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Archimedes:
Every science has a base right?

Physics "the branch of science concerned with the nature and properties of matter and energy."

Chemistry is "the branch of science that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed; the investigation of their properties and the ways in which they interact, combine, and change; and the use of these processes to form new substances."

Biology is "the study of living organisms, divided into many specialized fields."

But what exactly is psychology?

Psychology claims to be "the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, esp. those affecting behavior in a given context."

But is this really science?

Science from Latin "scientia" means "knowledge".

Now asking a psychology teacher at my school what the base was of psychology,, she told me it was philosophy. That's all it was. Philosophy/Speculation. Science is not about the "systematic study" of structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. It is about gaining knowledge new interpretations of the world around us. All psychology seems to be doing is stating the obvious. Did einstien right up a practical report for his thought experiments.

Some people will argue that it may not be a "physical" science, but a "social science" whatever they mean,n so its still a science right? But a science means science and I don't believe psychology is a science anymore.

Yes it used to be a great science in fact one of the oldest but a scientific base built on by humanities doesn't still make it a science. It tries to feign intelligence by stealing bits of math, physics and alot of biology and backs itself with the scientific method of research. What do you think?

Russ:
It incorporates elements of the other sciences in order to make discoveries that they wouldn't be able to make from a pure standpoint. It's a "soft" science because of that but you can't scrap it from the science pool completely. It bridges the gap between humanities and science, but it's not any less scientific for it. I've called it a subset of biology before, which is only slightly facetious. Even so, just because it's not entirely original, doesn't mean it's not scientific.

wrt stating the obvious, a lot of the psychological discoveries made are not obvious at all.

pi:
I'm incredibly biased, but I've never considered psych to be a science. To me, its the equivalent of RE with a '-ology' chucked at the end to make it sound like a science. Definitely more of a philosophy-based subject.

boysenberry:

--- Quote from: Russ on June 05, 2011, 04:22:21 pm ---wrt stating the obvious, a lot of the psychological discoveries made are not obvious at all.

--- End quote ---

wrt?


--- Quote from: Rohitpi on July 10, 2011, 07:12:29 pm ---I'm incredibly biased, but I've never considered psych to be a science. To me, its the equivalent of RE with a '-ology' chucked at the end to make it sound like a science. Definitely more of a philosophy-based subject.

--- End quote ---

RE?

What are you guys saying? ???

Russ:
wrt = with respect to
RE = religious education (this is a really harsh description of psychology btw)
btw = by the way

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