4 ms·

No - both you and the OP miss the real problem. The problem with Psych is that you can't really experiment on humans in a meaningful way. Animal studies for ex

by gpt5 5y ago

No - both you and the OP miss the real problem. The problem with Psych is that you can't really experiment on humans in a meaningful way. Animal studies for example don't suffer the same replication problems as psych.

kalimanzaro 5y ago
Well perhaps if animal studies were primarily concerned with investigating the interaction of reason and emotion in animals there might just well be :)
bildung 5y ago
> The problem with Psych is that you can't really experiment on humans in a meaningful way While absolutely valid this isn't the only problem: One other complication is that conclusions from experimental studies often don't apply to the real world, i.e. people behave differently in experimental settings. Thus in any case you can either have good control over confounding varables but very limited scope (experimental studies) or bad control over the setting but the ability to observe real live behavior (field studies). But it gets worse: Two people with identical behaviour can have quite different motivations and thus identical observable behaviour can result in quite different consequences. I.E. 5 hours a day playing games can be both healthy behavour or an addiction/a means of suppressing thoughts or memories, depending on the person. So you'll always have that massive confounder called the mind, in every setting. Which means you have to inspect the mind itself, which only works indirectly, i.e. by interacting with the person, asking questions, trying to find out the motivation behind a particular action. And the person often doesn't really know, because a particular decision probably wasn't chosen consciously.
3pt14159 5y ago
I've literally been experimented on and it was meaningful. The problem, in my view is low sample sizes, poor selection[0], hyper dimensional confounding data, and low rates of application. With math, comp sci, or physics reality hits you in the face when you start to actually use it to build rockets or what have you. [0] Guess when I was experimented on? Of course it was during university and of course I'm a white english speaker that lives in North America.

by gpt5 5y ago

kalimanzaro 5y ago

Well perhaps if animal studies were primarily concerned with investigating the interaction of reason and emotion in animals there might just well be :)

bildung 5y ago

> The problem with Psych is that you can't really experiment on humans in a meaningful way While absolutely valid this isn't the only problem: One other complication is that conclusions from experimental studies often don't apply to the real world, i.e. people behave differently in experimental settings. Thus in any case you can either have good control over confounding varables but very limited scope (experimental studies) or bad control over the setting but the ability to observe real live behavior (field studies). But it gets worse: Two people with identical behaviour can have quite different motivations and thus identical observable behaviour can result in quite different consequences. I.E. 5 hours a day playing games can be both healthy behavour or an addiction/a means of suppressing thoughts or memories, depending on the person. So you'll always have that massive confounder called the mind, in every setting. Which means you have to inspect the mind itself, which only works indirectly, i.e. by interacting with the person, asking questions, trying to find out the motivation behind a particular action. And the person often doesn't really know, because a particular decision probably wasn't chosen consciously.

3pt14159 5y ago

I've literally been experimented on and it was meaningful. The problem, in my view is low sample sizes, poor selection[0], hyper dimensional confounding data, and low rates of application. With math, comp sci, or physics reality hits you in the face when you start to actually use it to build rockets or what have you. [0] Guess when I was experimented on? Of course it was during university and of course I'm a white english speaker that lives in North America.