seeker wrote:I'm not sure they're the more generalized views nowadays. There's been a lot of controversy between CTM and connectionism, and between CTM and situated cognition. Functionalism is only one of many options within philosophy of mind, and there're a lot of controversy there too.

You can explore SEP about the philosophy of mind:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/functionalism/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computational-mind/
Connectionism has redefined "computation" in a more biologically plausible way than traditional CTM. Anyway, probably the situated cognition perspective (e.g. Chemero, 2009; Noë, 2009) has been the more radical departure from traditional CTM. Interestingly, the situated cognition perspective has many similarities with behavior analysis (Morris, 2009; Tonneau, 2011).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situated_cognition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connectionism

Thanks for the links. Although I'm still asking myself the question "¿How could it be emergent without being computational or neurological functions?"
I mean, if cognitive processes are emergent from the physical substrate, and we don't want to adhere to dualist positions in the mind-body problem, then we have two options:
a) emergent properties depend on the particular physical properties of the system, in this case the brain (i. e. Searle's biological naturalism).
b) emergent properties depend on the causal topology of the system and not on it's particular physical and chemical properties (i.e. Chalmers and functionalists).
But if A is true, then we are studying neurology/neuroscience. And if B is true, we are studying computer science. Of course they might have an impact when considering human phenomena under their light, but psychology would be a branch of those areas. I don't think that means it's a good or bad thing a priori, just that we should have it clear.
Regarding behaviorism, I wonder how to differentiate it from ethology. Is psychology the human branch of ethology? Or is ethology the animal branch of psychology?
Obviously, in a practical sense, this questions might seem trivial/useless because we can study/research anything we want even if fields overlap, but I think they are interesting when trying to define the scientific status of psychology and it's relation with the rest of the sciences.
Regarding integration, maybe biological studies taking into account neurobiology and ethology of a given organism exist and can be extrapolated to consider how things might develop in psychology in the future, although I haven't read any of this kind.

Asta666 wrote:Thanks for the links. Although I'm still asking myself the question "¿How could it be emergent without being computational or neurological functions?"
I mean, if cognitive processes are emergent from the physical substrate, and we don't want to adhere to dualist positions in the mind-body problem, then we have two options:
a) emergent properties depend on the particular physical properties of the system, in this case the brain (i. e. Searle's biological naturalism).
b) emergent properties depend on the causal topology of the system and not on it's particular physical and chemical properties (i.e. Chalmers and functionalists).
But if A is true, then we are studying neurology/neuroscience. And if B is true, we are studying computer science. Of course they might have an impact when considering human phenomena under their light, but psychology would be a branch of those areas. I don't think that means it's a good or bad thing a priori, just that we should have it clear.

First, I think you're neglecting another option: that the relevant physical system might be external to the brain (i.e., that cognitive processes include parts of the environment). This is the proposal of extended cognition.
Second, we might distinguish ontological reductionism and epistemic reductionism. In this sense, even if all there is in the world is emergent from physical things and events (ontological reductionism), this doesn't mean that all disciplines (e.g. chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology) can be reduced to physics (epistemic reductionism). The same argument might be applied here to your reductionist claim between psychology and other disciplines: even if psychological events are emergent from neural events, this doesn't mean that psychology can be reduced to neurology.

Asta666 wrote:Regarding behaviorism, I wonder how to differentiate it from ethology. Is psychology the human branch of ethology? Or is ethology the animal branch of psychology?

I think you're mixing different conceptual domains: ethology is a discipline, behaviorism is a philosophy of science. IMO, there's no contradiction in being a behaviorist ethologist. If we compare the disciplines of ethology and behavior analysis, ethology is typically interested in observational research of species-typical behaviors of different species (including humans and non-humans), and behavior analysis is typically interested in experimental research of learning principles of different species (including humans and non-humans).

I think you're mixing different conceptual domains: ethology is a discipline, behaviorism is a philosophy of science. IMO, there's no contradiction in being a behaviorist ethologist. If we compare the disciplines of ethology and behavior analysis, ethology is typically interested in observational research of species-typical behaviors of different species (including humans and non-humans), and behavior analysis is typically interested in experimental research of learning principles of different species (including humans and non-humans).

Excellent explanation ...( lurking )

Computational neural nets must have been emergent from non-computational ones.

seeker wrote:Second, we might distinguish ontological reductionism and epistemic reductionism. In this sense, even if all there is in the world is emergent from physical things and events (ontological reductionism), this doesn't mean that all disciplines (e.g. chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology) can be reduced to physics (epistemic reductionism). The same argument might be applied here to your reductionist claim between psychology and other disciplines: even if psychological events are emergent from neural events, this doesn't mean that psychology can be reduced to neurology.

Yes, currently I think epistemic reductionism is not viable, but there is a lot of influence by that position in the field from cognitive science that assumes that it will be possible, if not, we will not be able to differentiate between different cognitive models for a function (unless you use the parsimony or simplicity or something like that criteria, but I don't think they are really conclusive).

seeker wrote:I think you're mixing different conceptual domains: ethology is a discipline, behaviorism is a philosophy of science. IMO, there's no contradiction in being a behaviorist ethologist. If we compare the disciplines of ethology and behavior analysis, ethology is typically interested in observational research of species-typical behaviors of different species (including humans and non-humans), and behavior analysis is typically interested in experimental research of learning principles of different species (including humans and non-humans).

What I meant is that if we assume that learning principles are common across species as behaviorism claims, and there is not something unique to humans, or that it cannot be studied scientifically, then psychology would be a branch (the human one) of ethology.
Regarding the original question of the thread, IMO under behaviorist methodology psychology is scientific, it is the human branch of ethology, but it does not give reductive explanations, theories are descriptive.
Under cognitive and/or neuroscience methodologies it would give reductive explanations but, given our actual knowledge, it would not be scientific, because that explanations cannot be currently directly tested, because the mind is private and not necessarily identical to observed behavior and we don't yet know how exactly the brain produces each function, and still rely on metaphors and the like.

