Psychology: science or not?

[Eriny]

a study is only a science (as argued by the philosopher Popper) if it can be falsified.
That is, theories are established based on empirical evidence, and any case against it blows it apart.

A classic example of falsification is classical electromagnetism and the Ultraviolet catastrophe. following this, classical EM theories were completely scrapped and Quantum Mechanics emerged.

according to my philosophy teacher, psychology does not satisfy this "falsifiability" condition. when evidence is shown against contemporary theories, these theories adapt to include these anomalies, rather than to create a new theory that explains these anomalies, much like the rather controversial "Creationism" claiming to a science.

but then Kuhn (another philosopher) argued that scientist also follow their own predefined paradigm, that non-falsifiability doesnt really qualify something to be a non-science, an example is Chemistry before oxygen was discovered, when fire was believed to be caused by this thing called "phlogiston", but when the ashes were weighed it was found to have a higher mass (we now know thats oxides), so the phlogiston theory was changed to accomodate this by saying "in some cases phlogiston can have negative mass". Yet no one disputed that at this stage, chemistry is not a science.

In this realm of philosophy, there are no answers... =S

But psychology is based on empirical evidence...

[Glockmeister]

a study is only a science (as argued by the philosopher Popper) if it can be falsified.
That is, theories are established based on empirical evidence, and any case against it blows it apart.

A classic example of falsification is classical electromagnetism and the Ultraviolet catastrophe. following this, classical EM theories were completely scrapped and Quantum Mechanics emerged.

according to my philosophy teacher, psychology does not satisfy this "falsifiability" condition. when evidence is shown against contemporary theories, these theories adapt to include these anomalies, rather than to create a new theory that explains these anomalies, much like the rather controversial "Creationism" claiming to a science.

but then Kuhn (another philosopher) argued that scientist also follow their own predefined paradigm, that non-falsifiability doesnt really qualify something to be a non-science, an example is Chemistry before oxygen was discovered, when fire was believed to be caused by this thing called "phlogiston", but when the ashes were weighed it was found to have a higher mass (we now know thats oxides), so the phlogiston theory was changed to accomodate this by saying "in some cases phlogiston can have negative mass". Yet no one disputed that at this stage, chemistry is not a science.

In this realm of philosophy, there are no answers... =S

And then you have Paul Feyerabend, who argues that science should be 'anything goes'

Oh how I loved Philosophy 1&2. At least when I managed to stay awake.

EDIT: But to actually make this post relevant. When Popper argued "any case against it blows it apart" I really don't think he meant 'any' in the strictest sense, cause otherwise I could easily make dodgy data tomorrow disprove Einstein's theory of relativity.

Secondly, a modified theory is still a changed theory, and I think that the adaptation of psychology theory as new evidence comes to light if indicative of psychology as a science. Rarely does a science actually progress by milestones (taking a leaf out of Kuhn's book) but by little steps (e.g Einstein again had many contempories reteaching alongside him, many with different theories)

[Mao]

a study is only a science (as argued by the philosopher Popper) if it can be falsified.
That is, theories are established based on empirical evidence, and any case against it blows it apart.

A classic example of falsification is classical electromagnetism and the Ultraviolet catastrophe. following this, classical EM theories were completely scrapped and Quantum Mechanics emerged.

according to my philosophy teacher, psychology does not satisfy this "falsifiability" condition. when evidence is shown against contemporary theories, these theories adapt to include these anomalies, rather than to create a new theory that explains these anomalies, much like the rather controversial "Creationism" claiming to a science.

but then Kuhn (another philosopher) argued that scientist also follow their own predefined paradigm, that non-falsifiability doesnt really qualify something to be a non-science, an example is Chemistry before oxygen was discovered, when fire was believed to be caused by this thing called "phlogiston", but when the ashes were weighed it was found to have a higher mass (we now know thats oxides), so the phlogiston theory was changed to accomodate this by saying "in some cases phlogiston can have negative mass". Yet no one disputed that at this stage, chemistry is not a science.

In this realm of philosophy, there are no answers... =S

And then you have Paul Feyerabend, who argues that science should be 'anything goes'

Oh how I loved Philosophy 1&2. At least when I managed to stay awake.

