Psychology is pseudoscience

[TheOysterHippopotami]

I just had an incredibly long winded debate with Hemeriodius over the merits of psychology. I decided I would post my side of the argument here in hopes of perhaps starting a decent discussion.




The field of psychology seems ungrounded in science. I can think of no science, save psychology, that has ever made a vague or otherwise disputable claim and touted it as 'fact'.

Before I get started I will admit that there is some real science in psychology, but that does not mean psychology itself is a science. Neurology (at least as I understand it) is a subfield of psychology and it is indisputably scientific. Neurology would claim, for example, that X chemical acting on Y part of the brain produces Z result. That is an indisputable, objective fact. Neurology would conjecture that bipolar disorder (disorder meaning 'out of the ordinary') is caused by certain chemicals acting in a certain way on the brain. It would never attempt to conjecture, however, that having bipolar disorder is somehow 'wrong'. It may claim that a certain drug would change the way a person behaves, but it would never claim that a person with bipolar disorder should seek treatment.

Psychology, on the other hand, seems almost entirely constructed on these subjective claims. Nowhere is the subjectivity of psychology more apparent than in mental 'illness'.
You can objectively describe a sociopath. You can objectively describe the ratio of sociopaths to non sociopaths in a given society. But how can you objectively claim that being a sociopath is 'wrong'? How can you claim that a sociopath is 'Ill' or 'unhealthy' or 'unstable'? These are subjective claims and science makes only objective claims.

All science (except psychology) makes objective, factual statements. "The earth is the center of the universe". That is a factual statement. The earth either is or is not the center of the universe. There is no middle ground and no room for opinions.
However, claiming that a depressed individual is "mentally unstable" or "unhealthy" is not quite so clear cut though, is it? I can easily make the claim that a person with suicidal thoughts is being perfectly rational and the only argument the psychologist can use to dispute that is to describe the individuals brain chemistry. But this presupposes that a humans brain chemistry is 'supposed to' be a certain way.
Where in physics, chemistry, or biology do we find presupposition? We don't because they are sciences and science does not presuppose. Any discipline that touts itself as a science and makes subjective claims is, simply, not a science. It is a philosophy.

Therefore, psychology is not science. It is pseudoscience and practitioners of psychology are nothing but quacks on par with alchemists, astrologers and clergymen.

 

[Echo717]

 

[jon50559]

You proved your point fairly well, I won't argue it.
*ignores useless post before mine*

 

[Keldorn]

 

[Red Cell]

If this is a troll thread...really?

If this is a real thread...really?

 

[Stoned]

You people are pathetic :|

 

[The Man In Black]

But how can you objectively claim that being a sociopath is 'wrong'?

However, claiming that a depressed individual is "mentally unstable" or "unhealthy" is not quite so clear cut though, is it? I can easily make the claim that a person with suicidal thoughts is being perfectly rational and the only argument the psychologist can use to dispute that is to describe the individuals brain chemistry. But this presupposes that a humans brain chemistry is 'supposed to' be a certain way.

If you bring into it Natural Selection, anything that is counter-intuitive to reproducing is against what human nature is aiming towards. If you have suicidal thoughts, it's obvious that this is not the case, as killing yourself is kind of the opposite of surviving. Any other psychological disorders, imbalances, diseases, etc that make you an unsuitable mate also go against surviving and procreating. These are, from a Natural Selection point of view, "wrong." Psychological changes that benefit your ability to mate and survive are therefore "right."

 

[Thothie]

Psychology doesn’t cover what is "right" or what is "wrong". Anyone in the field that tells you otherwise is dabbling in the even softer science of Philosophy, or left the field of science entirely and is entering the privy of Religion.

Psychology can only aim at finding the most optimal to route to generate the desired behaviors of a particular society. If said society says you should eat babies, then Psychology's duty is to discover why you are not eating said babies, and to find a way to modify your behavior so that you are eating babies proper, as is desired by your society. There's plenty of empirically verifiable scientific methods, generated by psychological research, to produce the desired behavior.

