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> its practitioners can be called out on the carpet if they violate scientific standards. Says who? Doctors routinely prescribe drugs off-label. No one calls t

> its practitioners can be called out on the carpet if they violate scientific standards. Says who? Doctors routinely prescribe drugs off-label. No one calls them out on it, unless they are doing something particularly dangerous. As to Recovered Memory Therapy: This has been reviled by cognitive psychologist for decades as the worst sort of pseudoscience. Apparently you don't know what cognitive psychology is, and you're not interested in learning. Nor does cognitive psychology particularly study mental illness, except for brain damage disorders, because (1) such disorders often are very strange, such as hemispatial neglect, and consequently extremely interesting, and (2) such disorders provide keen insights into what the damaged area of the brain is responsible for. And cognitive psychologist certainly don't treat mental illness. Cognitive psychology is pure research, and most of the experiments are done completely objectively. E.g., flash a word on a screen for a brief moment, then display a yes or no question on the screen, then measure how long it takes the subject to respond to the question. Analyze the data statistically. Here's an example result from cognitive psychology: Two groups were shown a collection of faces, and then a month later given a test on which faces they had been shown the prior month. The first group was asked to memorize the faces and were told that they would be quizzed on the faces in a few weeks. The second group was not told that they would be quizzed later. Instead they were just instructed to rate on a scale of 1-10 how likable each face was. The group that was given the surprise quiz the following month scored much better than the group who knew that they were going to be quizzed. And yes, cognitive psychology does aim to provide an explanation for this. Cognitive psychology is interested in mnemonics in general because it gives us evidence about how the brain works, can be studied quantitatively, and is also quite useful for education. > Nonsense. Absolute nonsense Okay, you go to the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT and tell them that they are all quacks. But if you ask me, it's you who are the quack, not they. As for us "having no idea how the brain works", we certainly know something about how it works. We don't know enough about it yet to give much direction to clinical psychologists at the moment, except that there are mnemonic techniques and the like that cognitive psychologists have given to those who treat people with certain kinds of brain damage. Clearly our understanding of the human mind scientifically is in its infancy. Re Behaviorism, the Behaviorist did have explanations. They just weren't very good explanations. For them the explanation of the mind is that it is nothing but a large collection of simple learned responses to external stimuli. But your requirement that science must provide explanation is not correct. That's certainly desirable, but if a theory makes accurate predictions and is useful, it's still a scientific theory, explanation or not. Not everything can be explained. Newton's theories didn't explain what mass is or why momentum is conserved. It just told us how to measure mass and noticed that certain conservation principles always applied. As to having an open mind, you apparently know nothing at all about cognitive psychology. Please follow your own advice.