EDIT: But to actually make this post relevant. When Popper argued "any case against it blows it apart" I really don't think he meant 'any' in the strictest sense, cause otherwise I could easily make dodgy data tomorrow disprove Einstein's theory of relativity.

Secondly, a modified theory is still a changed theory, and I think that the adaptation of psychology theory as new evidence comes to light if indicative of psychology as a science. Rarely does a science actually progress by milestones (taking a leaf out of Kuhn's book) but by little steps (e.g Einstein again had many contempories reteaching alongside him, many with different theories)

totally agreed

my wordings have been ambiguous (a big no-no for a philosopher, i know)

falsibiability is that given enough justified evidence against a theory, it becomes self-evidently false.
This property is highly ambiguous itself, and I'd rather not pick sides as to whether anything is a science based on this argument. I do not have enough evidence to show for nor against.

on this topic, there are a few interesting implications:
-> to show a science is falsifiable, it has to be based on recent or current practices of scientists in a particular field, whether they accept the falsification and move on or adapt their theories. Even mathematics have experienced a problem like this, with the space-packing problem (supposedly solved by some guy, and the majority of the community disagrees). That is to say, science is only a science when scientists feel like treating it as a science?
-> does falsification makes anything theoriseable a science? (so i'm going to create a science of breakfast-breadspreadology of Mao)


ahhh sigh...
Philosophy 1+2 is easily the best subject i have ever done. shame that i cant do it this year.

[Rietie]

I thought psychology was just the easy science that girls do (which is why I am annoyed our school doesn't offer it   )

Your school doesn't offer it? That's pretty bizarre considering psych is one of the most popular VCE subjects. Over 15 000 students completed psych last year.

Our school either offers subjects that get marked up a lot (such as Psychics, Chem, Spec and Methods - heaps of girls in my school do methods as our Head of Studies is also the Head of Maths of Victoria or something, so she *cough* forces *cough* us to do it) or the subjects that girls like to take (Art, Studio Art and the Histories). Because of this, our school doesn't offer a lot of subjects (that's also because year levels are around 100 so they can't offer heaps of subjects - my year level is 94 girls). I think we're changing a bit though - we now offer Business Management to stop people from leaving our school to go to horrible MLC or St Catherines (where all the expelled - or in the case of Catholics schools, asked to leave - girls go). As well as psychology, we also don't offer accounting, IT (well, no one does it...), Drama (I think we offer Theatre Studies).......
I personally think my school should offer psychology. Most girls do chemistry if they do a science (but many then drop it at the end of year 11 finding it too hard and take up biology or HHD instead). So... um... yeh. If my school offered it, I would have done it.

[Glockmeister]

on this topic, there are a few interesting implications:
-> to show a science is falsifiable, it has to be based on recent or current practices of scientists in a particular field, whether they accept the falsification and move on or adapt their theories. Even mathematics have experienced a problem like this, with the space-packing problem (supposedly solved by some guy, and the majority of the community disagrees). That is to say, science is only a science when scientists feel like treating it as a science?

That's an interesting implication actually. I suppose theories do get vindicated over time as more and more eyes have a look. Nonetheless, still interesting

-> does falsification makes anything theoriseable a science? (so i'm going to create a science of breakfast-breadspreadology of Mao)

Well... Dr Karl has an Ig Nobel prize for research into belly fluff. May not be as grand as the LHC @ CERN, but I'm not about to argue that the research is unscientific.

[brendan]

How Much Progress Have Psychology and Psychiatry Really Made?

John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist, author of Brain Rules, an affiliate professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and columnist for the Psychiatric Times.

Peter D. Kramer, clinical professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University, the author of Listening to Prozac, Against Depression, and Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind, and his own blog, In Practice.

Laurie Schwartz, a wife of 30 years, mother for 28, and a library assistant.

Dan Ariely, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, principal investigator of the MIT Media Lab’s eRationality group, and author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions.

David B. Baker, professor of psychology, the Margaret Clark Morgan Director of the Archives of the History of American Psychology, University of Akron, and co-author of the book From Séance to Science: A History of the Profession of Psychology in America.

Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, co-author of Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, and author of the Psychology Today blog, The Scientific Fundamentalist.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/how-much-progress-have-psychology-and-psychiatry-really-made-a-freakonomics-quorum/

[Eriny]

Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind

That's an awesome book title. It reminds me of Fleck's Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact.