what causes gravity, only that it has an acceleration of 9.8 m/s.

I fear this may get to long, so I hope that is sufficient. Feel free to ask questions or request clarification.

>> No.3139417

>>3139411
Psych degrees can be obtained via faculties of science.

>> No.3139418

>>3139403
my thoughts exactly

its too new it will be taken over by neuroscience

>> No.3139424

>>3139415
Oh and in relation to boys being more likely to be aggressive, this is true. That's just the way the world works.Look it up if you disagree with it. There's science which has addressed it.

>> No.3139433

>>3139403
This post outlines what I said in >>3139325

>>3139416
Although it was nearly TLDR, your point is valid.

>> No.3139446

There are over 9000 areas of psychology, so it depends.

Evolutionary psychology, behavioural neuroscience, health psychology, or anything else which relies on measuring physical things and collecting data objectively is, no doubt, true science.

In the middle there is "social science," things like social psych, I/O psych, counselling, school, clinical, sports, abnormal, etc. While not pseudoscience, these are "soft" sciences because they overly rely on unobservable phenomena such as personal feelings and study things which are socially constructed rather than naturally occuring. Seome fields like developmental psychology and environmental psychology contain element of both hard and soft science.

Pseudoscience: spiritual psychology, quantum mysticism, religious psychology etc. while utterly fascinating and essential in descibing certain aspects of the human condition, are not real sciences.

>> No.3139485

>>3139424
of course....but a physiological approach that addresses chemical differences or a genetic approach is much more satisfactory than a psychologists approach which tells me "boys are more aggresive because they are" is useless...let along writing a whole book on conceptual assumptions....why should i even bother looking up the evidence when a physiology text book could tell me on a molecular or cellular basis why boys are more aggressive if the topic is addressed? or i could correlate the fact that boys have more testosterone, which i know can cause aggression by studying endocrinology?

>> No.3139493

>>3139418

Ugh, that's just like saying neuroscience will be taken over by biochemistry, and biochemistry will get taken over by chemistry, and chemistry will get taken over by physics, and physics will get taken over by math, and math will get taken over by logic, and logic will get taken over by philosophy.

That won't happen, because they are differen't layers of these same thing, but in those layers they serve distinct and unique purposes. Using math to take over biology would be like cutting an orange by severing the atoms one by one with a laser. Doable, yes, but ultimately ridiculous.

>> No.3139510

>>3139493
neuroscience can explain behavioral phenomena by applying much better analytical methods, looking at things at a cellular and molecular basis

>> No.3139517

>>3139493

neuroscience IS biochemistry IS chemistry, chemistry IS physics and physics IS math

>> No.3139518

>>3139485
I started writing a response but then I gave up. Why? Because it's stupid to think that first-years need to understand physiology, chemistry, neurochem and biology. As I said, it's highly conceptual. If they however desires to advance their knowledge, the answers they're looking for will likely be cited in their textbook.

Omission of superfluous information in a first year textbook does not invalidate anything. Come again.

>> No.3139520

>>3139510

Oh, you don't have to tell me the utility of neuroscience.
It is, in my opinion, the most significant field for humans.

I'm just remarking that the idea that neuroscience will completely consume it is a somewhat naive standpoint.

>> No.3139524

>>3139517

I know... what's your point?

Also, I couldn't help but notice you didn't want to continue that all the way with logic and philosophy.

>> No.3139526

>>3139520

it being psychology, just to clarify.

lolololol ambiguous antecedents.

>> No.3139533

It always cracks me up when chemists and physicists ignore the fact that for the most part all of their observations are inferred. Yes the human mind is a complex and impossible to see thing, but isn't a protein the same way? Isn't our understanding of chemistry mostly based in models?

>> No.3139543

>>3139518

write your response

please i would really like to know

>> No.3139549

>>3139533
models that have been proven useful time and time again
you look at proteins under a microscope

>> No.3139552

Is biology a pseudoscience? All i ever did in biology class was identify animals plants parts of the animals and plants and bacteria. Feels like it's more of a labeling discipline than an actual science.

