Required Reading I
My name is [ ... ]. I am [ ... ] years of age and finishing my [ ... ] year of the [ ... ] at the University of [ ... ].
I must admit, I am a fan of your "Is Psychology a Science?" article. So much so, that I have relayed it to one of my professors. It will be required reading for this term's Psychology [ ... ] Neuroscience (a senior undergraduate seminar). We will be discussing it in next week's seminar.
I am honored that my article has caught your interest and become part of your curriculum. I hope the exercise and discussion is a productive one, and I am interested to hear any feedback you care to provide.
Although the article is not crystal clear on this point, it examines the relationship between clinical and theoretical psychology, e.g. the fact that the latter seems to have little effect on the former. I say this because, although the topic of the article is apparent to a nonspecialist, it may not seem specific enough to someone in the field.
Required Reading II
Well, my friend, it was quite the experience. Since the course was filled with art students (I put the psychology ones in there as well, though the BSc ones would argue quite to the contrary), I had little time to do any of the usual readings for our seminar, with the exception of yours, since I am in science and had little time throughout the semester. Nevertheless, the professor was so impressed with the debate at the end of the semester with the class, he decided to pass me.
It was academic Thermopylae, only the Greeks actually won this time. The entire class and the professor piled on top of me. Your arguments, combined with my own, were sufficient for the distribution of one plate of ass after the next. Everyone was pleased at the end, so much so, they bought two pitchers. I took it a little further though and argued that the entire field of Psychology was all nonsense. The professor, also a skeptic, was pleased.
This is all very unusual for a place like [ ... ], where the Department of Psychology is a popular destination for youth with no desire whatsoever to attempt any of the actual sciences that require some discipline and real world constraints imposed by the universe. Many of the students were quite angry since they had all spent thousands of dollars in their program thus far and were making final preparations for graduation.
I wish I had been there! I wonder how often such a debate happens in academia, among people freshly trained to think critically, out of sight of those who need psychology to be true.
As a science student you may take this sort of outcome for granted, since the debate necessarily pivoted on evidence rather than passion, but it is only recently that psychology has begun to be examined in this forthright way.
Thank you for keeping me in the loop, and for having an open mind.
Some Reasonable Questions
Hi, This morning I stumbled on to your website, and read a few of your articles on psychology. I've taken several low level courses in it (and plan to take more), but really, I can't say that I completely disagree with you completely. In fact, it is making me question the future of my education.
I think your timing is good, better than most. Many people don't consider the course of their education until the last moment they could change direction has passed.
I noticed a few of the problems you have outlined. I've always dismissed them however, as being the result of (to be frank) a lot of incompetents damaging an otherwise promising field.
There's some truth in that, but I ask that you think more deeply about this. Why doesn't the presence of incompetents injure physics or mathematics in the same way? The answer is that physics and mathematics are sciences, where claims must be accompanied by evidence.
There are incompetents in every field — in fact, science was invented to weed out incompetents through a strict process for evaluating facts and theories. Remember that science is not facts and theories, it is a way to evaluate facts and theories. In science, evidence is all there is — nothing else matters.
On the other hand you appear to think the entire field is completely beyond redemption, something that needs to just be chucked into the woodpile.
I wouldn't say that. In fact, I didn't say that. If I said that about psychology, I would have to say it about astrology, too. But there are a lot of weak-minded people out there who think astrology is real. Do I have the right to deprive people of their sad attachment to astrology, just because it is nonsense? That would be like laughing at a handicapped person in the street — it would be uncivilized and unkind.
Out of pity and compassion, I prefer not to do that to astrology or its followers, in particular because no one with an ounce of sense takes astrology seriously. The same cannot be said about psychology, and that is where the danger lies — psychologists make claims about the scientific standing of psychology that are simply false.
Scientists who read the psychology literature, who notice the weak to nonexistent experimental standards, the indifference to new evidence or a lack of evidence, are prone to dismiss psychology in its present form. But scientists who work in large academic institutions are pressured (and I know about this from firsthand experience) not to criticize psychology too harshly because it is a way for the university to make a huge amount of money from undisciplined students with little future potential, who want to take the easiest possible courses.
There are a few poorly kept secrets in academia. One is that college athletics makes so much money that universities tolerate the presence of "students" who are nothing of the kind. Another is that psychology, sociology and a handful of other disciplines are tolerated because they greatly increase the size of the student body, beyond the core student population who are actually seeking an education and who will become tomorrow's leaders.
