> If this were a scientific discussion, you wouldnt be throwing around the word 'science' like it was some kind of trump card. But it is, it is exactly that. W

> If this were a scientific discussion, you wouldnt be throwing around the word 'science' like it was some kind of trump card. But it is, it is exactly that. When people try to redefine science to suit themselves, with dire consequences like recovered memory therapy, finally society must formally define it unambiguously. Here's an example where the Creationists tried to redefine religion as science, and in a court test with expert witnesses, their claim was refuted through a clear definition of science: http://arachnoid.com/building_science/index.html#Science_Defined http://arachnoid.com/building_science/index.html#Science_Def... In short, science is defined in the law. This shouldn't have been necessary, but the examples provided by psychology and religion made it necessary. > Instead of 'prove it scientifically!' you'd be saying 'show me your methodology and results'. No, that doesn't work -- the Creationists would insist that what they do is science (which they do) and demand admittance to public school science classrooms. > I mean, your doctor dubious example doesn't even work - you don't need to know the mechanism of how the patient recovers from a cold to merely have a control group ... This is pretty funny. I just had a conversation the other day with a psychologist in this forum who insisted that a control group served no purpose. Also, in a field that uses the expression "no-treatment control" so regularly, the nature of the control group is important also. A "no-treatment control" is a group of people who are told to go home without treatment, then are compared to people who get treatment. Consider the difficulty of double-blinding a study in which the control group is sent home untreated. > Are you aware that the NIMH article you've linked three times to defend your case explicitly states that biology underpins mental state? It does no such thing, your claim is false. The article, and others by the same author, say that psychological theories, those based on the mind, are being, and should be, replaced by biological ones, those based on evidence other than the mind. Insel says, "We need to begin collecting the genetic, imaging, physiologic, and cognitive data to see how all the data – not just the symptoms – cluster and how these clusters relate to treatment response. That is why NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories." Tl/dr: away from the mind as sole source of treatment guidance. In the long term, causes will inform the field, not symptoms. The causes will be biological and genetic. The symptoms are "mental", which makes them next to useless to science. > ... but please stop spreading misinformation about psychology, because you have a distorted, tunnel-vision ... Yes, right. My views and Insel's (NIMH chair), and Allen Frances' (editor of DSM-IV) and others, dovetail perfectly. It's your turn to prove that I have distorted anything, that your claims are anything other than empty rhetoric. > If you actually are the scientist of the kind you laud, then you'll attack individual studies based on methodology ... On that basis, everything is science, there are only individual flawed studies that create a localized bad impression. On that bases, astrology is science, with a scattering of bad studies in a basically sound field. > ... rather than entire fields based on cherry-picked selections and self-defined terminology. Complain to NIMH chair Insel, who holds the same views I do. Scientists would like to see a transition away from mind studies, on the reasonable basis that the mind cannot produce empirical evidence, and for the reason that (a) as Insel says, "Patients with mental disorders deserve better", and (b) because disasters like recovered memory therapy are becoming more common.