>> No.3139556

>>3139518
it will be expected for people to know in the future as science advances

>> No.3139564

>>3139552

Don't conflate your study of biology, with biology (the study of life).

You are being taught a field, so that you can then practice in that field.

While in school:
You = Biology student

While in research facility:
You = Biologist

>> No.3139570

>>3139520
not naive at all
alchemy was consumed by chemistry
as science gets better things prove to be more useful in society than others, and u proved my point...why use psychology when u can use neurobiology which explains behavior better?

when we have a better grasp of the brain on a cellular level psychology will be gone

>> No.3139587

>>3139570

It's possible, but you shouldn't assume it will be so.

For instance, psychological problems technically could be solved with brain surgery, but that's likely not going to be preferable.

Psychological problems are likely best treated psychologically (i.e. conquering your fear of heights by going bungee jumping). That's just a small example.

You're all too willing to equivocate alchemy and psychology, but alchemy was practice based fundamentally on false principles. I might even go as far as to say that alchemy wasn't really taken over by chemistry, but just that alchemy died and chemistry was born independently. But that might be taking it too far.

The point is there are different layers, and sometimes it is best to work within those layers.

>> No.3139596

I'm an actual Psychology scientist, not like my fellow undergrads who want to be clinical psychologists. For med school students, you have no choice but to go on to get your MD. I do more real science in my field than many "hard" science majors do. Most of hard science is math and theory. In psych, we do experiments and collect data.

>> No.3139601

>>3139587
i agree with that
my quarrel is with psychology in an undergraduate setting.

>> No.3139604

>>3139596
what was ur latest experiment and its conclusion?

>> No.3139637

>>3139601

Well there's nothing I can do about that. I don't control undergraduate curriculum.

>> No.3139718

>>3139533
Chemistry
Aim: addition of 10 Mol of Na to 5 Mol of H2O [at a temperature of 20c] will yield a salt water with a concentration of xx%

Based on and subject to: basic chem that I've forgotten, features such as molar mass, valence electrons, electron shells, molecular forces and interaction, etc all remain constant and known [in normal conditions]

Results: as predicted. We win.


Psychology
Aim: It is hypothesized mean word recall of the control group without music will be greater than that of the experimental group in the Death Metal, Screamo, and Techno conditions but lower in the Classical and Instrumental conditions

Based on and subject to: models of attention [not fully understood but a dominant model exists], maturation, aberrant brain development, fatigue, environmental, genetic and epigenetic effects along with factors such as sex, illness, disease etc. you get the gist.

Results: Results indicate that blah blah, p < .001, 95% CI etc. Post-hoc comparison indicated that.... These results SUGGEST that music negatively affects word recall. Relationship between complexity and timbre of music and word recall.

Discussion: Our research, other research, limitations etc.


Albeit a touch overdone, the conditions outlined above are however legitimate and may serve to confound any collected data.

TLDR: Chemistry based on constants. Psychology subject to variation which must be accounted for.

>> No.3139749

>>3139718

The concentration will be 0% because adding sodium metal to water will not produce salt water.

>> No.3139751

>>3139543
Forgotten what I intended to write. Doesn't matter. Different fields have different ways of introducing the foundations of whatever it is that's being taught. Because you're accustomed, or have experienced it differently does not mean that the methodology of teaching in other degrees is a bad one, it merely means that omission of any related information [which is not addressed] is considered not to be pertinent to the content being taught or cannot be taught due to time/curricular restraints.

>> No.3139761

>>3139749
lol, NaCl.

Been a while since I've done chem.

>> No.3139809
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3139809

>>3139718

>Results: as predicted. We win.

I lol'd

>> No.3140198

Yes, most of it is. But so is a lot of shit in nearly every discipline.

>> No.3140207

Psychology is actually a form of magic.

It allows you to receive money (a pittance, really) for spouting out whatever bullshit your imagination can come up with.