In the old days, attending college was a privilege extended only to the most qualified students (and wrongly denied to fully qualified women and people of color). But since then, particularly in Western democracies, we've adopted the twisted idea that everyone can and should go to college. In order to make that happen, colleges have lowered their standards to an absurd degree, such that (oversimplifying a bit here) graduates with advanced degrees still don't know anything and still can't find meaningful employment.
So, my questions are:
a) Do you have any suggestions, any at all, on what should replace it?
Psychology — I mean human psychology here, not rat and pigeon psychology — can't be placed on a firmer evidentiary footing without violating the rights of experimental subjects. This is a fact that cannot be circumvented. And without high-quality evidence, you cannot falsify claims anyone cares to make. Without the possibility of falsification, there is no science. So it's not obvious how to proceed, but asserting that human psychology is a science is not an acceptable substitute.
If your reply is "Nothing" then I must ask, what would happen to those so ill they're incapable of taking care of themselves?
We're now moving into basic moral and ethical questions. Do we have the right to claim that meaningful treatments exist, when they don't? Do we have the right to identify people as mentally ill who are not (and vice versa)? These common practices distort the entire field, and they rely on the popular view that human psychology is a science.
There are a handful of treatments that actually work, but they are not psychological treatments (as psychology is formally defined). For example, lithium is very effective in treating what is now called "bipolar disorder." But the administration of lithium is not psychology, it is pharmacology.
And what should we(society as a whole) tell people genuinely in need of SOME kind of treatment?
The implication of your question is that there must be something we can do, and if there isn't, we should keep that a secret. Well, no, and no.
"We don't know how to help you, we've given up trying to figure it out, so just go talk to a bartender" hardly seems like responsible advise.
It's responsible advice if the bartender can do a better job than a therapist. I won't make the claim, since I have no evidence, but psychologists regularly make the claim that professional counseling is more effective than talking to a bartender, even though there is no supporting evidence, and some contradicting evidence.
One might argue that the bartender uses a dangerous drug as part of his treatment, but the same can — and has been — said about the modern practice of psychology, in which drugs of questionable effectiveness and unknown side effects are enthusiastically prescribed (and clients sometimes die as a result).
b) It seems that one of your biggest problems with clinical psychology is the tendency of practitioners to ignore experiments, rather than allow theories to become discredited.
I take that position primarily because ignoring evidence identifies clinical psychology as unscientific, but also because it leads to unbelievable abuses of unearned authority.
Certainly this is a bad thing, but isn't it more a problem with (again) highly respected incompetent people rather than the field as a whole?
No, and here is why: if an incompetent can make baseless claims without anyone asking for supporting evidence, then the entire field is built on shifting sand, and the person making the claim is a mere symptom of an underlying malady.
In science, real incompetents appear from time to time, but they are quickly called to account. Last week, Nobel Prizewinner James D. Watson, world-famous co-discoverer of DNA, made some unscientific (and outrageous) claims about the intelligence of black people. As a result, within days he was fired from his prestigious post as Chancellor of the Cold Spring Laboratory. His world fame and eminence as a Nobel Prizewinner made no difference at all — his statements were unscientific and indefensible.
By contrast, when psychologist Bruno Bettelheim made the claim that autism resulted from incompetent mothering by emotionally frigid women, it was accepted without question — after all, Bettelheim was an eminent psychologist. This "refrigerator-mom" idea lasted for decades, based solely on the eminence of the originator, and many innocent, caring mothers were unfairly held responsible for something that was not their fault.
I hope I have made this point: in science, evidence stands above eminence. In human psychology, it's the other way around.
From what I have seen (and I freely admit my knowledge here is quite limited), a lot of fields have similar problems to a much smaller extent.
Yes, they do. All of them. The difference lies in how those problems are handled. In scientific fields, people can say anything, but they must eventually back up their claims or abandon them. By contrast, in counseling sessions all over the country, therapists still raptly listen to bogus "recovered memories," even though people outside the field see no evidence for the reality of these memories, and courts of law have decided to no longer hear cases in which "recovered memories" are the primary evidence.
What about "physicists" who claim to be close to discovering cold fusion,
This example supports the position that science works. When Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann made their original claim, scientists all over the world tried to duplicate their results, but failed. Lots of excitement at first, but no laboratory confirmation. End of story. That's how science deals with nonsense.