PS: I make the difference based on Meehl's old paper:
"We suggest that the phrase 'intervening variable' be restricted to the original use implied by Tolman's definition. Such a variable will then be simply a quantity obtained by a specified manipulation of the values of empirical variables; it will involve no hypothesis as to the existence of nonobserved entities or the occurrence of unobserved processes; it will contain, in its complete statement for all purposes of theory and prediction, no words which are not definable either explicitly or by reduction sentences in terms of the empirical variables; and the validity of empirical laws involving only observables will constitute both the necessary and sufficient conditions for the validity of the laws involving these intervening variables. Legitimate instances of such 'pure' intervening variables are Skinner's reserve, Tolman's demand, Hull's habit strength, and Lewin's valence. "
"we propose that the term 'hypothetical construct' be used to designate theoretical concepts which do not meet the requirements for intervening variables in the strict sense. That is to say, these constructs involve terms which are not wholly reducible to empirical terms; they refer to processes or entities that are not directly observed (although they need not be in principle unobservable); the mathematical expression of them cannot be formed simply by a suitable grouping of terms in a direct empirical equation; and the truth of the empirical laws involved is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the truth of these conceptions. Examples of such constructs are Guthrie's M.P.S.'s, Hull's rg's, Sd's, and afferent neural interaction, Allport's biophysical traits, Murray's regnancies, the notion of 'anxiety' as used by Mowrer, Miller, and Dollard and others of the Yale-derived group, and most theoretical constructs in psychoanalytic theory. "
"The validity of intervening variables as we define them cannot be called into question except by an actual denial of the empirical facts. If, for example, Hull's proposed 'grand investigation' of the Perin-Williams type should be carried out and the complex hyperspatial surface fitted adequately over a wide range of values (5, p. 181), it would be meaningless to reject the concept of 'habit strength' and still admit the empirical findings. For this reason, the only consideration which can be raised with respect to a given proposed intervening variable, when an initial defining or reduction equation is being written for it, is the question of convenience."
"Even those of us who advocate the pursuit of behavioral knowledge on its own level and for its own sake must recognize that some day the 'pyramid of the sciences' will presumably catch up with us. For Skinner, this is of no consequence, since his consistent use of intervening variables in the strict sense genuinely frees him from neurophysiology [...] But for those theorists who do not confine themselves to intervening variables in the strict sense, neurology will some day become relevant. "
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/MacMeehl/ ... var.htm#f2
The problem, of course, seems to be that neurology is still not sufficiently relevant for all the proposed cognitive models (without even mentioning things as psychoanalysis).

Fundamental requirements of science

It seems like everyone is becoming mired in the minutae of subsequent logic and not the foundation of the issue. Science is about empiricism, or a process through which a hypothesis can become verifiable truth. In order to verify a hypothesis, the process must be repeated, either by design (e.g. laboratory tests) or by observation of repeated circumstances (e.g. similar events in history), and the phenomena observed. If it cannot be observed, either directly or inditecly (e.g. electron microscopes measuring the outline of the electron, not the electrons themselves), then it cannot be verified.

Means of verification in psychological research

Psychology uses a veriety of techniques to measure phenomena, such as behavioural experiments, observation and advanced statistics on results, to name the most predominant categories of techniques. Statistics is a branch of mathematics, which is the most formal and hard of the sciences, though statistics is so large a discipline as to be considered a science itself for the sake of epistemological categorisation. Statistics is about the fundamental laws of nature, or the probabilities of physics. However, it's common misuse by businesses, politicians, laymen—even scientists—has led to many being wary of anything using only inferential statistics to verify a suspected phenomena. The cardinal sin psychologists commit lies in believing "correlation is not causation". Statistics is a useful tool in all branches of science, but each statistical test has a very strict series of requirements, where as soon as you compromise on one rule the accuracy changes to an unknown (i.e. accuracy changes to 0–100% accurate, effectively becoming useless). Reading the seminal articles in depth, there is a great tendency to break from empiricism in one of two ways: (1) Breaking statistical laws; and (2) Misinterpreting the results as proof, rather than suggestion—even if it is a strong suggestion. The more rigourous and approaching on scientific psychological articles compute the statistics correctly, but in their 'implications to society' section of the paper they make a logical leap without quantifying it, creating a break in the chain of logic.

For behavioural experiments, which is far more empirical than observations since you can control certain variables to theoretically isolate the variables you wish to observe—a fundamental requirement in empirical observation and measurement—but still suffers from issues. Much like economics, psychologists have found that although experiments can be replicated and basic human behaviour is somewhat predictable, it still comes down to participants' individual choices. This can lead to long periods of predictability, coupled with sudden spikes in wildly unpredictable behaviour. This is because people are not only a function of their environment, but only strongly influenced by it. So whilst the environment may colour their choices, as does their basic personalities, there is still the most important element: decision. Choice, whether it is pressured or completely free, often has the final say in our actions, if not in the short run then certainly in the long run.

Psychology is a protoscience

This is the crux of why pscyhology is not empirically sound and therefore not a science. That is not to say that psychology cannot become a science. It is moving away from its pseudoscientic roots and slowly embracing empiricism. Then, perhaps, it isn't accurate to pose the question, "Is psychology a science or not?" There is a false dichotomy: either it is or it isn't. Psychology is more accurately described as a protoscience (i.e. beginnings of a new science).

Psychiatry as an analogy

Psychiatry was for a long time nothing but phrenology (e.g. Freud and Jung), but eventually progressed into empirical means of research, such as verifiable drug therapy. No longer do patients and psychiatrists spend hours talking about dreams and their subconscious. Most sessions are around 15 minutes and involve either therapy and/or a drug regimen.

Yeah, that's also covered in an interesting paper by Meehl from 1978: http://www.psych.umn.edu/faculty/meehlp ... lRisks.pdf
But I don't think it's a "protoscience" any more. That would be the case in the late years of 1800. In behavioral experiments using intervening variables "in the strict sense" it's fully scientific. The thing is that it leaves a bunch of interesting problems out, mainly humane ones, and there is a lot of social pressure to address those. But "indirect" corroboration is problematic in psychology, to say the least. Neuroscience and psychometric testing will progressively make it more reliable (I hope).

Asta666 wrote:Yeah, that's also covered in an interesting paper by Meehl from 1978: http://www.psych.umn.edu/faculty/meehlp ... lRisks.pdf But I don't think it's a "protoscience" any more. That would be the case in the late years of 1800. In behavioral experiments using intervening variables "in the strict sense" it's fully scientific. The thing is that it leaves a bunch of interesting problems out, mainly humane ones, and there is a lot of social pressure to address those. But "indirect" corroboration is problematic in psychology, to say the least. Neuroscience and psychometric testing will progressively make it more reliable (I hope).

Thank you for the article. Unfortunately the link is broken. After doing a bit of investigating, I assume you are referring to the following paper:

Meehl, P.E. (1978). Theoretical Risks and Tabular Asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the Slow Progress of Soft Psychology. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46(4), 806–834. Retrieved from https://www.psych.umn.edu/people/meehlp ... lRisks.pdf

I'll get back to you when I've finished reading it.

Asta666 wrote:Yeah, that's also covered in an interesting paper by Meehl from 1978: http://www.psych.umn.edu/faculty/meehlp/ 113 Theoretical Risks.pdf But I don't think it's a "protoscience" any more. That would be the case in the late years of 1800. In behavioral experiments using intervening variables "in the strict sense" it's fully scientific. The thing is that it leaves a bunch of interesting problems out, mainly humane ones, and there is a lot of social pressure to address those. But "indirect" corroboration is problematic in psychology, to say the least. Neuroscience and psychometric testing will progressively make it more reliable (I hope).

Thank you for the article. Unfortunately the link is broken. After doing a bit of investigating, I assume you are referring to the following paper:

Meehl, P.E. (1978). Theoretical Risks and Tabular Asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the Slow Progress of Soft Psychology. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46(4), 806–834. Retrieved from https://www.psych.umn.edu / people / meehlp / 113TheoreticalRisks.pdf (Please remove the spaces, I think this forum reformats links.)

