/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.5408680]

Explain to me how Psychology and Biology are not real sciences.

Then explain to me what exactly makes a branch of science 'real'.

[Anonymous No.5408684]

They are not physics.

[Anonymous No.5408694]

>>5408684

so?

[Anonymous No.5408707]

>>5408694
/sci/ thinks physics is the only science. Pay no mind to /sci/, it pays little actual mind to anything anyway.

[Anonymous No.5408711]

>>5408684
They are real sciences. What makes the autists on this board feel superior is that both put forward less concrete theories than chem/physics (thinking of some stuff in pop bio, loads of psychology personality/cognitive stuff), and often have a history of arguing unfalsifiable bullshit (looking at you, psychoanalysis).

[Anonymous No.5408714]

There is something like a natural hierarchy of sciences. People who can into physics usually easily can into biology or psychology as well, while the opposite direction is rare.

[Anonymous No.5408722]

>>5408714

But how does the difficulty of understanding the science make the science any less 'real'?

[Anonymous No.5408724]

>>5408714
Get an info-graphic or sauce and post it.

[Anonymous No.5408768]

>>5408722

bump

[Anonymous No.5408785]

No one can explain it.

cool.

[Anonymous No.5408804]

Do people really not consider biology a science? Or is this a opinion usually only found here?

I do not usually post on this board. Guess I should lurk more.

[Anonymous No.5408827]

>>5408804

Yes. /sci/ thinks any science that doesn't directly involve physics is a psuedo-science.

[Anonymous No.5408839]

Due to the increased complexity of biological systems and individuals' psychologies it is difficult to form rigorous mathematical laws about them. However that doesn't stop a lot of experts in these fields from making bold claims about reality.

Feynman explains it quite well here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaO69CF5mbY

[Anonymous No.5408910]

>>5408839

What a hack.

[Anonymous No.5408908]

It's a joke that someone who failed biology spammed until people started to believe it.

[Anonymous No.5409035]

>>5408839
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaO69CF5mbY

Haha, wow. This is seriously comical. His argument is that these 'pseudo sciences', which are still young compared to physics, have not come up with any definitive laws.

Your physics has not always had its laws. They were developed over time.

[Anonymous No.5409042]

>>5409035

Let me rephrase. Physicists have not always known the laws and been able to define them. Physics progressed over time.

[Anonymous No.5409067]

>>5409035
>>5409042

What's your excuse now /sci/.

How are psychology and biology any less real than physics or chemistry.

[Anonymous No.5409075]

>>5409067

>mfw people believe this shit but can't even explain it

[Anonymous No.5409086]

>>5408680
that joke/troll isn't even that new

stop being new

[Anonymous No.5409088]

>>5409067
Because you need absolutely no math for psych or bio in uni.
Erego they are filled with plebeian retards that memorize textbooks via flashcards and call it "science".
Rarely will someone who majored in these subjects be able to tell you jack shit about anything.

[Anonymous No.5409089]

The real answer is that psychology and biology are popular degrees with people who aren't actually in to science but want big money because "science pays well" or some bullshit. Which is why those degrees have such high numbers of women in them.

It's basically the "it's popular so I hate it" criticism all 4chan boards have.

[Anonymous No.5409090]

ITT: Butthurt social science undergrad with no future

[Anonymous No.5409091]

>>5409089
But...
those two degrees do not pay well at all...

[Anonymous No.5409092]

>>5409091
They don't know that.

[Anonymous No.5409093]

>>5409088
sounds like we got a hardcore fundamentalist here

tell me anything you know about protein biophysics, biological information theory, genetic engineering, neural prosthetics

please, go on

[Anonymous No.5409097]

>>5409088
That is the most childishly idiotic explanation I have ever heard in my life. You sound like someone who is angry because they cannot explain what an allele is.

[Anonymous No.5409099]

>>5409088

>that memorize textbooks

How is that any different from you? You simply memorize laws, and theories. And when it comes to math you simply memorize the formulas.

[Anonymous No.5409118]

>>5408908
that's voltair, not descartes but is it a real quote ?

[Anonymous No.5409120]

>>5409099
i lol'd

[Anonymous No.5409125]

>>5409120

If you aren't going to rebut my rebuttal with a rebuttal, then what's the point of even replying?

[Anonymous No.5409140]

Psychology is a legitimate field, as is biology, but our understanding of the mechanisms of the human brain increases the more our understanding of said mechanisms become mathematical/physical.

Math and physics are seen as "purer." Because they provide the underlying framework for how data that has been collected scientifically is expressed. Math is the language of science, and physics is the language of nature. Math is the language in which physics is writtten when it is understood by humans. The human mind, the subject of psychology, is subject to the laws of physics. We move from structural theories to a mathematical understanding. The specificity is in the math and physics.

