

Will There Ever Be Another Scientific Genius? - Irene
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112776401/genius-may-become-a-thing-of-the-past-020413/

======
lutusp
> There may never be another scientific genius on the level of Einstein,
> Newton, Darwin or Copernicus, one prominent US psychology professor claims
> in a recently published article.

If psychology were a science, I might take this claim more seriously.

> “When was the last time that someone forced us to rewrite the textbooks in
> some domain? Or even create an entirely new domain from scratch? Can you
> think of anybody since DNA?”

DNA dates back to 1953. Since then people have invented the laser, the
integrated circuit, modern computing, spaceflight, robotics, and have
completely overhauled physics at the most complex and creative level.

Because of advances in mathematics and physical theory, we now know that most
of our earlier assumptions about the universe were wrong -- we only understand
4% of the universe's mass-energy, which leaves a huge playground for genius,
and there are plenty of very smart people trying to craft theories to match
the new observations.

The problem is not a shortage of very smart people, the problem is that most
modern science is _applied_. The resources available for pure research -- the
kind of research that produces entirely new fields of knowledge -- is much
smaller as a percentage of total science spending than it was in the past.

There is every indication that the probability for the appearance of a very
bright person is either unchanged, or greater than the past. As to whether
society can identify and exploit such intellectual potential is another
question.

But one thing is certain -- psychologists will continue to get it wrong, in
the most basic ways.

~~~
nessus42
_> If psychology were a science, I might take this claim more seriously._

The problem is not that psychology is not a science. The problem is that
psychology has not had its Einstein yet.

Well, actually it has: Marvin Minsky and his Society of Mind. Unfortunately,
not enough other psychologists have listened to him. Yet.

~~~
lutusp
> The problem is not that psychology is not a science. The problem is that
> psychology has not had its Einstein yet.

Not really. Remember that psychology's topic is the mind, not the brain (the
latter is the province of neuroscience). Because the mind isn't a physical
thing, it's not open to empirical science. This is why psychologists differ in
diverse and fundamental ways -- there's no way to resolve disputes using
objective evidence on which different observers can agree (the essence of
experimental science).

When a doctor wants to identify and treat a disease, she takes micrographs and
DNA sequences, locates a treatment that has been proven to work, then
exhaustively validates treatments in clinical trials -- all before declaring
that a new disease has been identified and a meaningful treatment exists.

When a psychologist wants to identify a disease, he gets together with other
like-minded psychologists and _they vote_. It was not by clinical trials that
grief at the passing of a loved one, and childhood tantrums, were recognized
as diseases and entered into the forthcoming DSM-V, it was by secret votes.

Asperger Syndrome was added to DSM-IV by voting, not by science, and it is
being removed from DSM-V by (now-secret) votes after much public controversy
over whether it's a disease at all. Homosexuality was added to an earlier DSM
by votes, and removed later by votes -- no science was involved, but public
opinion certainly played a part in both decisions.

These examples show that psychology is more political than it is scientific.
When a disease is entered into psychology's "bible", it is only after
psychologists decide the public wants it that way. And the reverse -- when a
disease is taken out of the DSM, it's because of public disapproval, not
science or clinical trials.

For these reasons we're witnessing a gradual move away from psychology toward
neuroscience, where objective evidence can be acquired instead of the opinions
of psychologists. The present director of the NIMH agrees with this view and
is advocating it, recently saying, "In most areas of medicine, doctors have
historically tried to glean something about the underlying cause of a
patient's illness before figuring out a treatment that addresses the source of
the problem. When it came to mental or behavioral disorders in the past,
however, no physical cause was detectable so the problem was long assumed by
doctors to be solely "mental," and psychological therapies followed suit.
Today scientific approaches based on modern biology, _neuroscience and
genomics are replacing nearly a century of purely psychological theories_ ,
yielding new approaches to the treatment of mental illnesses."