The article by Meehl is brilliant. Having read many of psychology's seminal works, I honestly did not expect to find such a thoughtful and fairhanded analysis of the shortcomings of psychology. Also, I have discovered that your comment on the classification of science is correct.

Psychometric testing is still unusable

The fundamental premise behind the legitamacy of psychometric testing is that our behaviour and decisions reflect our underlying character—which is a reasonable assumption. The logical disconnect occurs when expounding the accuracy of particular psychometric tests, where the results fluctuate wildly. For example, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a commonly used test. When testing subjects over a short period of time, the results vary, whereas the premise of the test is that it reveals your underlying and immutable character. How then does the participant's character change so often and so drastically? Therefore, the instrument (i.e. MBTI) must be inaccurate. Indeed, there are many logicall and empirically sound studies that reveal the inaccuracy of MBTI. Psychometric testing may lead to greater knowledge of psychology, but its existing instruments are still too inaccurate to yield useful results. Neuroscience is an area that provides a lot of promise, though it is still an incredibly young science. We likely won't discover the determinants of human thought and decision from a biological perspective within our lifetimes.

Yeah, that's the one I was referring to. I think those two papers should be read by every psychology student, somewhat old but still applying.
Regarding testing, I don't think it's so bad as to say they are not usable. You have to consider the distinction between trait/state properties and that test-retest is a common validation procedure. Some measures are pretty stable (although obviously not perfect, or the kind of stability one would find in physics measures).
Here is a comparison on accuracy of psychometric tests and some medical diagnosing procedures: http://drrobertcochrane.com/files/amp562128.pdf
But of course neuroscience and psychometric testing still have a long way to go. The problem I think is as you said in your previous message:
"(2) Misinterpreting the results as proof, rather than suggestion—even if it is a strong suggestion. The more rigourous and approaching on scientific psychological articles compute the statistics correctly, but in their 'implications to society' section of the paper they make a logical leap without quantifying it, creating a break in the chain of logic."
That's because there is a lot of social interest in "solving" those issues, but pragmatic concerns may deviate psychology from rigorous research and basic science, like pointed by some authors like Uttal.

@SeriousCat: I think there are a few errors in your posts here.

SeriousCat wrote:Fundamental requirements of science

It seems like everyone is becoming mired in the minutae of subsequent logic and not the foundation of the issue. Science is about empiricism, or a process through which a hypothesis can become verifiable truth. In order to verify a hypothesis, the process must be repeated, either by design (e.g. laboratory tests) or by observation of repeated circumstances (e.g. similar events in history), and the phenomena observed. If it cannot be observed, either directly or inditecly (e.g. electron microscopes measuring the outline of the electron, not the electrons themselves), then it cannot be verified.

This is a minor niggle, but there is no reason to assume that science is attempting to investigate or discover "verifiable truth", and generally a theory or hypothesis is strengthened by withstanding attempts at falsification, rather than repeated verification (although withstanding falsification could arguably be a form of verification).

SeriousCat wrote:Means of verification in psychological research

Psychology uses a veriety of techniques to measure phenomena, such as behavioural experiments, observation and advanced statistics on results, to name the most predominant categories of techniques. Statistics is a branch of mathematics, which is the most formal and hard of the sciences, though statistics is so large a discipline as to be considered a science itself for the sake of epistemological categorisation.

Mathematics is not a science, at all.

SeriousCat wrote:Statistics is about the fundamental laws of nature, or the probabilities of physics. However, it's common misuse by businesses, politicians, laymen—even scientists—has led to many being wary of anything using only inferential statistics to verify a suspected phenomena. The cardinal sin psychologists commit lies in believing "correlation is not causation".

Are you suggesting that psychologists aren't aware that "correlation does not equal causation"? This seems to be a very strange assertion, given the lengths psychologists go through to avoid making such a mistake - or explicitly stating that all they've found is an association, and not necessarily a causal relation.

SeriousCat wrote:Statistics is a useful tool in all branches of science, but each statistical test has a very strict series of requirements, where as soon as you compromise on one rule the accuracy changes to an unknown (i.e. accuracy changes to 0–100% accurate, effectively becoming useless).

This is overstating things a little bit. It depends on the assumption and on the statistical test. Many statistical tests are quite robust to a few violations, and make no difference to the overall result. But with that said, when assumptions are significantly violated, psychologists will switch to non-parametric statistics, where the assumptions aren't important.

SeriousCat wrote:Reading the seminal articles in depth, there is a great tendency to break from empiricism in one of two ways: (1) Breaking statistical laws; and (2) Misinterpreting the results as proof, rather than suggestion—even if it is a strong suggestion. The more rigourous and approaching on scientific psychological articles compute the statistics correctly, but in their 'implications to society' section of the paper they make a logical leap without quantifying it, creating a break in the chain of logic.

But, of course, a large proportion of psych papers don't mention anything at all about society, because psychology has no focus on people or society. And speculation in the Discussion section is not a problem, and does not invalidate any of their work or science.

SeriousCat wrote:For behavioural experiments, which is far more empirical than observations since you can control certain variables to theoretically isolate the variables you wish to observe—a fundamental requirement in empirical observation and measurement—but still suffers from issues. Much like economics, psychologists have found that although experiments can be replicated and basic human behaviour is somewhat predictable, it still comes down to participants' individual choices. This can lead to long periods of predictability, coupled with sudden spikes in wildly unpredictable behaviour. This is because people are not only a function of their environment, but only strongly influenced by it. So whilst the environment may colour their choices, as does their basic personalities, there is still the most important element: decision. Choice, whether it is pressured or completely free, often has the final say in our actions, if not in the short run then certainly in the long run.

I have to disagree with this. Firstly, I'll just point out that psychology is not the study of humans, so even if human behavior were troublesome, it wouldn't be an issue. Secondly, the fact that behavior is probabilistic rather than deterministic isn't a problem at all, as all sciences are beginning to realise that determinism is not an accurate model for the universe and the things within it. Still, human behavior seems to be far more predictable than you're suggesting there.

SeriousCat wrote:Psychology is a protoscience

This is the crux of why pscyhology is not empirically sound and therefore not a science. That is not to say that psychology cannot become a science. It is moving away from its pseudoscientic roots and slowly embracing empiricism. Then, perhaps, it isn't accurate to pose the question, "Is psychology a science or not?" There is a false dichotomy: either it is or it isn't. Psychology is more accurately described as a protoscience (i.e. beginnings of a new science).

Strongly disagree. Even if there were psychologists in the field making first year mistakes of confusing correlation for causation, or abusing statistics, that wouldn't prevent the field from being scientific. At most, it would make it a scientific field with shitty scientists in it.

SeriousCat wrote:Psychiatry as an analogy

Psychiatry was for a long time nothing but phrenology (e.g. Freud and Jung), but eventually progressed into empirical means of research, such as verifiable drug therapy. No longer do patients and psychiatrists spend hours talking about dreams and their subconscious. Most sessions are around 15 minutes and involve either therapy and/or a drug regimen.

Psychiatry is not a science at all. It's an applied, evidence-based field. That's like saying medicine is a good example of a science.

