Why do so many consider psychology to be psuedoscience?

I see it doing so much good, and being generally useful,
I must assume that people have problems with specific parts of it?
thanks,

Clammy~

clemency wrote:I see it doing so much good, and being generally useful,
I must assume that people have problems with specific parts of it?
thanks,

Clammy~

Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status. Pseudoscience is often characterized by the use of vague, exaggerated or unprovable claims, an over-reliance on confirmation rather than rigorous attempts at refutation, a lack of openness to evaluation by other experts, and a general absence of systematic processes to rationally develop theories.

Without facts, the decision cannot be made logically. You must rely on your human intuition.
--Spock

Your illogical approach to chess does have its advantages on occasion, Captain.
--Spock in 'Charlie X'

Spock: Humans make illogical decisions.

Hey Clemency and Copy Cat,

I think it's somewhat confused to talk about an entire discipline, either psychology or psychiatry, as being a science or pseudoscience. Instead, it's much clearer to talk about certain claims, explanations or theories and ask if they're scientific. As Copy Cat correctly noted, a theory is scientific if and only if it makes claims that can be tested. However, there's an extra criterion that CC missed which is falsifiability. The claim in question must in principle be falsifiable in the sense that it must be possible for investigators to show that claim is not true.

With that said, many of the objections people make to psychology and psychiatry are usually in regards to certain normative practices that they cannot justify with evidence because the normative practices are presupposed and antecede any kind of research. For example, the Diagnostical Statistical Manual of Mental Health and Behaviour Disorders (DSM) is a system of classification which is used to identify certain populations. It also stipulates the criteria for the use of certain concepts (i.e. Major Depressive Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, Anorexia Nervosa, etc). But there's nothing researchers can do to justify their system of classification. It's not handed down by God or Reason-with-a-capital-R. It's normative in the sense that it organizes researchers and clinicians around a shared vocabulary so that they can go out in the world and do research and communicate their results to each other.

Of course, this opens up the DSM to alot of criticism because of how arbitrary it seems. Homosexuality was a mental disorder now it's not but Masochism is. Onanism was a mental disorder now it's not but juvenile delinquency (conduct disorder) is. Hysteria was a mental disorder now it's not but transgenderism is (gender identity disorder). You can see why people shake their heads at what's going on with the APA/CPA.

The same follows for concepts researchers use like "mental illness". It's not as if the grammar of psychology/psychiatry is handed down by God or Reason-with-a-capital-R, it comes from certain normative practices which can't be justified by research because the meaning of concepts is logically presupposed by researchers (if you doubt this you can try and do research without knowing the meaning of words in our language. If you get anywhere with this please let me know. I'll be curious to know how you did it )

Take care guys.

Infinite_Jester wrote:.

He wrote !

Anyway I was thinking about the fact people always do things for one of two reasons; to avoid pain or gain pleasure and that is logical and is not falsifiable, I think.

Copy_Cat wrote:Anyway I was thinking about the fact people always do things for one of two reasons; to avoid pain or gain pleasure and that is logical and is not falsifiable, I think.

I don't think that's unfalsifiable. It may be universally true therefore there is no single case that violates the rule but in principle someone could do X where X is a behaviour that is not motivated by either a reducing pain or gaining pleasure. The important point is that there's a distinction between an unfalsifiable claim (i.e. There is a wizard somewhere who is controlling all the events that occur in the universe) and a falsifiable claim (i.e the fastest any object can go is 299,792,458 metres per second) in which there is no case of X where X demonstrates that the claim is false.

Take care CC.

Many "hard science" academics consider psychology to be a pseudoscience because they don't value feedback which is gained through the reports of patients during, and in response to the psychological process, because these responses cannot be accurately measured with numbers.

These sort of scientists thrive only on things which can be calculated and proved mathematically. Because psychology works on "qualatative data" and experienced-based non-measurable evidence, they consider it a load of BS that cannot be proven.

They make things up as a way to conform to social norms.

Holding a 3 day old boy down with bondage and mutilating his penis, so that every time he has sex in the future it is worse than it should have been for him and his partner. = Totally ok by psychologists.

Adult having consensual sex with 14 year old = exploitation and power abuse according to psychologists.

Despite the fact is has been shown that males especially reflect positively on those age gap experiences (Male teen, female adult).
Despite the fact genital mutilation has been shown to have horrible consequences.

AS I SAID THEY MAKE THINGS UP JUST TO CONFORM.

Religion hates sex, loves mutilating babies. Psychology makes up lies about teen sex (even makes teen attracted a disorder), says mutilating babies is ok.. well, only male babies.