It's one of the softer sciences to be sure (the aforementioned Philosophy being the only one I can think of that's any softer). However, it has plenty of hard-science areas. Behavioral modification, response stimulus, and motive association being among those more commonly employed in our society, some of which said society would be unsustainable without.

Psychiatry and neuroscience are the harder sub-fields of the trade to be sure, but Psychiatry has been hijacked by the pharmaceutical industry to the degree where it's become simply a method to justify the most profitable use of pills that may or may not have any actual affect on the prescribed ailments, and where empirical data is either discouraged or contaminated to the point where it has no meaning. So, sadly, the softer science areas of the field, such as cognitive therapy, are among the last that have practical application in people's lives that are still more likely to do good than harm. Even that, however, as mentioned, is still limited to the degree where the society hosting the research is out to do more good than harm, as said society is just as happy to turn you into a mindless drone as a content citizen, so long as you are remain a productive consumer.

To call Psychology a pseudo-science on the whole suggests a thorough misunderstanding of the science. To call it something that does more harm than good, on the other hand, well... The same argument could be made against many of the sciences. Most are not good nor bad in and of themselves, but like all tools, are instead merely subject to implementation.

(Although I'm curious if Psychology has an answer as to how and when the MSC forums became /b/.)

 

[The Man In Black]

Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:43 pm

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Sun Jul 09, 2006 10:30 am

 

[Red Cell]

You know, I really didn't want to waste my time with this but for the sake of keeping this sh!t serious here we go...

The field of psychology seems ungrounded in science.

I find the majority of disagreements come from miscommunication, and the majority of miscommunication comes from different interpretations and definitions of things. I feel like your idea of science is very different from the rest of the world.

In order to consider whether psychology is a science, we must first define our terms. It is not overarching to say that science is what separates human beings from animals, and, as time goes by and we learn more about our animal neighbors here on Earth, it becomes increasingly clear that science is all that separates humans from animals. We are learning that animals have feelings, passions, and certain rights. What animals do not have is the ability to reason, to rise above feeling.

Science's goal is to create reasonable explanations (theories) to describe reality – theories that rely, not on feelings or passions, but on evidence. Science defines “evidence” in a special way that will seem rather strict to someone only familiar with the legal definition. To science, evidence is gathered and evaluated (and sometimes discarded) according to some rigid rules, rules meant to assure that a scientific theory reflects reality to the best of our ability.

How strict are science's rules of evidence? Well, let's first compare science to law. The legal definition of evidence is (as one example) a set of observations that appear to associate a particular person with a particular event. Typically, legal proceedings begin with an investigation meant to collect evidence, followed by a trial that establishes whether that evidence meets a criterion – “beyond a reasonable doubt” in criminal proceedings, and “according to the preponderance of evidence” in civil proceedings (in the US). This, by the way, is why O. J. Simpson was found innocent in criminal court, but found guilty in a subsequent civil proceeding – using the same evidence, he wasn't guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but he was guilty “according to the preponderance of evidence.”

...The point here is that legal evidence is not remotely scientific evidence. Contrary to popular belief, science doesn't use sloppy evidentiary standards like “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and scientific theories never become facts. This is why the oft-heard expression “proven scientific fact” is never appropriate – it only reflects the scientific ignorance of the speaker. Scientific theories are always theories, they never become the final and only explanation for a given phenomenon.

As to the ever-popular expression “scientific law,” this is often an earnest effort by scientists to bridge the gap between the level of certainty required in science and that accepted in ordinary life. In fact and strictly speaking, there are no scientific laws, only theories about which we are very certain, like entropy and gravity, which, if they were to be tersely expressed in everyday language, would read: “Eventually it will break, and when it does, it is going to fall.”

About scientific evidence, philosopher John Stuart Mill said, “No amount of observations of white swans can allow the inference that all swans are white, but the observation of a single black swan is sufficient to refute that conclusion.” This saying aptly summarizes the difference between scientific evidence and every other kind of evidence, and it dramatizes the difference between science and ordinary human thinking.

I can think of no science, save psychology, that has ever made a vague or otherwise disputable claim and touted it as 'fact'.

Really? Here are a few that were touted as 'fact' as you put it...

Flat Earth hypothesis: Although not a truly scientific theory, it was proved wrong by many scientific observations over a period of thousands of years, with evidence compiling and culminating in Apollo 11's images of a spherical Earth.
Phlogiston theory: Created to explain the processes of oxidation - corrosion and combustion - it was disproved by discovery of the fact that combustion is the reaction of fuel with oxygen and that corrosion is caused by oxidation of metals and the formation of compounds.
Geocentric theory of the solar system: Disproved by studies through astronomy, as well as the use of physics to predict occurrences that geocentrism could not. Whether Earth is really the centre of the universe remains to be seen, since we don't know exactly where the universe ends.
The classical elemental theory (that all substance is made of earth, air, fire and water): Disproved by the discovery of subatomic particles and the modern elements, as we know them today.
Aristotle's dynamic motion: It was an attempt at explaining momentum and why certain substances behave in certain ways; it was linked to the concept of the classical elements. Disproved by Galileo.
Ether as a carrier of light waves and radio waves: Disproved by study of the dual particle-wave nature of light, which means it does not in fact require a medium of any kind, and the simple complete lack of any evidence for such a substance.(Disproved by the Michelson-Morley experiment.)
Newton's corpuscular theory of light: While correct in many ways - it was the modern concept of the photon - it too was supplanted by the dual wave-particle theory of light that explains all aspects of it.
Newton's Laws of Motion (which were improved upon by Einstein - while not really proved wrong, the were shown to be not quite right either. For example in relativity or on the very small scale they don't hold).

The point is, all the science's have been wrong at one point or another even when it was believed to be true by the majority of the scientific community at that time. I also really doubt it's ever presented as fact, more so that the hypothesis has been proven true according to the data presented but can also still be proven wrong at anytime. Which many hypothesis' have been proven wrong in many sciences.

Before I get started I will admit that there is some real science in psychology, but that does not mean psychology itself is a science. Neurology (at least as I understand it) is a subfield of psychology and it is indisputably scientific. Neurology would claim, for example, that X chemical acting on Y part of the brain produces Z result. That is an indisputable, objective fact. Neurology would conjecture that bipolar disorder (disorder meaning 'out of the ordinary') is caused by certain chemicals acting in a certain way on the brain. It would never attempt to conjecture, however, that having bipolar disorder is somehow 'wrong'. It may claim that a certain drug would change the way a person behaves, but it would never claim that a person with bipolar disorder should seek treatment.

I'm confused what you mean here. Neurology is a medical practice. If you are talking about Cognitive Neuroscience, then it is most definietly a branch of both psychology and neuroscience as it dips insto physilogical psychology, cognitive psychology, and neuropsychology. And they do cool things like this:
CLICK HERE!

And seeing how the APA define's psychology as:

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. The discipline embraces all aspects of the human experience — from the functions of the brain to the actions of nations, from child development to care for the aged. In every conceivable setting from scientific research centers to mental health care services, "the understanding of behavior" is the enterprise of psychologists.

I believe it fits quite well with Cognitive Neuroscience and therefore is a science.

Psychology, on the other hand, seems almost entirely constructed on these subjective claims. Nowhere is the subjectivity of psychology more apparent than in mental 'illness'.
You can objectively describe a sociopath. You can objectively describe the ratio of sociopaths to non sociopaths in a given society. But how can you objectively claim that being a sociopath is 'wrong'? How can you claim that a sociopath is 'Ill' or 'unhealthy' or 'unstable'? These are subjective claims and science makes only objective claims.

