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A great article, particularly for its candor. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson and others have said, in the same way that chemistry replaced alchemy, neuroscience will r

by lutusp 2y ago

A great article, particularly for its candor. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson and others have said, in the same way that chemistry replaced alchemy, neuroscience will replace psychology. But this isn't likely to happen soon -- the human brain is too complex for present-day efforts. But there's some progress. In a recent breakthrough, we fully mapped the brain of a fruit fly (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03190-y https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03190-y).

SubiculumCode 2y ago
Its a piss poor article that was written to vent, but it didn't try very hard to find good psychological research. Episodic memory psychological literature is very strong, IMO, yet never gets brought up in these kinds of articles. Its always the fluffy puffy research that fuels tabloid headlines, not the research that shows, for example, differential patterns of memory strategies over child development, or the contributions of context to recognition memory, the differences between recollection and familiarity processes supporting recognition memory..you know, all the stuff that is not flashy for tabloids, but is real psychological science. Dr. Charan Ranganath was a member of my dissertation committee who recently wrote a wonderful book about memory and gave some really fantastic interviews. For example, on Fresh Air: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1233900923 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1233900923 Now yes, some of this is informed by neuroimaging and neuroscience spanning human and animal models, but also lots and lots of behavioral memory research. And the findings that are discussed are pretty reliable, shown over and over again in different ways. So, no, this article is not great. It did not do diligent research. Its a rant that focuses on specific types of research that is a small majority of the REAL field.
- lutusp 2y ago
  > ... all the stuff that is not flashy for tabloids, but is real psychological science. Real psychological science would produce falsifiable theories -- theories that in principle would be discarded after a conclusive failure in impartial empirical tests. Instead, landmark psychological theories that are discarded, result instead from public outcry, not falsification. Examples include Drapetomania, prefrontal lobotomy, recovered memory therapy, Asperger syndrome. Trained therapists do no better than properly motivated laypeople. This is not meant to disparage either group, some of whom are very effective, but no one knows why a particular person becomes an effective therapist. On leaving his position as NIMH director, psychiatrist Thomas Insel said, “I spent 13 years at NIMH really pushing on the neuroscience and genetics of mental disorders, and when I look back on that I realize that while I think I succeeded at getting lots of really cool papers published by cool scientists at fairly large costs—I think $20 billion—I don’t think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, improving recovery for the tens of millions of people who have mental illness.” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-of-knowledge/201705/twenty-billion-fails-to-move-the-needle-on-mental-illness https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-of-knowledge/...) All this will be swept away by a future neuroscience that will shape testable, falsifiable theories about human behavior. Today's psychological alchemy will be replaced by tomorrow's neuroscience chemistry. But as the above Insel quote shows, we're nowhere near that goal.
  - SubiculumCode 2y ago
    Why do you, just as the article, jump from one topic to another, acting like it is a logical progression and not a rant? Drapetomania (1851), prefrontal lobotomy, recovered memory therapy, what the hell are you talking about? These are not scientific theories from the modern era. Plenty of hypotheses have been left in the dust because they failed at explaining aspects of a phenomenon. Working memory research has some great, easy to understand progression of theories in the 70's and 80's. Your quote from the NIMH director jumps to a new topic, and is the expression of regret that more didn't get achieved in a very hard field, and the relationship between genes and mental health is not straightforward at all, and just like cancer research, it turned out the problems were much much harder than once thought. Your response is as bad as the article: a rant that ignores the good work, hangs it's hat on the fringe or flashy work. Try again. Show your work.
    - lutusp 2y ago
      > Working memory research has some great, easy to understand progression of theories in the 70's and 80's. Those are descriptions, not explanations. Science requires testable, falsifiable explanations -- theories, not anecdotes. > Drapetomania (1851), prefrontal lobotomy, recovered memory therapy, what the hell are you talking about? These are not scientific theories from the modern era. Yes, that's true. It's true because there are no scientific theories in psychology, past or present. Plenty of narratives, descriptions, but no explanations. Psychology can describe behavior. Neuroscience will eventually explain behavior. > Your response is as bad as the article ... I suggest that you address the topic, not the participants.
      - SubiculumCode 2y ago
        That's bullshit. It's like if you tried to say classical physics and chemistry were not science because they provided a description e.g. given heat, on average particles increase in velocity, on average exerting more force/pressure, which on average, is along this formula. Bullshit.
        2y ago
SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
> neuroscience will replace psychology That seems like say that hardware engineers should be the ones debugging software.
- lutusp 2y ago
  >> neuroscience will replace psychology > That seems like say that hardware engineers should be the ones debugging software. Perhaps at first glance, but neuroscience will eventually deal with "software" issues in much the same way that tested, reliable computer programs are committed to ROM chips as a safeguard against inadvertent erasure. In the future biological case, it might become possible to modify human behavior by "reprogramming" neuronal patterns semi-permanently. This might sound like a panacea at first glance, but it could have a truly scary "big brother" dimension if it's used to control people's behavior in a way meant to enforce social conformity. But one thing for sure -- it will be more effective than talk therapy. :)
adamc 2y ago
I think neuroscience will not replace psychology for the same reasons physics doesn't replace chemistry. In theory it might encompass it, but in practice it's a difficult way to get there, and therefore not the effective path.
- lutusp 2y ago
  > ... for the same reasons physics doesn't replace chemistry. It's true that physics didn't replace chemistry -- instead it explained it. Physics gave chemistry a theoretical foundation. In the same way, neuroscience will explain psychology. But not any time soon.