The people in that field get this weird notion that specificity is superior. Not all of them, just the one OP is clearly upset about.

[Anonymous No.5409142]

>>5409125
If you're nott going tto reply to my reply with a reply of my reply, why reply tto my reply witth a rebuttal about my reply?

[Anonymous No.5409147]

>>5409142

Why are you so angry?

[Anonymous No.5409148]

Also feldspar

[Anonymous No.5409150]

>>5409099
>And when it comes to math you simply memorize the formulas
No, we prove theorems.

[Anonymous No.5409155]

>>5409142
nah i don't think that biology isn't a real science.

i think that a biologist who simply memorize textbooks is a bad biologist and a mathematician who simply memorize formulas is a bad mathematician

but waiting to see this post with all those reply was totally worthing it

[Anonymous No.5409159]

>>5409148
The true science

[Anonymous No.5409162]

YOU ARE A FAGGOT

[Anonymous No.5409166]

>EVERYBODY ON HERE IS GAY.
except for me

[Anonymous No.5409164]

EVERYBODY ON HERE IS GAY.

[Anonymous No.5409168]

> Except for me

You're the main person who's gay for replying you fuck.

[Anonymous No.5409169]

But you're on /sci/ so aren't you automatically gay?

[Anonymous No.5409171]

^ What the fuck are you on you little queer? I swear to god if you reply one more time, I'll annihilate your feelings in any way i possibly can.

[Anonymous No.5409175]

Shut the fuck up you dumbass whore. i'll slice your head open with a fucking butter knife you little fuck. I'll have you know I have a notebook with over 1094 little pricks like you, whose asses i beat. You are just a faggot online with no chance in life. If I catch a bastard like you in real life, you can GAURUNTEE that your ass will be handed to you and not given back until next fucking leap year you little shit. I'm gonna put you in a fucking blender and watch your family drink you.
So don't fuck with me you little pussy slut. I know six different types of martial arts and trained with Jackie Chan himself. I've matched with MMA fighters around the world and able to locate 32 different pressure points and shut your body down long enough for you to forget your own first name. So don't mess with me, Pussy.

[Anonymous No.5409177]

>>5409171
Look out! An Internet Tough Guy has appeared.

He insults you!

No damage.

[Anonymous No.5409181]

>Look out! An Internet Tough Guy has appeared.
I WILL DESTROY YOU

[Anonymous No.5409183]

>Look out! An Internet Tough Guy has appeared.

He insults you!

No damage.
Nigga hasn't ever touched a girl. You're on /sci/, yet your saying that there's an internet tough guy? FAGGOT CLEARLY.

[Anonymous No.5409187]

Only original biologists are scientist, the rest are Pic Related.
It's why it's not a science, birds can't into science.

[Anonymous No.5409188]

>>5409177
Weak ass

[Anonymous No.5409190]

>>5409183
Coming from the guy with a 20 lane highway of faggotry for his rectum, I hardly feel insulted.

[Anonymous No.5409191]

>>5409187
Nerd ass

[Anonymous No.5409196]

>>5409190
Define rectum.

[Anonymous No.5409195]

>>5409188
Oh, gosh. I feel ~SO~ bad now.

Boo-hoo. Sniffle.

[Anonymous No.5409198]

>>5409196
Try google.

[Anonymous No.5409200]

>>5409198
Aww, that's hiliarious. You're such a niglet.

[Anonymous No.5409213]

>>5409200
Okay, doctor science.

[Anonymous No.5409229]

>>5408680
it's because psychology is an abstraction of biology which is an abstraction of chemistry which is an abstraction of physics

[Anonymous No.5409227]

>>5408680
Biology is a "real" science, more or less. There are bits of it that venture out of it, but it's real for the most part (inb4 /sci/ hatred).

Psychology, on the other hand, isn't really. It wants so hard to be, but it can't make testable predictions and reliable & reproducible experiments. Hence, it's more of a pseudo-science.

[Anonymous No.5409242]

>>5409229

but a physicist doesn't study how a cell works

[Anonymous No.5409248]

>>5408839
Exactly.

Why can't we just all get along?

Its been said by physicsts that Schrodinger equation encompasses all of chemistry.

Ha! Can Schrodinger equation spit out a one step synthesis for a complex organic molecule?

Physicists don't know everything.
Smart dudes though, for sure.

Me and my lab colleague go to jiujitsu together. We always joke, "if you feel an inferiority complex towards another, just beat the living fuck out of them."

[Anonymous No.5409256]

Here's the thing.

We want to hate the less specific sciences.

Because they provide less specific answers. And venture off into the pseudosciences more frequently.