I can assure you that Psychology is not almost entirely constructed on subjective claims. Psychology is in its infantcy stages as a science and there is still much to learn about it. The fact that the IRB has such strict limitations on what scientists can do to human subjects (it's not like we can Nuremberg Trial that shit anymore) means research will progress at a much slower rate too. I'm sure we could define a mental illness if we gave it 100 years for technology to catch up and were able to treat human's like lab rats.

All science (except psychology) makes objective, factual statements. "The earth is the center of the universe". That is a factual statement. The earth either is or is not the center of the universe. There is no middle ground and no room for opinions.

If you're talking about null and atlernative hypothesis', then psychology infact does do this. You are wrong.

However, claiming that a depressed individual is "mentally unstable" or "unhealthy" is not quite so clear cut though, is it? I can easily make the claim that a person with suicidal thoughts is being perfectly rational and the only argument the psychologist can use to dispute that is to describe the individuals brain chemistry. But this presupposes that a humans brain chemistry is 'supposed to' be a certain way.
Where in physics, chemistry, or biology do we find presupposition? We don't because they are sciences and science does not presuppose. Any discipline that touts itself as a science and makes subjective claims is, simply, not a science. It is a philosophy.

Therefore, psychology is not science. It is pseudoscience and practitioners of psychology are nothing but quacks on par with alchemists, astrologers and clergymen.

Although I see where you were going with this example, if you see MiB's post on suicide (also big in biological psychology LOL) you could see where it's proven wrong. Now I do agree that a majority of terms (especially with the DSM) are not as well definied as they can be, however they are still observable and can be studied so it's not right to discount that they are not there. By that way of thinking, you would have considered that ancient Greeks view on astronomy as pseudoscience, the fact that they could see the planets, but could not prove their existence would mean that everything they said was complete bull. When in reality, they did the best they could, with what they had and helped spawn astronomy as we know it today.

The fact is this science is still young, it still needs time to grow, it deals with a very complex subject that has never been researched like this before. It fulfills all the credentials of being a science. It works closely with a lot of other science fields. By all definitions, it is a science, one that I expect to be growing in the next several hundred years as more research is done with it.

 

[FER]

I dont believe in psychology that much but I acknowledge it, and we gotta say that psychology itself is not useless but rather the people that practice it.
I think what keeps psychology being seen as some vodoo crap might be becasue everyone who is into this biasestheir way of work on Freud's work, an incestuous person with personal problems who dropped all this into his works.

BTW im half serious with this, but I do really see Freud as some perverted narcoleptic.

 

[Red Cell]

Oh please don't get me started with developmental psychology. It's got a LONG way to go before its theories can be remotely sorted out, tested, and agreed upon by the scientific community.

But none the less, there are many other subfields of psychology that don't even touch on things like this that are making great leaps and bounds in understanding human thinking.

EDIT: I really enjoy this view of it, you know, for lols:

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

Psychology can only aim at finding the most optimal to route to generate the desired behaviors of a particular society.

How can such an aim ever be scientific? Surely, we can use science to accomplish that aim, but the aim itself is completely out of the realm of science.

The point is, all the science's have been wrong at one point or another even when it was believed to be true by the majority of the scientific community at that time.

While all of those theories you mentioned were wrong, none of them were subjective. Flat earth theory is either correct or incorrect with no room for opinion or interpretation. Science can be wrong but it can't be subjective.

I see now I worded that statement poorly. I intended 'vague and disputable' to mean something that could be disputed on philosophical grounds - like a mental illness. Philosophy can't dispute flat earth theory but it can dispute some aspects of psychology.

CLICK HERE!

I can assure you that Psychology is not almost entirely constructed on subjective claims.

I should not have said that and I retract my statement. What I should have said was 'there are some subjective claims in psychology'. How can a science have any subjective claims and remain a science?