When you talk of "psychology", are you confusing it with "clinical psychology"?

SeriousCat wrote:Psychometric testing is still unusable

The fundamental premise behind the legitamacy of psychometric testing is that our behaviour and decisions reflect our underlying character—which is a reasonable assumption. The logical disconnect occurs when expounding the accuracy of particular psychometric tests, where the results fluctuate wildly. For example, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a commonly used test. When testing subjects over a short period of time, the results vary, whereas the premise of the test is that it reveals your underlying and immutable character. How then does the participant's character change so often and so drastically? Therefore, the instrument (i.e. MBTI) must be inaccurate. Indeed, there are many logicall and empirically sound studies that reveal the inaccuracy of MBTI. Psychometric testing may lead to greater knowledge of psychology, but its existing instruments are still too inaccurate to yield useful results. Neuroscience is an area that provides a lot of promise, though it is still an incredibly young science. We likely won't discover the determinants of human thought and decision from a biological perspective within our lifetimes.

The MBTI is not a psychometric test used, or endorsed, by psychology. It was created by non-psychologists, never adopted by psychology, and eventually debunked by psychologists. It is fraught with so many issues, that it is often ridiculed by psychologists (for example, do a search on this forum for it, and you'll find at least 3 psychologists making references to star signs and magic 8 balls when people mention what "personality type" they are). The MBTI is only used by companies and businesses, and has no scientific basis at all.

If you think there are problems with psychometric tests (and, undoubtedly, problems do exist), you'd be better off criticising the Big Five.

Asta666 wrote:Yes, currently I think epistemic reductionism is not viable, but there is a lot of influence by that position in the field from cognitive science that assumes that it will be possible,

It's OK to try. But my point was that it's not a necessary condition for considering psychology a science.

Asta666 wrote:if not, we will not be able to differentiate between different cognitive models for a function (unless you use the parsimony or simplicity or something like that criteria, but I don't think they are really conclusive).

We have many other criteria besides empirical adequacy and those other two (epistemic reductionism and parsimony): usefulness for specific goals, consistency with other theories, fruitfulness for generating new research, etc. Anyway, having more than one empirically adequate model doesn't seem to be a problem.

Asta666 wrote:What I meant is that if we assume that learning principles are common across species as behaviorism claims, and there is not something unique to humans, or that it cannot be studied scientifically,

These are not "assumptions". There's evidence that many principles are common across species. There's evidence that many psychological issues can be studied scientifically. There's evidence that many behaviors are unique to humans (just as many behaviors are unique to other species).

Asta666 wrote:then psychology would be a branch (the human one) of ethology. Regarding the original question of the thread, IMO under behaviorist methodology psychology is scientific, it is the human branch of ethology, but it does not give reductive explanations, theories are descriptive.

I disagree: psychologists are not only interested in human behavior (e.g., most of Skinner's research was with pigeons), so psychology cannot be described as "the human branch of ethology". I think my distinction was closer to the conventional usage of terms: ethology is typically interested in observational research of species-typical behaviors of different species (including humans and non-humans), and behavior analysis is typically interested in experimental research of learning principles of different species (including humans and non-humans). Both ethology and behavior analysis are included in biology. The word "psychology" is more ambiguous, some people use it only for what might be called "scientific psychology", but other people would include several non-scientific (folk, speculative, philosophical, or metaphysical) psychological theories.

Asta666 wrote:but it does not give reductive explanations, theories are descriptive.

This sounds too taxative. How do you know it does not give reductive explanations? It's a possibility, and it's being explored.

Asta666 wrote:Under cognitive and/or neuroscience methodologies it would give reductive explanations but, given our actual knowledge, it would not be scientific, because that explanations cannot be currently directly tested,

Are you claiming that cognitive psychology and neuroscience "cannot" test their hypotheses? Could you argue this claim?

Asta666 wrote:because the mind is private and not necessarily identical to observed behavior

I disagree. "Mind" is not private. "Mind" is a folk (non-scientific) label for a large set of biological activities, some of which are covert, but not all of them (and those covert activities are etiologically dependent on overt interactions with the environment).

Asta666 wrote:and we don't yet know how exactly the brain produces each function, and still rely on metaphors and the like.

I don't think the brain "produces" a mind. The brain's activity is a necessary component of the biological activities that are labeled as "mind" in folk talk, but other events of the body and the environment are not less relevant than the brain as components of those activities.

seeker wrote:We have many other criteria besides empirical adequacy and those other two (epistemic reductionism and parsimony): usefulness for specific goals, consistency with other theories, fruitfulness for generating new research, etc. Anyway, having more than one empirically adequate model doesn't seem to be a problem.

That's nice but we can meet all those with theological/literary critique works just as well, and I doubt we'd call them scientific even if they are useful, simple, consistent with previous works and fruitful for generating new research.

seeker wrote:Are you claiming that cognitive psychology and neuroscience "cannot" test their hypotheses? Could you argue this claim?

They cannot test them directly. In the case of cognitive psychology you can experiment with behavior, not with cognitive processes. The problem is that cognitive processes are not necessarily identical to observed behavior and need to be inferred. They are hypothetical constructs in the sense of Meehl's article. Of course you'll say that you can test models through behavioral experiments, but I don't think that's conclusive (that's why we have to appeal to parsimony, simplicity, etc. and have several competing models for each function, which I do think it's a problem because in principle only one could be accurate).
In the case of neuroscience we don't know exactly how brain functioning affects cognitive processes, we have some correlations and lesion studies that might help but don't explain how the brain enables/affects a given process.
So if we think that someday we may achieve epistemic reductionism or be able to distinguish between competing cognitive models based on behavioral/neural correlations data then it's scientific enterprise, if we think this will not be possible it's just a road back to the kind of mentalism Skinner used to critique.

Firstly, I'll apologise for the long post. I'm trying to reply to two people at the same time and I don't want to double post.

Asta666 wrote:That's because there is a lot of social interest in "solving" those issues, but pragmatic concerns may deviate psychology from rigorous research and basic science, like pointed by some authors like Uttal.

I've think you've got it right there.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:Fundamental requirements of science

It seems like everyone is becoming mired in the minutae of subsequent logic and not the foundation of the issue. Science is about empiricism, or a process through which a hypothesis can become verifiable truth. In order to verify a hypothesis, the process must be repeated, either by design (e.g. laboratory tests) or by observation of repeated circumstances (e.g. similar events in history), and the phenomena observed. If it cannot be observed, either directly or inditecly (e.g. electron microscopes measuring the outline of the electron, not the electrons themselves), then it cannot be verified.

This is a minor niggle, but there is no reason to assume that science is attempting to investigate or discover "verifiable truth", and generally a theory or hypothesis is strengthened by withstanding attempts at falsification, rather than repeated verification (although withstanding falsification could arguably be a form of verification).