Source: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faulty-
circ...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=faulty-circuits)

More here: <http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology>

~~~
nessus42
Much of clinical medicine is not done the way that you claim. E.g., when a
surgeon wants to try out a new surgical technique, it doesn't go through
clinical trials, etc. He just gets approval from the chief surgeon (or maybe
not), and does it. Maybe someday, if the technique becomes popular enough, a
statistical study is done to scientifically determine if the technique is as
effective as the surgeons believe it to be. Another example is that plenty of
drugs are prescribed off-label. Often the off-label prescriptions completely
dwarf the on-label ones.

And your description of psychology does not apply at all to Cognitive
Psychology. Minsky, for instance, is a Cognitive Psychology theorist, though
he is outside of the mainstream of the field.

Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology are the same department at MIT. This
does not indicate a move away from Psychology, however. It indicates a
commitment to pursuing Psychology more scientifically than it has sometimes
been practiced. But Cognitive Psychology has been practiced in a scientific
manner for at least 50 years now.

The Behaviorists also pursued Psychology scientifically. Their theory was just
wrong in many respects, and has been proven hopelessly over-simplified as an
overarching theory of the mind. (I.e., they weren't particularly _good_
scientists.) On the other hand, Behaviorism is still useful for some things.
E.g., training your dog to perform tricks.

"Purely psychological" causes of serious mental illness such as major
depression and schizophrenia have not been the mainstream of Psychological
belief since I was in junior high, and I was in junior high a long time ago.

As to not being able to study the mind scientifically, that is patently false.
The mind is a computer program running on the hardware of the brain, and just
as any computer program can be reverse engineered scientifically, so can the
human mind. Neuroscientists do "white box" reverse engineering and cognitive
psychologists do "black box" reverse engineering. Both are productive
approaches, and the two fields are in constant communication with each other.
That's why, for instance, they are in the same department at MIT.

~~~
lutusp
> Much of clinical medicine is not done the way that you claim.

It was only a comparison, not an absolute claim, and regardless of how sloppy
medical research gets, its practitioners can be called out on the carpet if
they violate scientific standards. There's no similar behavioral standard in
psychology, where absolutely anything goes -- in Recovered Memory Therapy, for
example, psychologists persuaded clients that their fantasies were
recollections of real, suppressed events, and many innocent people were
charged with imaginary crimes before the public and legal outcry forced
psychologists to reconsider their own fantasies.

The difference? Practices like Recovered Memory Therapy are the norm in
psychology, and even though many such things been debunked, psychologists are
free to practice them if they want. The reason is that psychological ideas are
almost never proven to be bunk -- practices tend to be abandoned because of
public skepticism rather then scientific study.

> As to not being able to study the mind scientifically, that is patently
> false.

Okay, fine. Post a link to a picture of PTSD. Or Asperger Syndrome. Or any of
the other popular mental illnesses. When you do, I promise to send you a
picture of cancer, or the structures responsible for Alzheimer's, or an
electron micrograph of common cold viruses.

We can take a picture of common cold viruses, but we can't offer a cure. The
difference between the common cold and PTSD is that, even though we know what
causes it, doctors freely acknowledge that we are unable to offer a treatment
for the common cold. As to PTSD, no on knows what causes it, a sufficiently
prepared person can pretend to be suffering from it (or the reverse), and
there is no clinically validated treatment. But this doesn't prevent
psychologists from offering treatments that have not been vetted by controlled
clinical trials.

> The mind is a computer program running on the hardware of the brain, and
> just as any computer program can be reverse engineered scientifically, so
> can the human mind.

Nonsense. Absolute nonsense. We have no idea how the brain produces the
results it does. We can't imitate it, describe it in a scientific way, or
predict what it will do next. If what you said were true, experimental
psychologists would be able to tell clinical psychologists what they can and
cannot do, based on solid science. But this is a fantasy with no connection to
reality.

> ... On the other hand, Behaviorism is still useful for some things. E.g.,
> training your dog to perform tricks.

Yes, but that's not an explanation, it's a description. Descriptions aren't
enough for science. I could say, "there are points of light in the night sky",
but that's not science, it's accounting. If I dare to offer an explanation --
"those points of light are distant suns like our own" -- I have crossed the
threshold of science, because my explanation can be tested and possibly
falsified.

Psychologists describe, they don't try to explain, and they don't craft
testable theories. This is why there's no theoretical core that defines
psychology (and on which different psychologists agree), and that could
control the behavior of psychological practitioners.

> Neuroscience and Cognitive Psychology are the same department at MIT. This
> does not indicate a move away from Psychology, however.

