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>"That's why we've been exposed to all the myriad ways the mind is genuinely hard to study. " Guess this is what I don't get. It seems like HN accepts that st

>"That's why we've been exposed to all the myriad ways the mind is genuinely hard to study. " Guess this is what I don't get. It seems like HN accepts that studying the mind is hard. But then seems equally to not understand that hard things take time and often have false starts and difficulty dialing in measurements. The ancient Greeks thought atoms were made of earth, wind, fire, water. We don't call them BS because it doesn't replicate. Psychology is relatively new, yet we want instant results, instant gratification. We've had centuries to figure out how to measure temperature. But Psychology takes a few decades and still struggles to measure the mind, and that means it is BS?

andrewflnr 3y ago
No, we actually do call BS on the Greeks. They didn't even have any experiments to replicate. It's sheer luck that they got the "atom" thing right, and no other aspects of matter. When psychology is prepared to take its inherent difficulty seriously, we'll listen. But as far as we can tell, they're still trying to take shortcuts. (And even if you complain that's because they're underfunded or something, it doesn't matter. The results are just as compromised.)
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Sorry. Don't get it. I did quick search and see dozen articles from Psychologist, discussing the replication problem and how to deal with it, how to create better experiments. And, another dozen discussing which ones DO REPLICATE, and which don't, and what is the difference. 50% of experiments do replicate, so maybe it is just taking a glass-half-full attitude. The field is very much actively dealing on this and improving. So not sure what proof's HN would need. That is why I'm saying, right now the attitude seems very much be "we really diss-like these fields (because we're so biased against anything that isn't STEM), so they really can't do anything right no matter the evidence".
  - andrewflnr 3y ago
    Well, we'll see in 10 years I guess if it actually works, but we have no reason to trust that they'll actually attack the underlying problems, which are related to things like bad statistical modelling, publication bias, funding, etc. All easier to write articles about than do. They're going to have to re-earn our trust.

andrewflnr 3y ago

No, we actually do call BS on the Greeks. They didn't even have any experiments to replicate. It's sheer luck that they got the "atom" thing right, and no other aspects of matter. When psychology is prepared to take its inherent difficulty seriously, we'll listen. But as far as we can tell, they're still trying to take shortcuts. (And even if you complain that's because they're underfunded or something, it doesn't matter. The results are just as compromised.)

FrustratedMonky 3y ago
Sorry. Don't get it. I did quick search and see dozen articles from Psychologist, discussing the replication problem and how to deal with it, how to create better experiments. And, another dozen discussing which ones DO REPLICATE, and which don't, and what is the difference. 50% of experiments do replicate, so maybe it is just taking a glass-half-full attitude. The field is very much actively dealing on this and improving. So not sure what proof's HN would need. That is why I'm saying, right now the attitude seems very much be "we really diss-like these fields (because we're so biased against anything that isn't STEM), so they really can't do anything right no matter the evidence".
- andrewflnr 3y ago
  Well, we'll see in 10 years I guess if it actually works, but we have no reason to trust that they'll actually attack the underlying problems, which are related to things like bad statistical modelling, publication bias, funding, etc. All easier to write articles about than do. They're going to have to re-earn our trust.