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anecdotally, the people I know who pursue psychology vocationally are not the most rigorous thinkers. more than half have a serious belief in astrology, for ins

anecdotally, the people I know who pursue psychology vocationally are not the most rigorous thinkers. more than half have a serious belief in astrology, for instance. which is to say, I don't know what people expect, but I'm never surprised when I find out that any given psychology experiment is a fanciful construct of lies and half-truths.

ryanklee 12y ago
> anecdotally Yeah, I'd say. Sometimes anecdotes are useful, revealing something interesting about a person's experience in the world. Here, you've done something very unfair: extrapolate from very a very small perspective into a very large idea of what the world is like. Psychology is a rich field with diverse practitioners. Rational, data driven, empirical methods underpin psych research as anywhere in the sciences. And where this isn't true, where Freudians and Jungians, etc., hold sway, there's something interesting going on there, too. Mushy and soft and philosophical and silly as it might be. Don't discount the value of centuries of inquiry and practice because you know a half dozen idiot psychologists that believe in astrology. This is not a representative or useful sample.
- oldmanjay 12y ago
  well, you scooted right on by my point, which is in the second paragraph. are you a Capricorn?
fit2rule 12y ago
Psychology is a modern religion masquerading as a science. Its as much a means of social control as anything else, and is promoted by governments because it gives them a way of subverting the general will of the people, that they not have religions dogma enforced upon them by the state. Psychology is little more than cultural dogma categorized in a way that it allows application for political purposes, and anyone who disagrees with that Psychology is a true science, is of course .. "crazy" .. Just count the number of times you hear someone say "that guy is certifiably insane, he should be committed to an asylum" any time someone comes up with a non-popular point of view .. this is the government religion at work.
- DanBC 12y ago
  > Just count the number of times you hear someone say "that guy is certifiably insane, he should be committed to an asylum" any time someone comes up with a non-popular point of view .. this is the government religion at work. England has government spending on psychology - mostly in the form of health spending on psychological talking therapies. In England you can't easily[1] be detained under the Mental Health Act for having a "non popular point of view". There are a number of checks and balances built into the system. While the system isn't perfect it is very unlikely that a person would be detained just for an unpopular opinion. So "The Government" is not out to get you. Of course, your comment talks about the general population. Yep, you're right, many people in the general population display shocking ignorance about mental health problems and they are happy to blame mental illness when a person displays challenging behaviours or opinions. That's not the fault of government propaganda, that's the fault of ignorance about mental health problems. (EDIT: spelling)
  - fit2rule 12y ago
    The point is this: over the last 5 decades, since Psychology became accepted by society, as a movement it has established itself as the High Priests of society - by ingratiating itself as a subject in Law, in Civic affairs, and so on. Western governments have been more than willing to let themselves have this '3rd arm' of enforcement to apply to their protection; time and again, we hear "government-appointed psychologist says [blah]" about some figure, and whenever the psychological health of any individual is discussed, if an 'expert' (high priest) comes along with their statement that the individual has any one of the invented malladies in their bible (DSM-IV), then thats the end of that guy. Take him away! My point is this: general society hasn't noticed this infiltration of their governments, and are - at this point - perfectly okay with it. So it doesn't really matter if its a science or not - Psychology has been accepted as the official state religion, for determining just how compliant any individual is with the group-think de jour, and that's all that really matters ...
    - DanBC 12y ago
      > time and again, we hear "government-appointed psychologist says [blah]" about some figure Please could you point to a single "government appointed psychologist" saying [blah] about some figure? Because while I'm sure they're common in oppressive regimes I haven't heard of one recently in non-oppressive regimes. > if an 'expert' (high priest) comes along with their statement that the individual has any one of the invented malladies in their bible (DSM-IV), then thats the end of that guy. Take him away! There are abuses of the various rules for detaining and treating someone against their will. I mentioned that in my first reply. But it's not as easy as you suggest and hasn't been for some years now. If you're saying that psychology had severe abuse in the system early on then we both agree.
DanBC 12y ago
This comment is a hilarious parody. It criticises others for lack of rigorous thinking while simultaneously declaring itself to be anecdotal and based on the poster's observations.
joeclark77 12y ago
I saw "Ghostbusters" as well, but the joke's on you. All that crazy stuff they believed turned out to be true (in the movie).