On the one hand, in the interest of open dialogue we want people to feel free to make any claim they care to. On the other hand, all scientific claims must eventually be supported by evidence. Until they are, the claims are hypotheses, not theories. If the claims are eventually supported by evidence, they achieve the status of scientific theories — but they never become facts. Fact is not science's domain.
or "biologists" supporting ID over evolution?
That's not science. Your example is of someone relying on his status as a "biologist" to make a claim, as though a title can stand in for evidence. Science doesn't work that way. When Einstein the patent clerk published what came to be known as Special Relativity, he hadn't gotten his degree yet, but that didn't matter — only his ideas mattered. But until evidence began to support his ideas, they didn't matter very much. Later on, when Einstein the world-famous scientist disputed quantum theory, other scientists waited for evidence supporting his position, which never arrived. It's all about evidence — not standing, not shouting.
It's not a perfect comparison by any means as most real physicists laugh at cold fusion
Not at all! Physicists aren't laughing, they're either doing the necessary laboratory work or waiting to see how the work comes out. Science is more about patient work than slapping one's knee. And in science the door is not closed on cold fusion, because in science, doors are rarely closed, and no one is laughing.
and most biologists laugh at ID,
That's a little different. ID isn't even remotely plausible as it has been presented, and the arguments in favor of it tend to exhibit an embarrassing level of ignorance. One can always argue that God is pulling invisible puppet strings in a way that cannot be detected. That's an interesting philosophical position, but it cannot be tested or falsified, and therefore, true or false, it is not scientific.
But religious believers are not satisfied with the idea that God exists in the abstract. They want Him to take a break from making stars and galaxies, and smite their neighbor with the barking dog. Nothing else will do but that the ruler of the universe should come down and smite the owner of a barking dog.
but isn't it the same fundamental problem of a (badly) educated person making outrageous claims before the public? If these people were to gain popular(lay) public acceptance and funding, would it somehow invalidate real physics and biology?
No, because shouting cannot stand in for evidence, and all scientific positions must eventually be supported by evidence.
What if this popular acceptance lead to universities churning out huge numbers of cold fusion&ID "specialists," and pushed real scientists back into a minority?
That's possible, for example the Bush administration is doing all it can to thwart any scientific statements and publications that contradict Administration positions — but this again touches on the reason science exists. Science exists because of a natural human tendency to replace reason with emotion, and if humans were really rational, there would be no science — it would have no purpose. Remember, again, science is not the results, science is the practice, the discipline.
Would that make all their work worthless?
To answer, I must say that science is not the applications of science. Science isn't refuted or validated by application, except insofar as applications produce more evidence for or against a proposition. For example, the GPS (Global Positioning System) satellites are producing some interesting confirmations of both Special and General Relativity. That isn't the purpose of the GPS system, it's an interesting side effect.
But science is not a corporation with a quarterly earnings report, and science doesn't have to sell itself. To those who want results, science (and scientists) can be incredibly frustrating. To those who understand science, it is immensely valuable, nothing else can produce its results, and a price tag cannot be hung on it.
I suspect that this is a different situation somehow, but I honestly don't see how.
What I wrote sounds vaguely to me like a fallacy of some sort, so please understand I'm not trying to attack you, just asking for clarification. There probably is a difference, I just do not see it.
I think at this point you will see that, all outward appearances to the contrary, the difference between scientific and unscientific endeavors lies in the managing of evidence, the weight given to evidence, and the ascendancy of evidence over eminence.
Finally, something bothered me while reading your articles. In my psychology classes we were told, over and over, that abnormal behavior is simply normal behavior "carried to an unhealthy extent" with unhealthy being defined as something like "meaningfully damaging to someone or those around them."
Yes, and that is an important point about human psychology. In order to offer treatments, psychologists have to identify particular behaviors as "abnormal," e.g. unacceptable, and this is where psychology leaves the realm of science and enters the realm of religion.
Science observes reality with perfect dispassion, observing everything, judging nothing. Religion proactively divides behaviors into those deemed acceptable and unacceptable. Psychology can't offer treatments without first judging what is good and bad, a practice formerly reserved to religion. If all human behavior is organisms creatively dealing with ever-changing nature in a morally neutral universe, where is the role for corrective mental surgery?
