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It's really easy to make punchy-sounding arguments about why a certain field isn't as important to teach, so we should be rather reluctant to go along with them

It's really easy to make punchy-sounding arguments about why a certain field isn't as important to teach, so we should be rather reluctant to go along with them. For example your argument about psychology could equally applied to almost any field and physics. "I feel the same way about (Computer Science|Biology|Chemistry) which to me is even more problematic as it is based on the premise that we can learn about (computers|life|chemicals) by studying (code|proteins|chemicals). Again it should be tied to something like quantum physics instead." In fact this argument makes no sense to me, why wouldn't studying human behaviour be the best way to learn about human behaviour? Same for the argument about philosophy, it's too easy to assume something valuable a field produces is too amazing to ever be topped. "After [the light bulb] I really don't see what new revelations [about electricity] are going to be of fundamental value to society."

ThomPete 10y ago
I know which is why I said it with some reluctance. But your rubutals aren't good examples. Physics, Computer Science and Chemistry still have many still unanswered questions and provide clear benefits and ways to uncover those. In psychology we have a much better way into the human mind through neuroscience. Asking humans about their own behavior is filled with the very bias that we try to battle through the scientific method. Comparing philosophy with the lightbulb doesn't make much sense as the value of the lightbulb doesn't need to be peer reviewed to show it's value. The problem with many of these old fields is that they have become self-referential. Their contribution to society the last many decades aren't warrenting the popularity of them. We aren't studying alchemy anymore either because we have found more and better ways to study chemistry all I am saying is that perhaps it's time to park some of these fields in the alchemy department. Edit: Ironic that someone disagreeing with me on this very important discussion didn't find much more argument than a downvote :) Oh well.
- trishume 10y ago
  Why do you think neuroscience is a better way to learn about human behaviour (which is what psychology deals with)? Neuroscience is incredibly difficult and the brain is super complex. We have learned far far less about human behaviour through neuroscience than through psychology studies. Learning about behaviour through neuroscience is working at the wrong level of abstraction, we're not capable of comprehending large systems at low levels. You cite bias in psych studies, but neuroscience has lots of issues too. See fmri study that can find results on a dead salmon. Also inability of neuroscience tools to figure out what the net of a tiny microprocessor does, let alone anything larger. I wasn't the one who down voted you.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    What I said was that psychology should be used as an extension of interpreting neuroscientific findings. We haven't learned anything about the brain through psychology we have learned about how humans interpret the brain but we don't have a lot of raw data. That's what neuroscience gives us and so it allow us to focus on interpreting the data rather than making a lot of flawed experiments which are often anecdotal more than anything else. Again I am pretty sure psychology will be seen as alchemy in 50 years if not before. And yes I know you didn't downvote :)
    - trishume 10y ago
      Just because psychology doesn't tell us about how the brain functions doesn't mean it isn't useful. Learning about how humans behave in practice is arguably more useful. And yes tons of psych studies are flawed but the reason we have the replication crisis is that we can actually run sufficiently large well-controlled studies that we have some confidence in the results, and when we run those we do learn important things like "that previous study was totally wrong". A lot of things like our knowledge of heuristics and biases (not the scientific ones mentioned earlier but cognitive ones) and our solid psychometric measures have come from psych studies. I do agree with you that we basically shouldn't believe the majority of psych studies, especially if they are in the news. However, the crappy studies help guide where we bother to do the large studies, and provide fodder for the meta-analyses. That's what we learn from.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        I never said it wasnt useful what i said is that its not the best method anymore and thus shouldn't be a separate faculty but instead be tied to neuroscience exactly to better utilize the raw data which neuroscience gives us. Not really sure why this is such a controversial suggestion.
        DanBC 10y ago
        It's seen as an overly medical response ("Take your meds, you'll be fine") to a thing that has a mix of biological, psychological, and social causes. Treatments should include the range of bio-psycho-social options, even for the more biological illnesses.

ThomPete 10y ago

I know which is why I said it with some reluctance. But your rubutals aren't good examples. Physics, Computer Science and Chemistry still have many still unanswered questions and provide clear benefits and ways to uncover those. In psychology we have a much better way into the human mind through neuroscience. Asking humans about their own behavior is filled with the very bias that we try to battle through the scientific method. Comparing philosophy with the lightbulb doesn't make much sense as the value of the lightbulb doesn't need to be peer reviewed to show it's value. The problem with many of these old fields is that they have become self-referential. Their contribution to society the last many decades aren't warrenting the popularity of them. We aren't studying alchemy anymore either because we have found more and better ways to study chemistry all I am saying is that perhaps it's time to park some of these fields in the alchemy department. Edit: Ironic that someone disagreeing with me on this very important discussion didn't find much more argument than a downvote :) Oh well.

trishume 10y ago
Why do you think neuroscience is a better way to learn about human behaviour (which is what psychology deals with)? Neuroscience is incredibly difficult and the brain is super complex. We have learned far far less about human behaviour through neuroscience than through psychology studies. Learning about behaviour through neuroscience is working at the wrong level of abstraction, we're not capable of comprehending large systems at low levels. You cite bias in psych studies, but neuroscience has lots of issues too. See fmri study that can find results on a dead salmon. Also inability of neuroscience tools to figure out what the net of a tiny microprocessor does, let alone anything larger. I wasn't the one who down voted you.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  What I said was that psychology should be used as an extension of interpreting neuroscientific findings. We haven't learned anything about the brain through psychology we have learned about how humans interpret the brain but we don't have a lot of raw data. That's what neuroscience gives us and so it allow us to focus on interpreting the data rather than making a lot of flawed experiments which are often anecdotal more than anything else. Again I am pretty sure psychology will be seen as alchemy in 50 years if not before. And yes I know you didn't downvote :)
  - trishume 10y ago
    Just because psychology doesn't tell us about how the brain functions doesn't mean it isn't useful. Learning about how humans behave in practice is arguably more useful. And yes tons of psych studies are flawed but the reason we have the replication crisis is that we can actually run sufficiently large well-controlled studies that we have some confidence in the results, and when we run those we do learn important things like "that previous study was totally wrong". A lot of things like our knowledge of heuristics and biases (not the scientific ones mentioned earlier but cognitive ones) and our solid psychometric measures have come from psych studies. I do agree with you that we basically shouldn't believe the majority of psych studies, especially if they are in the news. However, the crappy studies help guide where we bother to do the large studies, and provide fodder for the meta-analyses. That's what we learn from.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      I never said it wasnt useful what i said is that its not the best method anymore and thus shouldn't be a separate faculty but instead be tied to neuroscience exactly to better utilize the raw data which neuroscience gives us. Not really sure why this is such a controversial suggestion.
      - DanBC 10y ago
        It's seen as an overly medical response ("Take your meds, you'll be fine") to a thing that has a mix of biological, psychological, and social causes. Treatments should include the range of bio-psycho-social options, even for the more biological illnesses.