ryanklee 12y ago

> anecdotally Yeah, I'd say. Sometimes anecdotes are useful, revealing something interesting about a person's experience in the world. Here, you've done something very unfair: extrapolate from very a very small perspective into a very large idea of what the world is like. Psychology is a rich field with diverse practitioners. Rational, data driven, empirical methods underpin psych research as anywhere in the sciences. And where this isn't true, where Freudians and Jungians, etc., hold sway, there's something interesting going on there, too. Mushy and soft and philosophical and silly as it might be. Don't discount the value of centuries of inquiry and practice because you know a half dozen idiot psychologists that believe in astrology. This is not a representative or useful sample.

oldmanjay 12y ago
well, you scooted right on by my point, which is in the second paragraph. are you a Capricorn?

fit2rule 12y ago

Psychology is a modern religion masquerading as a science. Its as much a means of social control as anything else, and is promoted by governments because it gives them a way of subverting the general will of the people, that they not have religions dogma enforced upon them by the state. Psychology is little more than cultural dogma categorized in a way that it allows application for political purposes, and anyone who disagrees with that Psychology is a true science, is of course .. "crazy" .. Just count the number of times you hear someone say "that guy is certifiably insane, he should be committed to an asylum" any time someone comes up with a non-popular point of view .. this is the government religion at work.

DanBC 12y ago
> Just count the number of times you hear someone say "that guy is certifiably insane, he should be committed to an asylum" any time someone comes up with a non-popular point of view .. this is the government religion at work. England has government spending on psychology - mostly in the form of health spending on psychological talking therapies. In England you can't easily[1] be detained under the Mental Health Act for having a "non popular point of view". There are a number of checks and balances built into the system. While the system isn't perfect it is very unlikely that a person would be detained just for an unpopular opinion. So "The Government" is not out to get you. Of course, your comment talks about the general population. Yep, you're right, many people in the general population display shocking ignorance about mental health problems and they are happy to blame mental illness when a person displays challenging behaviours or opinions. That's not the fault of government propaganda, that's the fault of ignorance about mental health problems. (EDIT: spelling)
- fit2rule 12y ago
  The point is this: over the last 5 decades, since Psychology became accepted by society, as a movement it has established itself as the High Priests of society - by ingratiating itself as a subject in Law, in Civic affairs, and so on. Western governments have been more than willing to let themselves have this '3rd arm' of enforcement to apply to their protection; time and again, we hear "government-appointed psychologist says [blah]" about some figure, and whenever the psychological health of any individual is discussed, if an 'expert' (high priest) comes along with their statement that the individual has any one of the invented malladies in their bible (DSM-IV), then thats the end of that guy. Take him away! My point is this: general society hasn't noticed this infiltration of their governments, and are - at this point - perfectly okay with it. So it doesn't really matter if its a science or not - Psychology has been accepted as the official state religion, for determining just how compliant any individual is with the group-think de jour, and that's all that really matters ...
  - DanBC 12y ago
    > time and again, we hear "government-appointed psychologist says [blah]" about some figure Please could you point to a single "government appointed psychologist" saying [blah] about some figure? Because while I'm sure they're common in oppressive regimes I haven't heard of one recently in non-oppressive regimes. > if an 'expert' (high priest) comes along with their statement that the individual has any one of the invented malladies in their bible (DSM-IV), then thats the end of that guy. Take him away! There are abuses of the various rules for detaining and treating someone against their will. I mentioned that in my first reply. But it's not as easy as you suggest and hasn't been for some years now. If you're saying that psychology had severe abuse in the system early on then we both agree.

DanBC 12y ago

This comment is a hilarious parody. It criticises others for lack of rigorous thinking while simultaneously declaring itself to be anecdotal and based on the poster's observations.

joeclark77 12y ago

I saw "Ghostbusters" as well, but the joke's on you. All that crazy stuff they believed turned out to be true (in the movie).