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<rant> And I think that psychology began to die when it became obsessed with statistics. Researching the mind has become an endless, bottom-up process with very

<rant> And I think that psychology began to die when it became obsessed with statistics. Researching the mind has become an endless, bottom-up process with very few ideas and zero grand idea. I'm not even talking about practice... Being a psychologist myself, I'm bored through my skull with this illusion of objectivity (the general linear model is only a theory) and the pathetic little results it methodically crank out. The Rorschach is a test with very low statistical properties. I love it, it is useful. And I can prove it one case at the time. That's why I am learning computing and leave the tedious gravy train of meta-analyses, rotated factor-analyses and manualized, empirically validated methods behind me.</rant>

jules 12y ago
Great idea, lets go on our gut feelings rather than science. Lets apply this to other fields too. Driving a car will become much more exiting when it can explode any second. Homeopathy is medicine with very low statistical properties, but it's so much fun! I love it, it's so useful! And the car engineers and pharmaceutical scientists will no longer have to do that boring math and statistics. Lets leave empirically validated methods behind us! Hint: if the statistics show that the results are pathetic, then the results are pathetic. Ignoring statistics merely sweeps that under the rug, it doesn't fix it.
- UhUhUhUh 12y ago
  An even better idea: Let's live according to probabilities. That will be fun too. And there are tons of positive results that are pathetic. Study shows that impact of hammer on foot causes sensation of pain compared to control group (p<.001). Obsession with statistics is the culprit not statistics. It's just a tool like another. Not a TOE.
  - pmoriarty 12y ago
    Like many "soft-sciences", psychology has had a serious case of physics-envy since at least the days of Freud, with it only getting worse since. There were some brief respites now and again, with the likes of Jungian and Humanistic psychology. But these have largely been stamped out by scientistic, mechanistic, reductionist approaches.

jules 12y ago

Great idea, lets go on our gut feelings rather than science. Lets apply this to other fields too. Driving a car will become much more exiting when it can explode any second. Homeopathy is medicine with very low statistical properties, but it's so much fun! I love it, it's so useful! And the car engineers and pharmaceutical scientists will no longer have to do that boring math and statistics. Lets leave empirically validated methods behind us! Hint: if the statistics show that the results are pathetic, then the results are pathetic. Ignoring statistics merely sweeps that under the rug, it doesn't fix it.

UhUhUhUh 12y ago
An even better idea: Let's live according to probabilities. That will be fun too. And there are tons of positive results that are pathetic. Study shows that impact of hammer on foot causes sensation of pain compared to control group (p<.001). Obsession with statistics is the culprit not statistics. It's just a tool like another. Not a TOE.
- pmoriarty 12y ago
  Like many "soft-sciences", psychology has had a serious case of physics-envy since at least the days of Freud, with it only getting worse since. There were some brief respites now and again, with the likes of Jungian and Humanistic psychology. But these have largely been stamped out by scientistic, mechanistic, reductionist approaches.