If you're talking about null and atlernative hypothesis', then psychology infact does do this. You are wrong.

Again I must back-peddle. Psychology does make objective claims but it also makes some subjective claims.

Although I see where you were going with this example, if you see MiB's post on suicide (also big in biological psychology LOL) you could see where it's proven wrong.

I could not disagree more vehemently with his post.

If you bring into it Natural Selection, anything that is counter-intuitive to reproducing is against what human nature is aiming towards. If you have suicidal thoughts, it's obvious that this is not the case, as killing yourself is kind of the opposite of surviving. Any other psychological disorders, imbalances, diseases, etc that make you an unsuitable mate also go against surviving and procreating. These are, from a Natural Selection point of view, "wrong." Psychological changes that benefit your ability to mate and survive are therefore "right."

This is a misunderstanding of natural selection. An organism with an advantageous mutation does not survive because it is "supposed to". It survives because it is most likely to survive. A species is not "supposed to" survive. It is not "supposed to" propagate and flourish. A species may indeed flourish, but barring the existence of a God, it is not "supposed to". It just does.

By that way of thinking, you would have considered that ancient Greeks view on astronomy as pseudoscience, the fact that they could see the planets, but could not prove their existence would mean that everything they said was complete bull. When in reality, they did the best they could, with what they had and helped spawn astronomy as we know it today.

They could, at the very least, prove something had been seen. Although, just because something helps to create a legitimate science does not mean it should be considered a science itself. After all, Alchemy played a role in spawning chemistry, but it's certainly a pseudoscience, is it not?

The fact is this science is still young, it still needs time to grow, it deals with a very complex subject that has never been researched like this before.

That doesn't stop them from putting people on drugs, locking them away in an 'asylum' or (in the past) removing whole parts of a persons brain or giving women hysterectomies. It doesn't stop the public and legal authorities from viewing psychologists as "experts".
While it is true that most science has harmed the world in one way or another (Weapons of mass destruction come to mind) no other science seems to be as guilty as psychology. Since it's very inception psychology has been guilty of crimes against humanity.
I admit, however, that this is an entirely different debate.

It fulfills all the credentials of being a science.

But does it also not overstep the bounds of science from time to time? Are there any other sciences that do this?

But none the less, there are many other subfields of psychology that don't even touch on things like this that are making great leaps and bounds in understanding human thinking.

A subfield doesn't necessarily validate the parent field.

 

[Red Cell]

Look I really don't want to get into one of these massive quote debates because I just don't want to dedicate the time. I appreciate you still keeping this civil and you are quite the debater and a pretty cool dude none the less.

Have you ever done any type of Psychological research? Have you ever looked into any Psychological journals? Do you understand the research methods and approval processes that must be done in order to attempt to even publish information? In every since Psychology always attempts to be objective. However it is studied by humans on humans. So I would expect there to be some form error and mistakes (which are always taken into account). ESPECIALLY SEEING HOW NEW THIS FIELD IS!

>>>I feel like you are overlooking the point I made that this Science is in its infancy stages and has a lot of growth to be had.<<<

Also on two side notes:
1) I believe MiB was talking about from a biological standpoint, not a natural selection one. Which for every species the main goal is to survive and reproduce. If that goal is not met, the species will die and it's function will cease to exist.
2) I really don't think you can rank order sciences on which one has done "more evil" things. It's all about objective data once again. It seems like you have it out for Psychology for some reason. Would you like to talk about it?

 

[Srgnt Rehab]

All science (except psychology) makes objective, factual statements. "The earth is the center of the universe". That is a factual statement. The earth either is or is not the center of the universe. There is no middle ground and no room for opinions.
However, claiming that a depressed individual is "mentally unstable" or "unhealthy" is not quite so clear cut though, is it? I can easily make the claim that a person with suicidal thoughts is being perfectly rational and the only argument the psychologist can use to dispute that is to describe the individuals brain chemistry. But this presupposes that a humans brain chemistry is 'supposed to' be a certain way.