by lutusp 2y ago

SubiculumCode 2y ago

Its a piss poor article that was written to vent, but it didn't try very hard to find good psychological research. Episodic memory psychological literature is very strong, IMO, yet never gets brought up in these kinds of articles. Its always the fluffy puffy research that fuels tabloid headlines, not the research that shows, for example, differential patterns of memory strategies over child development, or the contributions of context to recognition memory, the differences between recollection and familiarity processes supporting recognition memory..you know, all the stuff that is not flashy for tabloids, but is real psychological science. Dr. Charan Ranganath was a member of my dissertation committee who recently wrote a wonderful book about memory and gave some really fantastic interviews. For example, on Fresh Air: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1233900923 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1233900923 Now yes, some of this is informed by neuroimaging and neuroscience spanning human and animal models, but also lots and lots of behavioral memory research. And the findings that are discussed are pretty reliable, shown over and over again in different ways. So, no, this article is not great. It did not do diligent research. Its a rant that focuses on specific types of research that is a small majority of the REAL field.

lutusp 2y ago
> ... all the stuff that is not flashy for tabloids, but is real psychological science. Real psychological science would produce falsifiable theories -- theories that in principle would be discarded after a conclusive failure in impartial empirical tests. Instead, landmark psychological theories that are discarded, result instead from public outcry, not falsification. Examples include Drapetomania, prefrontal lobotomy, recovered memory therapy, Asperger syndrome. Trained therapists do no better than properly motivated laypeople. This is not meant to disparage either group, some of whom are very effective, but no one knows why a particular person becomes an effective therapist. On leaving his position as NIMH director, psychiatrist Thomas Insel said, “I spent 13 years at NIMH really pushing on the neuroscience and genetics of mental disorders, and when I look back on that I realize that while I think I succeeded at getting lots of really cool papers published by cool scientists at fairly large costs—I think $20 billion—I don’t think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, improving recovery for the tens of millions of people who have mental illness.” (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-of-knowledge/201705/twenty-billion-fails-to-move-the-needle-on-mental-illness https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-of-knowledge/...) All this will be swept away by a future neuroscience that will shape testable, falsifiable theories about human behavior. Today's psychological alchemy will be replaced by tomorrow's neuroscience chemistry. But as the above Insel quote shows, we're nowhere near that goal.
- SubiculumCode 2y ago
  Why do you, just as the article, jump from one topic to another, acting like it is a logical progression and not a rant? Drapetomania (1851), prefrontal lobotomy, recovered memory therapy, what the hell are you talking about? These are not scientific theories from the modern era. Plenty of hypotheses have been left in the dust because they failed at explaining aspects of a phenomenon. Working memory research has some great, easy to understand progression of theories in the 70's and 80's. Your quote from the NIMH director jumps to a new topic, and is the expression of regret that more didn't get achieved in a very hard field, and the relationship between genes and mental health is not straightforward at all, and just like cancer research, it turned out the problems were much much harder than once thought. Your response is as bad as the article: a rant that ignores the good work, hangs it's hat on the fringe or flashy work. Try again. Show your work.
  - lutusp 2y ago
    > Working memory research has some great, easy to understand progression of theories in the 70's and 80's. Those are descriptions, not explanations. Science requires testable, falsifiable explanations -- theories, not anecdotes. > Drapetomania (1851), prefrontal lobotomy, recovered memory therapy, what the hell are you talking about? These are not scientific theories from the modern era. Yes, that's true. It's true because there are no scientific theories in psychology, past or present. Plenty of narratives, descriptions, but no explanations. Psychology can describe behavior. Neuroscience will eventually explain behavior. > Your response is as bad as the article ... I suggest that you address the topic, not the participants.
    - SubiculumCode 2y ago
      That's bullshit. It's like if you tried to say classical physics and chemistry were not science because they provided a description e.g. given heat, on average particles increase in velocity, on average exerting more force/pressure, which on average, is along this formula. Bullshit.
      - 2y ago

SketchySeaBeast 2y ago

> neuroscience will replace psychology That seems like say that hardware engineers should be the ones debugging software.

lutusp 2y ago
>> neuroscience will replace psychology > That seems like say that hardware engineers should be the ones debugging software. Perhaps at first glance, but neuroscience will eventually deal with "software" issues in much the same way that tested, reliable computer programs are committed to ROM chips as a safeguard against inadvertent erasure. In the future biological case, it might become possible to modify human behavior by "reprogramming" neuronal patterns semi-permanently. This might sound like a panacea at first glance, but it could have a truly scary "big brother" dimension if it's used to control people's behavior in a way meant to enforce social conformity. But one thing for sure -- it will be more effective than talk therapy. :)

adamc 2y ago

I think neuroscience will not replace psychology for the same reasons physics doesn't replace chemistry. In theory it might encompass it, but in practice it's a difficult way to get there, and therefore not the effective path.

lutusp 2y ago
> ... for the same reasons physics doesn't replace chemistry. It's true that physics didn't replace chemistry -- instead it explained it. Physics gave chemistry a theoretical foundation. In the same way, neuroscience will explain psychology. But not any time soon.