lutusp 14y ago
> Okay, you go to the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT and tell them that they are all quacks. Why would I do that? They study the brain, not the mind -- they're neuroscientists, not psychologists. > As for us "having no idea how the brain works", we certainly know something about how it works. Yes, and that is why the reliable core of tested psychological theory prevented the Recovered Memory Therapy fiasco of the 1990s, prevented Facilitated Communications from ever getting off the ground, and prevented the introduction of Asperger Syndrome into psychological clinics, only to be removed later after its dubious standing became obvious to everyone. But ... that's not what happened. There is no reliable core of tested theory in psychology, as a result of which there are no constraints on what clinical psychologists can say or do. This is not true in any other field that the public believes is scientific. > We don't know enough about it yet to give much direction to clinical psychologists at the moment ... Yes, and when psychology can do that, it will finally have the right to call itself a science. But it's more likely that psychology will be replaced by neuroscience, a process that is already underway. > But your requirement that science must provide explanation is not correct. On the contrary, that is a basic requirement for science. If I offer a description, someone else can offer a different description and there's no basis for choosing between them, as with the Ptolemaic and Copernican views of the heavens. But if I offer a testable explanation (orbits must conserve energy) then one of the prior descriptions must be abandoned. That is how one identifies science. > you apparently know nothing at all about cognitive psychology. That's your argument? If I am called to serve on a jury in a murder trial, do I have to be a murderer to qualify? No, all I need to do is be competent to evaluate evidence. The same rules apply here. All one need do is read the psychological literature and look for the classic identifiers of science to see that psychology is not a functioning science.
- nessus42 14y ago
  > Why would I do that? They study the brain, not the mind -- they're neuroscientists, not psychologists. They are not just neuroscientists and they do study the mind. You might have looked at the first sentence on the department's website: "MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences stands at the nexus of neuroscience, biology and psychology." Or looked at the first sentence for the department in the MIT course catalog: "The study of mind, brain, and behavior has grown in recent years with unprecedented speed." In fact, You can get an undergraduate degree from this department taking only a single neuroscience course and all the rest being cognitive psychology and cognitive science classes. Furthermore, the department offers a minor in psychology, but not in neuroscience. And, for your edification, here is the online material for the course Cognitive Processes, which is one of MIT's definitive classes in cognitive psychology: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-65-cognitive-processes-spring-2004/lecture-notes/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-65... I took this class as an undergraduate, and it is a great class. The famous childhood development psychology professor, Susan Carey, taught this class when I took it. Arguing with you seems fruitless: You just assert things that are patently false without bothering to do the most basic of research or even just listening to what has been said to you. You might even just consider the name of the department: "cognitive" refers to the mind, not the brain, and "cognitive science" is a synonym for "cognitive psychology". (Though when using the term "cognitive science", the study is a bit broader, adding in cross-disciplinary research from artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind. MIT is big on cross-disciplinary research.) How do I know this? Well, I might have just spent a few minutes looking things it up before spouting off, but I also have a degree in cognitive science from MIT. > Yes, and that is why the reliable core of tested psychological theory prevented the Recovered Memory Therapy fiasco of the 1990s, prevented Facilitated Communications from ever getting off the ground There's no one psychology. Have you studied any history of science? Have you read Kuhn? Throughout all of the history of science there have been divisions in scientific fields and "paradigm shifts". As Kuhn pointed out, the old generation has to literally die off before the new paradigm in a field can become the new orthodoxy. Until that happens, many scientists in scientific fields will cling desperately to their already disproven theories. Just look at Einstein, for instance. Why didn't he win a Noble Prize for Relativity? Because there were many physicists who did not yet accept Relativity, even long past the point in time when it was irrefutable. Enough time has not passed for cognitive psychology to become the orthodoxy of psychology, but some day it will be. Cognitive psychology is not going to be "replaced" by neuroscience, but it will be informed by it. And vice versa. The two fields have always informed each other. Also, unfortunately, our understanding of the human mind scientifically is not yet strong enough to offer a whole lot to clinical psychologists, so the establishment of cognitive psychology as the new orthodoxy through all of psychology will no doubt be delayed by the needs of clinical psychologists to do their jobs, rather than just telling people with mental illness to go home and chill for the next 50 years, until we understand the human mind and human brain better. As for "explanation", you completely ignored what I said. If you continue this, there's little point in having a discussion with you. There's no discussion if someone just talks and does not listen. I'll repeat this one more time, however: Physics has not explained why conservation of energy is true. It merely has noted this fact, and has asserted that it is the case based on empirical induction. Other things, of course, are explained in terms of conservation of energy, but conservation of energy has not been explained. The same thing was true for Behaviorism. It didn't explain why the mind was putatively nothing but a large collection of simple learned responses to external stimuli. That was its main premise, which was a hypothesis based on scientific observation, etc. But Behaviorism certainly attempted to explain all the rest of psychology in terms of this premise. And it's a universal principle of rational thought, that once you have identified laws and/or principals, you can use these laws and principles to explain other things, even if you have no explanation for the laws themselves. In any case, Behaviorism's problem was that their model was wrong, and so the explanations failed to pan out, except in certain constrained situations, like training animals. Of course now we know that even those explanations are over-simplified, but they are explanations, nonetheless. In any non-fundamental science, however, comprehensible explanations are likely to be over-simplified. The human mind can only grasp so much complexity and many natural phenomena are hugely complex.

lutusp 14y ago

> Okay, you go to the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT and tell them that they are all quacks. Why would I do that? They study the brain, not the mind -- they're neuroscientists, not psychologists. > As for us "having no idea how the brain works", we certainly know something about how it works. Yes, and that is why the reliable core of tested psychological theory prevented the Recovered Memory Therapy fiasco of the 1990s, prevented Facilitated Communications from ever getting off the ground, and prevented the introduction of Asperger Syndrome into psychological clinics, only to be removed later after its dubious standing became obvious to everyone. But ... that's not what happened. There is no reliable core of tested theory in psychology, as a result of which there are no constraints on what clinical psychologists can say or do. This is not true in any other field that the public believes is scientific. > We don't know enough about it yet to give much direction to clinical psychologists at the moment ... Yes, and when psychology can do that, it will finally have the right to call itself a science. But it's more likely that psychology will be replaced by neuroscience, a process that is already underway. > But your requirement that science must provide explanation is not correct. On the contrary, that is a basic requirement for science. If I offer a description, someone else can offer a different description and there's no basis for choosing between them, as with the Ptolemaic and Copernican views of the heavens. But if I offer a testable explanation (orbits must conserve energy) then one of the prior descriptions must be abandoned. That is how one identifies science. > you apparently know nothing at all about cognitive psychology. That's your argument? If I am called to serve on a jury in a murder trial, do I have to be a murderer to qualify? No, all I need to do is be competent to evaluate evidence. The same rules apply here. All one need do is read the psychological literature and look for the classic identifiers of science to see that psychology is not a functioning science.