I'm not sure I understand why you assert this. Science aims to discover the truth and the only way to do that is to verify a claim, whereby it becomes a theory (i.e. verified truth). Otherwise, it remains an assumption (i.e. only a hypothesis). Reproduceable results is a basic requirement for the verification of claims. It it cannot be repeated using the same environment, settings and techniques, then the hypothesis must be wrong.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:Means of verification in psychological research

Psychology uses a veriety of techniques to measure phenomena, such as behavioural experiments, observation and advanced statistics on results, to name the most predominant categories of techniques. Statistics is a branch of mathematics, which is the most formal and hard of the sciences, though statistics is so large a discipline as to be considered a science itself for the sake of epistemological categorisation.

Mathematics is not a science, at all.

Actually mathematics is a formal science. In the epistemological categorisation of different branches of science, there are four main groups: (1) Physical sciences; (2) Life sciences; (3) Social sciences (strictly speaking, it also includes sciences that are not actually 'sciences' in and of themselves, but make use of sciences); and (4) Formal sciences. In terms of formal logic, mathematics is the most formal and 'hard' of sciences.[/quote]

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:Statistics is about the fundamental laws of nature, or the probabilities of physics. However, it's common misuse by businesses, politicians, laymen—even scientists—has led to many being wary of anything using only inferential statistics to verify a suspected phenomena. The cardinal sin psychologists commit lies in believing "correlation is not causation".

Are you suggesting that psychologists aren't aware that "correlation does not equal causation"? This seems to be a very strange assertion, given the lengths psychologists go through to avoid making such a mistake - or explicitly stating that all they've found is an association, and not necessarily a causal relation.

It is a very old problem with not just psychology, but the social sciences in general. Economics is another discipline that suffers from this problem. The less scrupulous academics will confuse the correlation with causation—whether intentionally or unintentionally—which is usually looked down upon by the rest of the discpline's community, since it puts them into disrepute. Unfortunately, as much as you want to believe it, academics from the soft and hard sciences do often make statistical mistakes. It seems to be systemic in all parts of society.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:Statistics is a useful tool in all branches of science, but each statistical test has a very strict series of requirements, where as soon as you compromise on one rule the accuracy changes to an unknown (i.e. accuracy changes to 0–100% accurate, effectively becoming useless).

This is overstating things a little bit. It depends on the assumption and on the statistical test. Many statistical tests are quite robust to a few violations, and make no difference to the overall result. But with that said, when assumptions are significantly violated, psychologists will switch to non-parametric statistics, where the assumptions aren't important.

I think you're confusing robustness with statistical rules. Statistical rules have in them stated thresholds. As long as you do not go outside of the thresholds where the statistical rules are active, the results will still be valid. Non-parametric statistics cannot be generalised to the wider population. They only compute the relationships within the sample. This is one of the first things taught about non-parametric tests. It trade-off is that calculations have relaxed limits but usage of the results is quite restricted.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:Reading the seminal articles in depth, there is a great tendency to break from empiricism in one of two ways: (1) Breaking statistical laws; and (2) Misinterpreting the results as proof, rather than suggestion—even if it is a strong suggestion. The more rigourous and approaching on scientific psychological articles compute the statistics correctly, but in their 'implications to society' section of the paper they make a logical leap without quantifying it, creating a break in the chain of logic.

But, of course, a large proportion of psych papers don't mention anything at all about society, because psychology has no focus on people or society. And speculation in the Discussion section is not a problem, and does not invalidate any of their work or science.

Strictly speaking, that is true. Not all psychology research is invalid. Some of its research is insightful and is built on a scientific basis. The danger comes in less quality research being systemic amongst even the higher tier journals, which becomes doubly risky when research with quality procedures use research with lesser quality procedures in the literature review.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:For behavioural experiments, which is far more empirical than observations since you can control certain variables to theoretically isolate the variables you wish to observe—a fundamental requirement in empirical observation and measurement—but still suffers from issues. Much like economics, psychologists have found that although experiments can be replicated and basic human behaviour is somewhat predictable, it still comes down to participants' individual choices. This can lead to long periods of predictability, coupled with sudden spikes in wildly unpredictable behaviour. This is because people are not only a function of their environment, but only strongly influenced by it. So whilst the environment may colour their choices, as does their basic personalities, there is still the most important element: decision. Choice, whether it is pressured or completely free, often has the final say in our actions, if not in the short run then certainly in the long run.

I have to disagree with this. Firstly, I'll just point out that psychology is not the study of humans, so even if human behavior were troublesome, it wouldn't be an issue. Secondly, the fact that behavior is probabilistic rather than deterministic isn't a problem at all, as all sciences are beginning to realise that determinism is not an accurate model for the universe and the things within it. Still, human behavior seems to be far more predictable than you're suggesting there.

Psychology is the study of behaviour, which includes a variety of organisms, of which humanity is one. Human psychology is by far the most important branch of psychology, perhaps due to the fact that we are humans and we are inherently biased towards advancing our own interests. Probability is not a limitation of science, as I have said before, but an element of it. It comes down to a question of thresholds. The smaller the margin of error, the more useful the tool. If the margin of error for certain psychological research is too large, it effectively becomes useless in the practical sense. Human behaviour is predictable within a normal range, but that is less explained and more improtantly predicted by psychology than it is by microeconomics.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:Psychology is a protoscience

This is the crux of why pscyhology is not empirically sound and therefore not a science. That is not to say that psychology cannot become a science. It is moving away from its pseudoscientic roots and slowly embracing empiricism. Then, perhaps, it isn't accurate to pose the question, "Is psychology a science or not?" There is a false dichotomy: either it is or it isn't. Psychology is more accurately described as a protoscience (i.e. beginnings of a new science).

Strongly disagree. Even if there were psychologists in the field making first year mistakes of confusing correlation for causation, or abusing statistics, that wouldn't prevent the field from being scientific. At most, it would make it a scientific field with shitty scientists in it.

In a sense, what you're saying is true, but in another sense it's very dubious. Scientific truth exists independent of whether or not we know it, but people investigate science. Without investigation, we would not be able to verify whether something was in fact true. We could presume any number of things were true, such as there being a large marshmallow orbiting the Earth, but until it can be verified it's reasonable to assume it's false. Risking the dangers of reasoning by analogy, I would liken the logic you're putting forward is akin to a a game of sports. One team loses, with its players claiming they had failed the club, but the team didn't lose: the players lost. However, thea team is made of players.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:Psychiatry as an analogy

Psychiatry was for a long time nothing but phrenology (e.g. Freud and Jung), but eventually progressed into empirical means of research, such as verifiable drug therapy. No longer do patients and psychiatrists spend hours talking about dreams and their subconscious. Most sessions are around 15 minutes and involve either therapy and/or a drug regimen.

Psychiatry is not a science at all. It's an applied, evidence-based field. That's like saying medicine is a good example of a science.

This is true, but only on a technicality. Psychiatry is an applied science, large enough to be considered its own science, which uses different base sciences. For example, pharmacology is an applied science using the base sciences of chemistry and human biology.

Mr.Samsa wrote:When you talk of "psychology", are you confusing it with "clinical psychology"?

No, I realise that foundation psychology and clinical psychology are quite different. Clinical psychology is about therapy and it has had remarkably good successes. Foundation psychology is about discovering basic behvaioural patterns and thinking, not just in the aims of understanding disorders and illness like clinical psychology, but about human behaviour and thinking in general.

Mr.Samsa wrote:

SeriousCat wrote:Psychometric testing is still unusable

The fundamental premise behind the legitamacy of psychometric testing is that our behaviour and decisions reflect our underlying character—which is a reasonable assumption. The logical disconnect occurs when expounding the accuracy of particular psychometric tests, where the results fluctuate wildly. For example, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a commonly used test. When testing subjects over a short period of time, the results vary, whereas the premise of the test is that it reveals your underlying and immutable character. How then does the participant's character change so often and so drastically? Therefore, the instrument (i.e. MBTI) must be inaccurate. Indeed, there are many logicall and empirically sound studies that reveal the inaccuracy of MBTI. Psychometric testing may lead to greater knowledge of psychology, but its existing instruments are still too inaccurate to yield useful results. Neuroscience is an area that provides a lot of promise, though it is still an incredibly young science. We likely won't discover the determinants of human thought and decision from a biological perspective within our lifetimes.

The MBTI is not a psychometric test used, or endorsed, by psychology. It was created by non-psychologists, never adopted by psychology, and eventually debunked by psychologists. It is fraught with so many issues, that it is often ridiculed by psychologists (for example, do a search on this forum for it, and you'll find at least 3 psychologists making references to star signs and magic 8 balls when people mention what "personality type" they are). The MBTI is only used by companies and businesses, and has no scientific basis at all.

This is only half true. MBTI is unfortunately a rather popular psychometric test, but it was created by non-psychologists as an aid to conflict management. It has since been repurposed by the vast majority of Fortune 1000 companies for personality typing. MBTI has since undergone significant research from psychologists considered reputable by the psychological community supporting its claims. MBTI, like all psychometric tests (e.g. IQ Tests) remain highly controversial, even within the psychological community.

seeker wrote:

Asta666 wrote:if not, we will not be able to differentiate between different cognitive models for a function (unless you use the parsimony or simplicity or something like that criteria, but I don't think they are really conclusive).

We have many other criteria besides empirical adequacy and those other two (epistemic reductionism and parsimony): usefulness for specific goals, consistency with other theories, fruitfulness for generating new research, etc. Anyway, having more than one empirically adequate model doesn't seem to be a problem.

That is true. However, they can come into conflict later on and there may be logical contradictions. It won't necessarily crop up, but it could.

seeker wrote:

Asta666 wrote:What I meant is that if we assume that learning principles are common across species as behaviorism claims, and there is not something unique to humans, or that it cannot be studied scientifically,

These are not "assumptions". There's evidence that many principles are common across species. There's evidence that many psychological issues can be studied scientifically. There's evidence that many behaviors are unique to humans (just as many behaviors are unique to other species).

Absolutely. Not all psychology is unscientific. Much of its research (e.g. modern psychotherapy) is carried out in empirically sound ways. It depends on the research in question, but there's a lot of good examples out there.

seeker wrote:

Asta666 wrote:But it does not give reductive explanations, theories are descriptive.

This sounds too taxative. How do you know it does not give reductive explanations? It's a possibility, and it's being explored.

I think what Asta666 is saying is that it currently does not give reductive explanations. However, the error is in thinking because it does not in the present, it can never give reductive explanations—this remains to be seen.

seeker wrote:

Asta666 wrote:Under cognitive and/or neuroscience methodologies it would give reductive explanations but, given our actual knowledge, it would not be scientific, because that explanations cannot be currently directly tested,

Are you claiming that cognitive psychology and neuroscience "cannot" test their hypotheses? Could you argue this claim?

The current means of verification are simplistic and can usually only verify very simple phenomena (e.g. origins of physical pain). There is still a lot of development before neuroscience can even map the various areas and functions of the brain across so many unique synaptic connections. That's not due to the lack of scientific rigour in neuroscience, but rather the complexity of the subject and the current limitations in technology and theory.

seeker wrote:

Asta666 wrote:Because the mind is private and not necessarily identical to observed behavior

I disagree. "Mind" is not private. "Mind" is a folk (non-scientific) label for a large set of biological activities, some of which are covert, but not all of them (and those covert activities are etiologically dependent on overt interactions with the environment.

That is an assumption made by most cognitive scientists. Whether or not the mind can be theoretically 'read' by its synaptic activity remains to be seen. However, I would expect this to eventually be proven true.

Asta666 wrote:

seeker wrote:We have many other criteria besides empirical adequacy and those other two (epistemic reductionism and parsimony): usefulness for specific goals, consistency with other theories, fruitfulness for generating new research, etc. Anyway, having more than one empirically adequate model doesn't seem to be a problem.

That's nice but we can meet all those with theological/literary critique works just as well, and I doubt we'd call them scientific even if they are useful, simple, consistent with previous works and fruitful for generating new research.

Do you think that theological/literary critique can pass the criterion of empirical adequacy? (Remember that I said "besides" your proposed criteria, not "instead" them).

Asta666 wrote:

seeker wrote:Are you claiming that cognitive psychology and neuroscience "cannot" test their hypotheses? Could you argue this claim?

They cannot test them directly. In the case of cognitive psychology you can experiment with behavior, not with cognitive processes. The problem is that cognitive processes are not necessarily identical to observed behavior and need to be inferred. They are hypothetical constructs in the sense of Meehl's article. Of course you'll say that you can test models through behavioral experiments, but I don't think that's conclusive (that's why we have to appeal to parsimony, simplicity, etc. and have several competing models for each function, which I do think it's a problem because in principle only one could be accurate). In the case of neuroscience we don't know exactly how brain functioning affects cognitive processes, we have some correlations and lesion studies that might help but don't explain how the brain enables/affects a given process.

Why should an empirical test be "direct" and "conclusive"? I don't think they should. Indirect and inconclusive empirical tests are the usual practice in other sciences.

Asta666 wrote: So if we think that someday we may achieve epistemic reductionism or be able to distinguish between competing cognitive models based on behavioral/neural correlations data then it's scientific enterprise, if we think this will not be possible it's just a road back to the kind of mentalism Skinner used to critique.

I disagree. Even if epistemic reductionism is never achieved, and several cognitive models are empirically adequate, those models are not necessarily a road back to the kind of mentalism Skinner used to critique. Anyway, I think these issues should be assessed on a case by case basis.

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:This is a minor niggle, but there is no reason to assume that science is attempting to investigate or discover "verifiable truth", and generally a theory or hypothesis is strengthened by withstanding attempts at falsification, rather than repeated verification (although withstanding falsification could arguably be a form of verification).

I'm not sure I understand why you assert this. Science aims to discover the truth and the only way to do that is to verify a claim, whereby it becomes a theory (i.e. verified truth). Otherwise, it remains an assumption (i.e. only a hypothesis). Reproduceable results is a basic requirement for the verification of claims. It it cannot be repeated using the same environment, settings and techniques, then the hypothesis must be wrong.

