Psychology: a valid and valuable science

chcr said:
So then, you believe there is such a thing as a soul? Anyway you slice it, that smells of mysticism. Now, I'm not saying there aren't valid psychological precepts, but these guys are at about the same level of understanding in their field as tribal shamen were to medicine 10,000 years ago. They try to give the impression of understanding, but they don't really, any more than you or I. Psychology may be a science I guess, but it's a science in it's infancy.

Re Gonz's medical art vs. science, I for one will never go more than once to any doctor who believes it to be an art.
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It's a term chcr...substract soul and replace it with mind or self.

The science of the human mind or self; specifically, the systematic or scientific knowledge of the powers and functions of the human mind or self, so far as they are known by consciousness; a treatise on the human mind or self.
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My real problem, Bish, is that I have a hard time believing that anything as complex as the human mind can be understood by anything as primitive as the human mind. :shrug:
 
shrinks are doing sience, if you can give drugs to battle chemical disturences in the brain, causeing "strange" behavior, that is science

strange being midly depressed to being a raving maniac.

what psycology is, is common sense, hand holding, basically a priest without the relegion, someone safe to talk to, who is trained to answer questions with questions, lol.

It's not science in my view
 
paul_valaru said:
shrinks are doing sience, if you can give drugs to battle chemical disturences in the brain, causeing "strange" behavior, that is science

strange being midly depressed to being a raving maniac.

what psycology is, is common sense, hand holding, basically a priest without the relegion, someone safe to talk to, who is trained to answer questions with questions, lol.

It's not science in my view
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As Bish pointed out, that's psychiatry, psychology is a different field.
 
chcr said:
My real problem, Bish, is that I have a hard time believing that anything as complex as the human mind can be understood by anything as primitive as the human mind. :shrug:
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Granted...the human mind is complex, and continues to becooome more complex as a person goes through their lives...but then again, the mechanics of the universe are complex as well, the creation of stars, black holes, the Big Bang theory etc...but we keep hacking away at it...and slowly, but surely, wee begin seeing a clearer picture.

The human mind is similar, in that we understand some of it's mechanics, it's inner workings, but we still have a long way to go. It's the methodology that's used to study the mind, the tests, theorums being brought up and accepted or rejected...the method which makes it a science.

As for its usefulness...if we don't understand ourselves, how can we possibly begin to understand what surrounds us? What drives us to explore if not our mind (individual or societal)? Why do we go to war? Why do we fall in love? What is love?

Philosophy can try to explain these things...in a more poetic way than does Psychology, but no other science can touch it. A chemist might come up with the latest 'spanish fly' to fool us into thinking that we're in love or lust, but that's more the sham than the real love, and does nothing to explain it.

What is racism? Why are some people horribly afraid of spiders (to the point where one person that I know jumped out of a moving car to avoid one)?

There are many more questions than there are answers...but I truly believe that the only path towards those answers is Psychology.
 
paul_valaru said:
shrinks are doing sience, if you can give drugs to battle chemical disturences in the brain, causeing "strange" behavior, that is science
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Druids, witch doctors & shamans have done this since the turn on the century (5000bc - 4999bc)
 
Gonz said:
Druids, witch doctors & shamans have done this since the turn on the century (5000bc - 4999bc)
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and dead heads, it's still practical science, chemicals altering chemestry, LSD was Invented (found) by a scientist.

I'm not saying it's good science, but it is science
 
*tips hat to spider*

I know it's valid. I have a degree in it. I use it every day.

It's useful in many occupations. Sales, certainly. But do you think I could do my job half as well as I do if I didn't have some understanding of the human mind/personality?

I firmly believe that if one can discover the motivation behind a particular behavior, one is 80% of the way toward changing that behavior. If I know that a person drinks when they are bored, I can more quickly arrive at a strategy to get them to stop drinking. If I know someone is in financial trouble, and observe that they also have shown a recent pattern of hostility, it's not that far a leap to surmise that if the financial strife is reduced, the hostility will be as well.

And I've used it several times here. Even on some of the skeptics.

The human mind is but one part of the discipline. I approach most things from a behavioral point of view. Altering behavior isn't all that hard if you know what to ask and what to look for. Show me a parent who has never done it.
 
I don't consider psychology to be a science mainly because I find a lot of the methodology fairly questionable, and also because I don't believe a "control" subject can exist in psychology.

I also think psychologists appear too eager to characterise some facets of personality as abnormal or as a pathological state.

A lot of what people often refer to as psychology seems to me to be more like everyday common sense, which is fine to study but more as a matter of interest rather a science.
 
unclehobart said:
Has Tom Cruise rebuffed Psychology yet? The only legit -ology is Scient.
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Bah...Scientology was created from the fertile mind of L Ron Hubbard...and what makes the best fertilizer? ;)
 
unclehobart said:
Has Tom Cruise rebuffed Psychology yet? The only legit -ology is Scient.
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Several times...including once while bouncing on Oprah's couch :)

*L.R. Hubbard...the guy who brought out theories like "Lesbians are women who havn't met a man with a large enough penis yet" and "A cheese-grater is an excellent sexual toy, in the right hands".

Talk about someone in need of a Psychologist.
 
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