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Is Psychology a Science?

Jonn

Jonn

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
So, are we any closer to understanding a) what science is, and b) if psychology is a science? Unlikely. There is no definitive philosophy of science, and no flawless scientific methodology.

When people use the term "Scientific" we all have a general schema of what they mean, but when we break it down in the way that we just have done, the picture is less certain. What is science? It depends on your philosophy. Is psychology a science? It depends on your definition.
So - why bother, and how do we conclude all this?

Slife and Williams (1995) have tried to answer these two questions:
  • 1) We need to try at least to strive for scientific methods because we need a rigorous discipline. If we abandon our search for unified methods, we'll lose a sense of what psychology is (if we knew in the first place).
    2) We need to keep trying to develop scientific methods that are suitable to studying human behavior - it may be that the methods adopted by the natural sciences are not appropriate for us.
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Is Psychology a Science? | Simply Psychology

www.simplypsychology.org www.simplypsychology.org
 
Its becoming a science, one step behind medicine and biology. Living stuff is way more complex than physics, chemistry or maths. It was difficult to do science with psicology some years ago.
 
My (uninformed) take is it's a young science. Look at biology, physics, you have theories and experiments going back 350+ years. But psychology only got serious about 150 years ago. So of course there's a lot of crap still in there and they correct their facts all the time cause they're where the other fields were in the 1800s.

The problem is people who haven't dealt with psychology or psychologists don't realize that so they take the results as seriously as the older sciences, and that can really hurt people.
 
Crossbreed said:
At the very least, it is a discipline.
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It is a discipline that I personally find extremely useful.

What I found curious is how some people have some sort of "grudge" against psychology/psychiatry.
Their attitude is that it is a "pseudo-science" and dismiss it is a derogatory way.
Invariably, this has shown to be evidence of ignorance/bias/irrationality.
 
You should read about how bad the state of psychology was just 50-60 years ago. We're doing much better now.

I believe some can argue it's a pseudo-science because first they lied about the chemical imbalance theory in order to sell more drugs, and they admittedly don't know how most of these medications work. They just know that they work better than a placebo. Doctors choose their favorite medications based on their personal experience and prescribe that and you go in an almost-random fashion from there if the medication doesn't work or makes you want to kill yourself.
 
It's a discipline under the general umbrella of social sciences. It is, indeed, very useful and valid, and deserves to be taken seriously.
 
We do a heart transplant one day and then the other tell someone with crippling tinnitus to just get used to it. Anything to do with the brain we know so very little of. Psychology is a crutch for this absence in our scientific knowledge. It attempts through generalized methods to find ways to mend and mitigate the stress from having conditions. But it will never fix any of them. The drug peddling side is also very suspicious and basically guinea pig level. It's simply that the conditions in question can be so severe that the patients are often desperate enough to try anything. Just like with tinnitus.
 
Jonn said:
It is a discipline that I personally find extremely useful.

What I found curious is how some people have some sort of "grudge" against psychology/psychiatry.
Their attitude is that it is a "pseudo-science" and dismiss it is a derogatory way.
Invariably, this has shown to be evidence of ignorance/bias/irrationality.
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I dont agree.

Many people have a "grudge" against psycology after very bad direct experiences with outdated/bad "proffesionals".

At México (where I live) many psycologyst still study Froid methods. Which are not so scientific... to say something. Or tell autistic people "you cant be autistic because you can look at the eye or you have a job". Thats the level here.

What to say about psychiatry, that so famous DSM 5 that is so outdated that no good proffesional on the autism field ever use it. That same proffesional colective that put gays as mental ill people just a few years ago...

You wont find an engineer that just make happily a bridge that will colapse. Wont find a mathematic who dont know how to solve an equation.

The problem with both psycology and psychiatry (from my perspective) is that they are not accountable of their mistakes not of the knowledge level of their people.

If an engineer makes a bridge that collapse we (other engineers, like me) will put him to jail. We have very little tolerance with bad proffesionals.

What do you do with psycologysts that are ill prepared and hurt/missdiagbose their clients? Nothing.

What do you do with the responsibles of those centers that have stored humans with mental divergences/illness to destroy them instead of help them? Nothing.

How about those ABA methods that tortured Autists childs to "cure" them and instead left them with trauma? Anybody at jail? Nope. Nothing.

So people who have had so many direct bad experiences is rigth to not trust them. Its almost a matter of luck to find a good, up to date proffesional on the field.
 
Fino said:
You should read about how bad the state of psychology was just 50-60 years ago. We're doing much better now.

I believe some can argue it's a pseudo-science because first they lied about the chemical imbalance theory in order to sell more drugs, and they admittedly don't know how most of these medications work. They just know that they work better than a placebo. Doctors choose their favorite medications based on their personal experience and prescribe that and you go in an almost-random fashion from there if the medication doesn't work or makes you want to kill yourself.
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My understanding is, that psychologists can't prescribe medication. That is the responsibility of psychiatrists.

My interest is in psychology. The The study of human motivations.

psychology, scientific discipline that studies mental states and processes and behaviour in humans and other animals.


The discipline of psychology is broadly divisible into two parts: a large profession of practitioners and a smaller but growing science of mind, brain, and social behaviour. The two have distinctive goals, training, and practices, but some psychologists integrate the two.
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www.britannica.com

psychology | Definition, History, Fields, Methods, & Facts

psychology, scientific discipline that studies mental states and processes and behaviour in humans and other animals. The discipline of psychology is broadly divisible into two parts: a large profession of practitioners and a smaller but growing science of mind, brain, and social behaviour. The...
www.britannica.com
 
I' m not a big fan psychology, if you need drugs it falls under the pervue of psychiatry .May be in another 50 years the so called soft sciences will catch up with the the hard sciences.
 
Atrapa Almas said:
At México (where I live) many psycologyst still study Froid methods. Which are not so scientific... to say something. Or tell autistic people "you cant be autistic because you can look at the eye or you have a job". Thats the level here.
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Are you suggesting all psychologists are the same?
 
Crossbreed said:
@Atrapa Almas,
Fortunately, there are autism-competent psychologists, if you know where to look.

Does Mexico have a national autism society? (Many countries do.)
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Yes, I agree.

I follow many of them, and they actually are the ones that (with the spanish talking autism community) are pushing strongly to change things in how the psycology colective behave towards autism. There are many good ones.

Maybe I gave the impression of being against all psycologysts, its not the case.
 
Jonn said:
Are you suggesting all psychologists are the same?
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No, I usually recomend other members of the forum to go therapy with those psychologist that are recomended by autists.

What I do sugest is that many people who dislike psycologysts have good reasons to do so and should not be tagged as stupids/ignorants so ligthly.
 
If it is done properly it would be rigorous like physics, rather than using half ass statistics. my brother has a undergraduate degree in psychology. He spent most of his career working as a millwright.
 
My sister is a economist I have fun talking to her and my brother about the lack of rigor in the soft sciences they chose to pursue careers in. At least my sister became a geologist first, made her a much better economist.
 
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