I think your understanding of science, and especially philosophy of science, needs brushing up on a little bit. Firstly, the claim that "science aims to discover the truth" is a very debatable claim and requires a lot of argumentation to support it. Given that you have presented it as if it were an obvious 'fact', I assume you probably haven't thought too long or hard on the subject. The main problem is that science is a tool or methodology based on naturalistic explanations - this means that if it were to discover "truth", then this truth must necessarily be naturalistic. It then becomes a metaphysical argument, which cannot be supported by empirical evidence, and instead you need logical and philosophical arguments to explain why metaphysical naturalism is a better position than methodological naturalism to base science on.

Secondly, "whereby it becomes a theory (i.e. verified truth)", this is not what a theory is. A theory can be absolutely, completely and utterly wrong, and it is still a theory. This is because a theory is simply an explanation - a framework of knowledge that attempts to string together and account for multiple lines of evidences (facts, laws, equations, other theories, etc). Something being classed as a theory says nothing about its validity or truthiness. If you really want to blow your noodle, keep in mind that a "fact" is the lowest form of evidence in science. A fact is simply a data point or observation.

Thirdly, "Otherwise, it remains an assumption (i.e. only a hypothesis)" - hypotheses do not get "promoted" into theories. Hypotheses are predictions or ways of testing claims (usually from theories). In other words, you generally need a theory before you have hypotheses.

Fourthly, "Reproduceable results is a basic requirement for the verification of [scientific] claims" - fixed that for you.

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Mathematics is not a science, at all.

Actually mathematics is a formal science. In the epistemological categorisation of different branches of science, there are four main groups: (1) Physical sciences; (2) Life sciences; (3) Social sciences (strictly speaking, it also includes sciences that are not actually 'sciences' in and of themselves, but make use of sciences); and (4) Formal sciences. In terms of formal logic, mathematics is the most formal and 'hard' of sciences.

The "formal sciences" are distinct from what we know as science in that they retained the moniker "science" from a time before the scientific method was developed, meaning that it shares nothing in common with what we commonly refer to as science these days. That is, it makes no empirical claims, is not falsifiable, does not have reproducible results, etc etc. At the very least, bringing it up in a discussion on whether psychology is a science is irrelevant, given that the kind of "science" that maths is, is not the kind that psychology (or biology, physics or chemistry) would or should strive towards.

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Are you suggesting that psychologists aren't aware that "correlation does not equal causation"? This seems to be a very strange assertion, given the lengths psychologists go through to avoid making such a mistake - or explicitly stating that all they've found is an association, and not necessarily a causal relation.

It is a very old problem with not just psychology, but the social sciences in general. Economics is another discipline that suffers from this problem. The less scrupulous academics will confuse the correlation with causation—whether intentionally or unintentionally—which is usually looked down upon by the rest of the discpline's community, since it puts them into disrepute. Unfortunately, as much as you want to believe it, academics from the soft and hard sciences do often make statistical mistakes. It seems to be systemic in all parts of society.

I don't doubt that sloppy researchers make mistakes, across all scientific fields, what I am contending is that psychology (one of the branches of science that waves the motto "correlation does not equal causation" like it was a divine commandment) is a serious violator of such a rule. And, more specifically, I don't agree that even if it were a systematic problem within the field, that it would affect its scientific status.

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:This is overstating things a little bit. It depends on the assumption and on the statistical test. Many statistical tests are quite robust to a few violations, and make no difference to the overall result. But with that said, when assumptions are significantly violated, psychologists will switch to non-parametric statistics, where the assumptions aren't important.

I think you're confusing robustness with statistical rules. Statistical rules have in them stated thresholds. As long as you do not go outside of the thresholds where the statistical rules are active, the results will still be valid.

And as long as the data is approximately within those thresholds, for many tests and assumptions, we say that the statistical test is robust to some violations.

SeriousCat wrote:Non-parametric statistics cannot be generalised to the wider population. They only compute the relationships within the sample. This is one of the first things taught about non-parametric tests. It trade-off is that calculations have relaxed limits but usage of the results is quite restricted.

Of course they can, otherwise they wouldn't be as powerful as standard parametric tests.

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:But, of course, a large proportion of psych papers don't mention anything at all about society, because psychology has no focus on people or society. And speculation in the Discussion section is not a problem, and does not invalidate any of their work or science.

Strictly speaking, that is true. Not all psychology research is invalid. Some of its research is insightful and is built on a scientific basis. The danger comes in less quality research being systemic amongst even the higher tier journals, which becomes doubly risky when research with quality procedures use research with lesser quality procedures in the literature review.

Not only "strictly speaking", but just "factually speaking" what I said is true. The comments in the Discussion section that involve speculations about application to society have no effect at all on literature reviews or the quality of the research.

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:I have to disagree with this. Firstly, I'll just point out that psychology is not the study of humans, so even if human behavior were troublesome, it wouldn't be an issue. Secondly, the fact that behavior is probabilistic rather than deterministic isn't a problem at all, as all sciences are beginning to realise that determinism is not an accurate model for the universe and the things within it. Still, human behavior seems to be far more predictable than you're suggesting there.

Psychology is the study of behaviour, which includes a variety of organisms, of which humanity is one. Human psychology is by far the most important branch of psychology, perhaps due to the fact that we are humans and we are inherently biased towards advancing our own interests.

Says who? Arguably not even psychologists think humans are particularly important to study, given that I'd say the majority of psych research has nothing to do with humans.

SeriousCat wrote:Probability is not a limitation of science, as I have said before, but an element of it. It comes down to a question of thresholds. The smaller the margin of error, the more useful the tool. If the margin of error for certain psychological research is too large, it effectively becomes useless in the practical sense. Human behaviour is predictable within a normal range, but that is less explained and more improtantly predicted by psychology than it is by microeconomics.

Fortunately, prediction of human behavior in psychology does not contain large margins of error, and prediction of human behavior (at least in some tasks) is near-perfect. As for it explaining and predicting less than microeconomics, are you serious? Microeconomics was revamped and saved by the behavioral psychologists. Most of the solid work in that area is now done by 'behavioral economicists', who are psychologists. Microeconomics was lagging far, far behind the psychologists in terms of explanation and prediction. In the 60s we had developed an equation that perfectly predicted choice behavior and the economicists were still wittering on about "rational agents".

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Strongly disagree. Even if there were psychologists in the field making first year mistakes of confusing correlation for causation, or abusing statistics, that wouldn't prevent the field from being scientific. At most, it would make it a scientific field with shitty scientists in it.

In a sense, what you're saying is true, but in another sense it's very dubious. Scientific truth exists independent of whether or not we know it, but people investigate science. Without investigation, we would not be able to verify whether something was in fact true. We could presume any number of things were true, such as there being a large marshmallow orbiting the Earth, but until it can be verified it's reasonable to assume it's false.

And notice that you're defining what is true and real, and the possibility of what could exist, as that which is natural, repeatable, and observable, with no possibility of cognitive or perceptual errors affecting the "truth"?

SeriousCat wrote:Risking the dangers of reasoning by analogy, I would liken the logic you're putting forward is akin to a a game of sports. One team loses, with its players claiming they had failed the club, but the team didn't lose: the players lost. However, thea team is made of players.