Yet. These less specific sciences emerged when technology favored them. That is, our understanding of reality only went so far as our technology allowed it to. We attribute great discoveries to scientists and the scientific method while ignoring the societies that bore and raised them, the values that tamed them, and the technology which they used to achieve their intellectual ends.

Science and the scientific method were both byproducts of philosophy, where a person simply uses their own intuition and pattern recognition skills to decide what the best course of action with reality is.

Yet philosophy is also the sole generator of pseudoscience as well. Because philosophy is simply unrestricted thought.

The more restrictions that are put on, the more we approach physics, bound by our universe, and pure mathematics, bound by all reality.

Yet the specificity is dependent on the generality, just as intellect is dependent on stupidity. We wouldn't revel in our intellect were we not able to compare it to the stupidity of our ancestors and of our most ignorant peers. That which irritates us is a reference point for that which does not.

[Anonymous No.5409262]

Most of /sci/ thinks psychology still adheres to freudian psychology because everything they think they know about the field comes from watching movies and cartoons. As a result, they think it's bullshit.

/sci/ is only trolling when it says that biology isn't a science. Of the minority of posters who are serious, they're high schoolers or freshman engineering majors who think that nothing can be rigorous without complicated math.

[Anonymous No.5409263]

>>5409091
What about pre-med?

[Anonymous No.5409273]

The problem is that biology is not reducible (by humans or any human technology) to chemistry, or to physics, or to math. It's an entirely different field because the systems that you are studying in biology are orders of magnitude more complex than what you study in physics. Kind of funny how the one with the most complicated math is the most "basic," while biological systems are stupidly complex at their simplest.

[Anonymous No.5409277]

>>5409227
Psychology as a science is stuff like neuropsychology, cognitive/experimental psychology, social psychology, personality psychology, experimental clinical psychology,... It's an incredibly broad field with many different paradigms. For instance: social/personality psychology often uses a lot of questionnaires for instance, while neuropsychology and cognitive psychology will use stuff like fMRI, EEG and TMS. It's not clear-cut though and there are social psychologists utilizing neuroscientific tools as well.

I think that most people who dismiss psychology as science base their opinion solely on media portrayal, popscience or interactions with clinical psychologists. Clinical psychologists btw are the overwhelming majority of people going by the name "psychologist", they tend to have little to no training or interest in research and shouldn't be used as examples to discredit the science.
With that said, psychology still has a lot to improve upon, especially when it comes to the file-drawer problem, low data transparency/sharing and lack of exact replications.

[Anonymous No.5409292]

>>5408714
>baseless assertions
>baseless assertions everywhere.jpg

[Anonymous No.5409297]

>>5409150
No, you don't. Other physicists who are very, very good at math assert and prove theorems. You memorize formulas.

[Anonymous No.5409300]

>>5409190
i lol'd

[Anonymous No.5409309]

>>5409248

read these posts

>>5409042
>>5409035

[Anonymous No.5409319]

>>5409297

10/10

Best post i've seen in this thread.

[Anonymous No.5409333]

Cause it's just a bunch of faggots running around making unproven claims.

[Anonymous No.5409336]

>>5409333
so theoretical physics?

[Anonymous No.5409348]

>>5409336

are you fucking stupid. were making profound theoreitcal phyisics and setting the stepping stones for physics in the next 100 years.

[Anonymous No.5409373]

>Mfw so many butthurt physicists in this thread
Stay mad, guys. I'm sure you're as smart as you think you all are.

[Anonymous No.5409377]

>Explain to me how Psychology and Biology are not real sciences

Biology is, Psychology isn't.

[Anonymous No.5409380]

Biology is a science. Psychology is a business.

[Anonymous No.5409388]

Technically a science is any field of study that intrinsically accumulates a body of knowledge over time. By word association and defining/refining the meaning of science we have come to three "branches" of science.

Natural Science (Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Geology). These are the branches of science that people in the 19th-21st century usually dub "true science" usually because of a poorly taught rhetoric that science is only linked to the Scientific Method.

Social Science (Psychology, Sociology, Economics, Law, Anthropology, etc.). This is a branch of science that has been around for a long time, even before natural science yet people simply didn't define it as a category of scientific enquiry. It is simply the study and observations of how people interact with each other on a daily or controlled environment.

Formal Science (Mathematics, Computer Science, Logic). These are the sciences of science. These work off of the information inherently gathered through other observations. A way of observing and defining phenomena at the lowest (or highest pending on your outlook) of "life". Essentially it is ways of explaining things by using theoretical things to represent the things you are trying to explain.

All of these had foundations in Philosophy which is the first science. Before all this categorization there were only the fighters, the leaders, the traders, and the philosophers.

[Anonymous No.5409498]

>>5408680
From a math perspective, biology, psychology and physics are all equally "false". They all draw conclusions from repeating an experiment a certain number of times, assuming that because a certain event happened so many times, it must happen all the time. In other words, science is all just guessing (albeit, some more intuitive or logical than others).

[Anonymous No.5409521]

>>5409388
this

[Anonymous No.5409534]

>>5409377

Where's your explanation? I clearly asked for one

[Anonymous No.5409620]

>>5408680

See 5409388 response (on 1/4/12 right after Kermit's pic)

Additionally:

Note that the word "real" is only an adjective. The words "science", "biology" & "psychology" are both nouns and adjectives.

To define "science", two basic assumptions are used to justify the scientific method: (1) that there is an objective reality shared by all rational observers; (ie: the double helix - once discovered, it became an objective reality)
(2) that this objective reality is governed by natural laws; (3) that these laws can be discovered by means of systematic observation and experimentation.

In other words:
Science is defined as a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. (a result of a study)

The definition of "real" is relative to the results that a particular scientific study provides.

-logy = The study of
-bio = A course of life
-psych = mind
-sci = know
-real = true = knowledge at a certain moment in time

Ergo, I propose that all types of science are 'real':

Biological Science - a study done using a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes "knowledge" in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the course of life

Psychological Science -a study done using a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes "knowledge" in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the mind"

Real Science - "The know the results of a study"

A scientist would not ask merely "What is the cause of...", but rather "What are the most significant causes of...". This is especially the case in the more macroscopic fields of science (e.g. psychology, cosmology).

[Anonymous No.5409678]

>>5409277

This

I'm doing a masters degree in neuropsychology. I get very disappointed when people undermine the work that I do because they think I'm not a real scientist.
I'm studying biological markers of post-stroke depression if anyone's interested.

[Anonymous No.5409683]

>>5408711
>psychoanalysis
Any Psychologist who isn't just looking to get money from listening to someone talk for an hour knows that's bullshit. The big problem with Psychology at the moment is the instruments necessary to get proper scientific data don't exist yet. As more instruments have become available (such as MRI) it's become increasingly scientific.

[Anonymous No.5409695]

>>5409683

psychology is surely benefiting from neuroscience right now in terms of becoming widely recognised as a proper science. It's so unfortunate that psychology has long been given such a bad wrap in the media. For too long have psychologists been portrayed as couch-dwelling 'mentors'.
With growth in the techniques and discoveries in neuroscience, I think psychology will benefit.

But I do admit that there's still a lot of bullshit in psychology. There are a lot fo studies that could be done without.

Honestly, I think that they should make it much harder to enter a degree in psychology. I feel that too many people are joining up thinking that they're in for some sort of femine-themed conference.

[Anonymous No.5409774]

>>5409263

Pre-Med isn't a degree. Its just science and math requirements that medical school applicants need to have taken. Biology degrees. It traditional requires two semesters of General Biology, General Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics while also requiring a single semester of Calculus, Statistics, and Biochemistry.

After you've taken those classes, took the MCAT, and finished a degree, you can apply to med school and have a >50% of making it into an allopathic school. You can apply to a osteopathic school and enjoy being discriminated against by your peers for the rest of your career for having the wrong letters behind your name and be unable to easily break into clinical research.

Then if you get into Medical School at the end of four awful years of increasing debt, the machine that decides everyone's job in the Giver assigns you the specialty of medicine you will be working in for the rest of your life and the institution you get to study that at.

Then you make a low-mid level five digit salary for 3-8 years while you're hazed by older residents and doctors. When you finally are able to work your own practice, have fun losing a quarter of your salary to malpractice insurance.

Its really something that a person needs a distinct calling for. Someone who goes premed should also be okay with majoring in nursing, various types of therapy, or clinical sciences. I originally did it because I liked physiology, people, money, and prestige. I'm business now, prepping for a law school that doesn't suck

[Anonymous No.5409799]

>>5409774
My gf is at this stage:
>Then you make a low-mid level five digit salary for 3-8 years while you're hazed by older residents and doctors.

She makes less than I do as a teacher of the English language. She sticks with it not for the money she will someday make (though as a cardiologist it will be substantial), nor for a love of helping people (that was part of why she began, but I'm told you stop seeing them as people and start seeing them largely as puzzles). She does it because it's difficult and because she's good at it. There are occasions where she figured out a cause that had eluded every doctor before her who had seen the patient. Nobody claps her on the back and tells her how great that is (except me, I guess). But she feels good for having solved it, for the moment a correlation is perceived, followed by the thrill of insight.

If that doesn't strike a chord with you "real" scientists, I don't imagine there's anything more I can say to convince you.

[Anonymous No.5409806]

Every effect has a cause.
Biology and even moreso psychology just have very very complicated effects and causes with many more factors to to be considered. In this day and age there are some very rudimentary formulas but nothing truly defining. They will come in good time. Probably not in our life but one day.