To put this in its simplest form, when a psychologist utters the word "abnormal" about a mental state whose normalcy is proven by its existence, he has severed any connection with science and entered the domain of religion.
Is a platypus normal?
I haven't read the DSM, but I assume it follows this.
It does, but with many qualifying phrases and caveats that are largely ignored by psychologists.
So perhaps that is why the number of disorders balloons up so much; bad spelling isn't a disorder, but being completely unable to learn how to write does at least require some kind of special attention.
Yes — but is that a mental illness, and can the practice of clinical psychology do anything about it? Or would a normal, non-judgmental teacher be a better, and less expensive, choice?
The truth behind spelling as a mental illness (and many similar examples) is that psychologists have discovered they can't treat real mental illnesses (most of which are turning out to be organic in nature, treatable by chemicals, or untreatable) so they are trying to branch out into domains formerly held by bartenders, astrologers, teachers and aging aunts on porches.
Then again, maybe the authors of the DSM just need to read more introductory textbooks...
This may surprise you, but some of the creators of the DSM have ended up its harshest critics.
It's scientific! It is, it is!
I read your essay with interest, as it is the same title that I am tackling for my Philosophy module of the final year of my Psychology degree. I must say that I disagree with you (!)
Of course you do. You have just spent your entire educational career moving toward an advanced psychology degree. How could you possibly agree that psychology is not based in science?
but your points did make me think, and I may cite you in my essay.
I hope you do.
Having read your feedback page I cannot resist contributing some of my own opinions.
Your views are welcome.
Firstly, you seem to lump together therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists, when, certainly in the UK, they are all distinct professions, with different training and have different levels of trust and respect from the public.
They are distinct professions, but all of them depend on the scientific standing of human psychology. And, for the reasons set out in my article, psychology has a very poor scientific standing.
As to public trust, this has no bearing on the scientific standing of the field. Astrologers have a lot of public trust, but they don't have any science.
The example of the girl who was killed by her therapists has nothing to do with Psychology.
False. The fully qualified, professional psychologists who carried out the procedure were licensed to practice clinical psychology, and the procedure was widely practiced by clinical psychologists at the time of the procedure.
The responsible therapists were stripped of their licenses and jailed, not because they were discovered to be unqualified to practice clinical psychology, but because their client died. It's very convenient to say "they weren't the real thing" after the fact, but as a matter of public record, they were the real thing.
These therapists were practising rebirthing, which to my knowledge is not endorsed by psychologists
You need to learn how to do research. The practice was widespread and completely accepted at the time of the death. So was "recovered memory therapy", which is still practiced, even though courts of law have decided to reject any further cases in which recovered memories are the primary evidence. There have been too many cases in which the "memories" were proven to be nonsense — too many for the law, but not too many for the therapists.
and, to me, sounds ridiculous and completely non-scientific.
So does talk therapy, but it is also widely practiced as though it has a scientific foundation (it does not). Present clinical psychology is based on popularly held beliefs and very poor research.
In contrast, in modern psychology, counselling tends to include well researched ...
Stop! Did you actually read my article? Consider these points:
- Psychologists counsel teenagers to prevent them from committing suicide.
- Psychologists believe this counseling to be effective.
- But ... in order for that to be anything but a belief, there would have to be a scientific study — a scientific study — to validate the belief.
- Such a scientific study would require a valid experimental protocol, which means a double-blind design consisting of experimental and control groups.
- At the end of the study, we could compare the number of suicides among the experimental group, who received the test therapy, and the control group, who received a sham therapy.
- As described, the study would violate the rights of the subjects in the control group, which is why such a study has never been performed and will never be performed.
Therefore, no matter how strongly you feel about this, the present practice of human clinical psychology is not scientific. Rat psychology,
pigeon psychology, yes, scientific to a fare-thee-well, but not human psychology. Did I mention that pigeons don't commit suicide?
and successful methods such as Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy.
These practices are believed to be "successful" by people who haven't the slightest idea how success is measured in science. If 1,000 people take the therapy, and if all of them declare that they feel better, this can only represent an example of conjecture and a deplorable confusion of correlation and causation — until and unless there is a plausible control group: a control group who sincerely believes they are receiving treatment, administered by therapists who sincerely believe they are delivering effective treatment.
I have experienced this myself and found that it was extremely helpful.