False analogy. It would be like having a team of world cup champions that contains one or two players who have no idea how to play the game. You're trying to say that they're aren't real sports players, or world cup champions, because they contain a couple of players who don't understand the game. My point is that if the team as a whole is winning and succeeding, and following the rules of the game, then they are real sports players.

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:Psychiatry is not a science at all. It's an applied, evidence-based field. That's like saying medicine is a good example of a science.

This is true, but only on a technicality. Psychiatry is an applied science, large enough to be considered its own science, which uses different base sciences. For example, pharmacology is an applied science using the base sciences of chemistry and human biology.

The size of psychiatry doesn't affect whether it's a science or not. Every person on earth could be a psychiatrist, but it still wouldn't be a science. It's based on science, I agree, but it's as much a science as medicine or engineering is (i.e. not at all). Either way, psychology even 100 years ago was far more scientific that psychiatry will ever be, by necessity.

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:When you talk of "psychology", are you confusing it with "clinical psychology"?

No, I realise that foundation psychology and clinical psychology are quite different. Clinical psychology is about therapy and it has had remarkably good successes. Foundation psychology is about discovering basic behvaioural patterns and thinking, not just in the aims of understanding disorders and illness like clinical psychology, but about human behaviour and thinking in general.

And again, just behavior and thinking (humans happen to fall into that group, rather than there being a specific focus on humans).

SeriousCat wrote:

Mr.Samsa wrote:The MBTI is not a psychometric test used, or endorsed, by psychology. It was created by non-psychologists, never adopted by psychology, and eventually debunked by psychologists. It is fraught with so many issues, that it is often ridiculed by psychologists (for example, do a search on this forum for it, and you'll find at least 3 psychologists making references to star signs and magic 8 balls when people mention what "personality type" they are). The MBTI is only used by companies and businesses, and has no scientific basis at all.

This is only half true. MBTI is unfortunately a rather popular psychometric test, but it was created by non-psychologists as an aid to conflict management. It has since been repurposed by the vast majority of Fortune 1000 companies for personality typing. MBTI has since undergone significant research from psychologists considered reputable by the psychological community supporting its claims. MBTI, like all psychometric tests (e.g. IQ Tests) remain highly controversial, even within the psychological community.

The MBTI is not accepted by psychology - at all. It's undergone a lot of research by psychologists, because it's been proposed as an explanation of human personality, but it has consistently been found wanting and consistently rejected. IQ tests are not at all controversial within psychology, because they are incredibly informative and highly predictive of behavior across a large spectrum of areas. The same goes for psychometric tests that are accepted by psychology, like the Big Five.

There are debates over specific aspects of the tests, but no one in psychology questions the validity of IQ tests and the Big Five. In other words, when you hear people saying "IQ tests only measure your ability to take IQ tests!", psychologists are the ones telling them to shut up because they're idiots (as obviously that's not what IQ tests do).

seeker wrote:Why should an empirical test be "direct" and "conclusive"? I don't think they should. Indirect and inconclusive empirical tests are the usual practice in other sciences.

Absolutely. Empirical standards refer to the process of testing, not forcing a desired result—which is the opposite of empiricism. Empirical tests may yield results considered undesirable to the researcher (e.g. researcher discover through a test that their hypothesis is incorrect).

seeker wrote:

Asta666 wrote: So if we think that someday we may achieve epistemic reductionism or be able to distinguish between competing cognitive models based on behavioral/neural correlations data then it's scientific enterprise, if we think this will not be possible it's just a road back to the kind of mentalism Skinner used to critique.

I disagree. Even if epistemic reductionism is never achieved, and several cognitive models are empirically adequate, those models are not necessarily a road back to the kind of mentalism Skinner used to critique. Anyway, I think these issues should be assessed on a case by case basis.

I agree, there's more than one way to achieve a goal.

SeriousCat wrote:

seeker wrote:

Asta666 wrote:Because the mind is private and not necessarily identical to observed behavior

I disagree. "Mind" is not private. "Mind" is a folk (non-scientific) label for a large set of biological activities, some of which are covert, but not all of them (and those covert activities are etiologically dependent on overt interactions with the environment.

That is an assumption made by most cognitive scientists. Whether or not the mind can be theoretically 'read' by its synaptic activity remains to be seen. However, I would expect this to eventually be proven true.

I think we're talking about different issues here. You're talking about the epistemic issue of thought identification through neuroimaging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_identification), while I was talking about the semantic issue of the nonreducibility of the folk concept of "mind" to the concept of "private experience".

seeker wrote:Do you think that theological/literary critique can pass the criterion of empirical adequacy? (Remember that I said "besides" your proposed criteria, not "instead" them).

But what does it mean to achieve empirical adequacy given that what your are observing is behavior and not cognitive processes? The validity of this adequacy assumes behavior can account for cognitive processes, but that's exactly what I'm saying is not necessarily so. Even though I certainly accept that it's seems more plausible in some cognitive domains than others (for instance perception versus problem solving), the underlying problem remains. Let me quote Uttal on this:
"It is not well known, but there is a formal mathematical proof that there are many, if not infinite plausible solutions to any problem involving unobserved internal mechanisms, processes, and structures. [...] Moore (1956), an early automata theorist, wrote a paper that has all too long been overlooked in the mentalism-behaviorism controversy:

THEOREM 9: Given any machine S and any multiple experiments performed on S, there exist other machines experimentally indistinguishable from S for which the original experiment would have had the same outcome. (p. 140)
Moore went on to assert:
This result means that it will never be possible to perform experiments on a completely unknown machine which will suffice to identify it from among a class of all sequential machines. (p. 140)

The implications of Moore's theorem are particularly profound for psychology. It is not only that there are other possible explanations but, because there will always be more possibilities than there are experiments and endless experiments that could be done, the number of alternative possibilities is unlimited. In other words, imagination, not reality, is the only limit to the number of possible explanations of what is going on in a closed system. [...]
However, it may also be asked: Are there also many alternative descriptions of a given behavior just as there are many indistinguishable reductive models? Certainly there are. Although there are many possible models and formulae that can predict the same complex system behavior, the test in the case of a putative description (as opposed to reductive explanation) is only whether or not the predicted behavior is closely enough modeled. The best fitting prediction or reconstruction is without argument the best description. However, this is as far as it should go. No matter how good the description, even the best fitting model has nothing to contribute to the determination of the details of the underlying mechanism."

seeker wrote:Why should an empirical test be "direct" and "conclusive"? I don't think they should. Indirect and inconclusive empirical tests are the usual practice in other sciences.

Because if it's not direct then the evidence is not necessarily accounting for that hypothesis, only for what is being measured, and that is behavior. Of course they might not be conclusive initially, the question would be, can they ever be? If they can't, on what basis are we saying one is more accurate or whatever than others?
Epistemic reductionism, if it is ever achieved, would vanish this problems, but it seems pretty sci-fi today. Meanwhile we are left with "parsimony", "fruitfulness for new research", brain correlations, lesion studies and the like, which may be something given or current capabilities, but I think they are given way more "truthfulness" status than they actually deserve.