4 ms·

It's because psychology is speculative neuroscience. And speculation isn't science, it's bullshitting. As software engineers on HN, we don't debug a computer p

It's because psychology is speculative neuroscience. And speculation isn't science, it's bullshitting. As software engineers on HN, we don't debug a computer program by talking about why the program might be feeling bad because it sexualized its mother as an infant or some other insane nonsense. I suspect once neuroscience gets better, and we can simply load up all our neurons into a computer and run the equivalent of GDB on it, it'll be really obvious that humans are 100% deterministic, people with psych problems are deficient in X, Y, or Z chemical or the wiring was screwed up in some place or another, and we'll be able to fix it. Eventually we will look back on Psychologists the same as doctors that did Bloodletting and "Balancing the Humors"- complete crackpots that set science back a few hundred years.

TheCoelacanth 3y ago
You could just as easily call medicine "speculative biochemistry" or call chemistry "speculative particle physics". Not being able to model something at the lowest possible level doesn't make something inherently unscientific. It certainly makes it harder to test hypotheses and harder to be certain of the results, but it can still be scientific.
kozd 3y ago
We also don't debug computer programs by looking at logic gates. We have abstractions built on top of that.
FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Why do you think the Bloodletters set back science? As if there was anybody at that time that would have made more rapid progress if only they hadn't been held back. Science isn't a strait line of analytical progression, and when it does get side tracked, it isn't some nefarious group. I could just as easily say if only those stupid String Theorist had just stepped aside, we wouldn't have set Physics back a decade. It's human dynamics, hmmm, I wonder if there is someone studying why groups get stuck in these loops, hmmm, why do humans seem to get stuck at a plateau that is difficult to think beyond, hmmmm let me think now, hmmm. Psychologist?
ownlife 3y ago
Psychology is a bigger field than Freudian psychoanalysis.

TheCoelacanth 3y ago

You could just as easily call medicine "speculative biochemistry" or call chemistry "speculative particle physics". Not being able to model something at the lowest possible level doesn't make something inherently unscientific. It certainly makes it harder to test hypotheses and harder to be certain of the results, but it can still be scientific.

kozd 3y ago

We also don't debug computer programs by looking at logic gates. We have abstractions built on top of that.

FrustratedMonky 3y ago

Why do you think the Bloodletters set back science? As if there was anybody at that time that would have made more rapid progress if only they hadn't been held back. Science isn't a strait line of analytical progression, and when it does get side tracked, it isn't some nefarious group. I could just as easily say if only those stupid String Theorist had just stepped aside, we wouldn't have set Physics back a decade. It's human dynamics, hmmm, I wonder if there is someone studying why groups get stuck in these loops, hmmm, why do humans seem to get stuck at a plateau that is difficult to think beyond, hmmmm let me think now, hmmm. Psychologist?

ownlife 3y ago

Psychology is a bigger field than Freudian psychoanalysis.