Yes, "extremely helpful." Prefrontal lobotomies were also regarded as "extremely helpful," and keeping Eastern European Jewish immigrants out of the U.S. was regarded as "extremely helpful" during Hitler's reign, based on a deliberately rigged series of I.Q. tests (the psychologist responsible later confessed as much), and any number of other examples, all based on the spectacularly sloppy science that is common in human psychology.
Yes, talking to anyone can relieve distress (I am a suicide helpline volunteer, so I know this), but CBT goes a lot further and encourages a positive way of thinking.
Prove it. You are stating a belief, not a scientific finding. If a legitimate scientific study were to be designed, the researchers would be arrested and jailed before they could publish their results.
I definitely felt a great benefit.
My God. If only you could have learned even a small bit of science during your professional training, you would be profoundly embarrassed to speak this way.
Another thing which annoyed me about your essay (!) was that you seem to think that Psychology is all about therapies that I have never been taught about in my degree, and mental illness. There are many other areas of Psychology that are rigorously scientific ...
Utter nonsense. In any case, according to your remarks above, you felt better after experiencing therapy, and on that basis you conclude it must have been a scientific practice. This proves you are unqualified to evaluate what is and is not scientific.
and well respected:
Respect has no bearing on the issue under discussion. Authorities are respected, but science rejects all authority.
Cognitive Psychology, Neuropsychology, Biological Psychology, Developmental Psychology...the list goes on and on.
Indeed it does, and all of them are based on belief, not science. Prove me wrong — point out the studies that demonstrate the efficacy of any of these fields, studies with control groups composed of therapists and clients, both of whom sincerely believe they are engaged in real therapy.
Hint: there have never been such studies, anywhere, ever, because they would violate basic ethical standards as well as common sense.
I certainly feel I have been given a scientific education ...
And yet, as you have just proven, you are scientifically illiterate. You do not have the foggiest idea what constitutes a scientific finding.
and intend to go on to a career as a Counselling Psychologist...which will not result in me administering pseudoscientific fringe therapies to my clients!
No, certainly not, at least according to what you believe constitutes science. And that is by design, not by accident — your training doesn't include the fundamentals of science because it would cause all students above a certain minimal I.Q. to abandon the field.
Don't misunderstand the above remark. You are obviously thoughtful and intelligent, and it is equally obvious that you have been conned.
One final point: I think a lot of people believe Psychology is all about Freud and psychoanalysis, which is taught to [ ... ] University students, at the very least, as an example of how Psychology should NOT be: unfalsifiable, imaginary tosh.
It is all unfalsifiable. To falsify anything, real science would have to take place. Real science means real research, and real research requires rigorous and strict experimental designs. Such research is not carried out in human psychology.
I hope you can understand that Psychology is a varied and fascinating discipline, and most definitely scientific.
I hope you will eventually understand that waving your hands in the air cannot stand in for actual scientific research.
There is something you need to recognize about a debate like this — it doesn't matter how often you (or the many others who have tried this tactic) say "scientific" or "I felt better" — without repeatable scientific evidence, it's all cocktail chatter.
Here is a young woman, a newly minted psychologist with all the coursework fresh in her mind, willing to say such things as "I definitely felt a great benefit." and "I certainly feel I have been given a scientific education" without a hint of irony or self-consciousness. It is the business of science not to care how we feel about it — indeed, science's primary role is to separate evidence from how we feel about evidence. In that light, this young woman's remarks contradict themselves, but she can't see this. The reason? She doesn't know anything about science.
But she's certainly in touch with her feelings — among psychologists, that's a "good thing." I have no doubt she'll make a terrific psychologist. Science will just have to get along without her.
Psychology and Physics
I would like to ask how you can state that physics is a science and that psychology is not, when there is much evidence from physics which is used and applied within psychology.
You do realize, don't you, that in science we rely entirely on evidence? Where's the evidence for your statement? Which part of the scientific theory of physics is applied to psychology?
And do you think the application of a scientific principle from one field to a second automatically confers a scientific standing to the second? If this were true, astrology would become a science on the ground that astrologers look at stars just as astronomers do.
The similarity between astrology and astronomy lies in the attention given to stars and planets. The difference between astrology and astronomy lies in what the observers do with their results.
In other words, the distinction between astrology and astronomy lies, not in superficial outward appearance, but in substance.
Another example. If we conduct a careful scientific study of UFO sightings, does this confer a scientific standing to UFOs themselves, or only to the study?