nessus42 14y ago
> Why would I do that? They study the brain, not the mind -- they're neuroscientists, not psychologists. They are not just neuroscientists and they do study the mind. You might have looked at the first sentence on the department's website: "MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences stands at the nexus of neuroscience, biology and psychology." Or looked at the first sentence for the department in the MIT course catalog: "The study of mind, brain, and behavior has grown in recent years with unprecedented speed." In fact, You can get an undergraduate degree from this department taking only a single neuroscience course and all the rest being cognitive psychology and cognitive science classes. Furthermore, the department offers a minor in psychology, but not in neuroscience. And, for your edification, here is the online material for the course Cognitive Processes, which is one of MIT's definitive classes in cognitive psychology: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-65-cognitive-processes-spring-2004/lecture-notes/ http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-sciences/9-65... I took this class as an undergraduate, and it is a great class. The famous childhood development psychology professor, Susan Carey, taught this class when I took it. Arguing with you seems fruitless: You just assert things that are patently false without bothering to do the most basic of research or even just listening to what has been said to you. You might even just consider the name of the department: "cognitive" refers to the mind, not the brain, and "cognitive science" is a synonym for "cognitive psychology". (Though when using the term "cognitive science", the study is a bit broader, adding in cross-disciplinary research from artificial intelligence and philosophy of mind. MIT is big on cross-disciplinary research.) How do I know this? Well, I might have just spent a few minutes looking things it up before spouting off, but I also have a degree in cognitive science from MIT. > Yes, and that is why the reliable core of tested psychological theory prevented the Recovered Memory Therapy fiasco of the 1990s, prevented Facilitated Communications from ever getting off the ground There's no one psychology. Have you studied any history of science? Have you read Kuhn? Throughout all of the history of science there have been divisions in scientific fields and "paradigm shifts". As Kuhn pointed out, the old generation has to literally die off before the new paradigm in a field can become the new orthodoxy. Until that happens, many scientists in scientific fields will cling desperately to their already disproven theories. Just look at Einstein, for instance. Why didn't he win a Noble Prize for Relativity? Because there were many physicists who did not yet accept Relativity, even long past the point in time when it was irrefutable. Enough time has not passed for cognitive psychology to become the orthodoxy of psychology, but some day it will be. Cognitive psychology is not going to be "replaced" by neuroscience, but it will be informed by it. And vice versa. The two fields have always informed each other. Also, unfortunately, our understanding of the human mind scientifically is not yet strong enough to offer a whole lot to clinical psychologists, so the establishment of cognitive psychology as the new orthodoxy through all of psychology will no doubt be delayed by the needs of clinical psychologists to do their jobs, rather than just telling people with mental illness to go home and chill for the next 50 years, until we understand the human mind and human brain better. As for "explanation", you completely ignored what I said. If you continue this, there's little point in having a discussion with you. There's no discussion if someone just talks and does not listen. I'll repeat this one more time, however: Physics has not explained why conservation of energy is true. It merely has noted this fact, and has asserted that it is the case based on empirical induction. Other things, of course, are explained in terms of conservation of energy, but conservation of energy has not been explained. The same thing was true for Behaviorism. It didn't explain why the mind was putatively nothing but a large collection of simple learned responses to external stimuli. That was its main premise, which was a hypothesis based on scientific observation, etc. But Behaviorism certainly attempted to explain all the rest of psychology in terms of this premise. And it's a universal principle of rational thought, that once you have identified laws and/or principals, you can use these laws and principles to explain other things, even if you have no explanation for the laws themselves. In any case, Behaviorism's problem was that their model was wrong, and so the explanations failed to pan out, except in certain constrained situations, like training animals. Of course now we know that even those explanations are over-simplified, but they are explanations, nonetheless. In any non-fundamental science, however, comprehensible explanations are likely to be over-simplified. The human mind can only grasp so much complexity and many natural phenomena are hugely complex.