Hrm. I usually try to avoid "Serious Discussion" Threads. (they seem to end up with people not liking other peoples ideals and what not. AKA too much drama)

I'm not the brightest crayon in the toolbox, however, I feel that saying that a depressed individual is "unhealthy" is just as factual as the claim that "The earth is the center of the universe". Seeing as that the center of the universe cannot be defined (as far as I can remember from my skool days) so we cannot say that for a fact the exact center of the universe is or is not somehow always the earth ... ??? (Not certain why you chose an most likely false fact). And also, on the flip side, both "mentally unstable" or "unhealthy" are not complete statements, so I'm going to assume that the statement is "A depressed individual is unhealthy". :?
As far as I can tell, that seems 100% factual, either they ARE unhealthy, or they AREN'T. Similar to the "scientific" statement, the "psychologic" statement can have facts to back it up and be argued due to the lack of understanding of the situation. For your suicidal statement, I'm not sure how you can argue that being suicidal is "perfectly rational" any more than the sky being blue (which has another arguement arise).


I'm not a professional on the topic or anything, I just feel that your examples weren't fairly represented.

 

[Thothie]

Psychology can only aim at finding the most optimal to route to generate the desired behaviors of a particular society.

How can such an aim ever be scientific? Surely, we can use science to accomplish that aim, but the aim itself is completely out of the realm of science.

How so? And if it is, isn't nearly every aim of science outside of science?

I should not have said that and I retract my statement. What I should have said was 'there are some subjective claims in psychology'. How can a science have any subjective claims and remain a science?

Theoretical Physics for starters (also, pretty much anything with the world 'Theoretical' in front of it). In the end, nearly all sciences make subjective claims of one sort or another, in order to progress. Hypothesis, I believe is the word, in the best case scenario - dead-end theory, in the worst. But I am curious as to what you believe to be psychology's subjective claims.

Granted, even math is subjective, to a degree. You can exhaustively prove a mathematical theory that is completely contrary to the function of the actual model, and such proven theories take a long, long time to get discarded, especially when further theories, just as provable, and just as wrong, are derived from them, yet manage to match the model. Granted, the numbers still add up, so it's not so much that the math is wrong as is the application or the understanding, but when all your calculations come up aces every time, it's near impossible to prove that isn't how things actually work. None the less, that is how theories like aether and boson particles, amongst others, hold on for so long.

 

[Gorynych]

tl;dr

Here's something you should base science around.

"Science is a system of statements based on Direct experience, and controlled by experimental verification."
If you can't test it multiple times, it's not truly science.

 

[zeus9860]

Solution: request a lock!

 

[TheOysterHippopotami]

This thread still bothers me to this day.

why?

 

[Red Cell]

Currently doing psychology research for my university. Specifically with behavioral neuroscience. I just don't understand how people can think that psychology (literally meaning the study of the mind) is a fake science. There are so many precautions, regulations, and reviews on the materials being studied, if only these people could actually spend a day in the lab, collecting data (not even the years it takes to process it and publish it) maybe they'd think twice about calling it a fake science.

I just don't get how people take one branch of psychology (typically abnormal psychology) and try to base all of it's "fakeness" around how disorders are diagnosed and treated. It's such a simple minded approach to such a large area of study that it baffles me that people think that studying the mind is... a fake science.

 

[Thothie]

None the less, that is how theories like aether and boson particles, amongst others, hold on for so long.

Oh, and here I thought I was getting called out on that...

Though I should point out that they've still just found 'a particle', have no idea what spin it is, much less if it demonstrates the anti-gravitational properties required for the Higgs-Boson theory to hold.

Not that I've any idea how I'm going to defend the statement, when it turns out to be the case.

What sort of behaviors are you studying, exactly? I certainly see many opportunities for several thesis level studies in the MSC community's behavior.