Wake up and smell the coffee -- psychology is in the process of being
abandoned as a serious approach to brain studies, gradually replaced by
neuroscience and other quantitative approaches. Just look around with an open
mind.

In the final report at the end of the Stapel Affair:

[http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/11/final-
repo...](http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2012/11/final-report-
stapel-affair-point.html)

The conclusion was "... three investigative panels today collectively find
fault with the field itself. They paint an image of a "sloppy" research
culture in which some scientists don't understand the essentials of
statistics, journal-selected article reviewers encourage researchers to leave
unwelcome data out of their papers, and even the most prestigious journals
print results that are obviously too good to be true.

The commissions—one for each of the universities where Stapel has
worked—concluded that _"from the bottom to the top there was a general neglect
of fundamental scientific standards and methodological requirements."_ That
climate made it possible for Stapel's fraud to go undetected for many years,
the report says."

Now think -- how do so many incompetents get away with so much for so long?
The answer is that _psychology is not a science_.

~~~
nessus42
_> its practitioners can be called out on the carpet if they violate
scientific standards._

Says who? Doctors routinely prescribe drugs off-label. No one calls them out
on it, unless they are doing something particularly dangerous.

As to Recovered Memory Therapy: This has been reviled by cognitive
psychologist for decades as the worst sort of pseudoscience. Apparently you
don't know what cognitive psychology is, and you're not interested in
learning.

Nor does cognitive psychology particularly study mental illness, except for
brain damage disorders, because (1) such disorders often are very strange,
such as hemispatial neglect, and consequently extremely interesting, and (2)
such disorders provide keen insights into what the damaged area of the brain
is responsible for.

And cognitive psychologist certainly don't treat mental illness. Cognitive
psychology is pure research, and most of the experiments are done completely
objectively. E.g., flash a word on a screen for a brief moment, then display a
yes or no question on the screen, then measure how long it takes the subject
to respond to the question. Analyze the data statistically.

Here's an example result from cognitive psychology: Two groups were shown a
collection of faces, and then a month later given a test on which faces they
had been shown the prior month. The first group was asked to memorize the
faces and were told that they would be quizzed on the faces in a few weeks.
The second group was not told that they would be quizzed later. Instead they
were just instructed to rate on a scale of 1-10 how likable each face was.

The group that was given the surprise quiz the following month scored much
better than the group who knew that they were going to be quizzed. And yes,
cognitive psychology does aim to provide an explanation for this.

Cognitive psychology is interested in mnemonics in general because it gives us
evidence about how the brain works, can be studied quantitatively, and is also
quite useful for education.

 _> Nonsense. Absolute nonsense_

Okay, you go to the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT and tell
them that they are all quacks. But if you ask me, it's you who are the quack,
not they.

As for us "having no idea how the brain works", we certainly know _something_
about how it works. We don't know enough about it yet to give much direction
to clinical psychologists at the moment, except that there are mnemonic
techniques and the like that cognitive psychologists have given to those who
treat people with certain kinds of brain damage. Clearly our understanding of
the human mind scientifically is in its infancy.

Re Behaviorism, the Behaviorist did have explanations. They just weren't very
good explanations. For them the explanation of the mind is that it is nothing
but a large collection of simple learned responses to external stimuli. But
your requirement that science must provide explanation is not correct. That's
certainly desirable, but if a theory makes accurate predictions and is useful,
it's still a scientific theory, explanation or not. Not everything can be
explained. Newton's theories didn't explain what mass is or why momentum is
conserved. It just told us how to measure mass and noticed that certain
conservation principles always applied.

As to having an open mind, you apparently know nothing at all about cognitive
psychology. Please follow your own advice.

~~~
lutusp
> Okay, you go to the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT and
> tell them that they are all quacks.

Why would I do that? They study the brain, not the mind -- they're
neuroscientists, not psychologists.

> As for us "having no idea how the brain works", we certainly know something
> about how it works.

Yes, and that is why the reliable core of tested psychological theory
prevented the Recovered Memory Therapy fiasco of the 1990s, prevented
Facilitated Communications from ever getting off the ground, and prevented the
introduction of Asperger Syndrome into psychological clinics, only to be
removed later after its dubious standing became obvious to everyone. But ...
that's not what happened. There is no reliable core of tested theory in
psychology, as a result of which there are no constraints on what clinical
psychologists can say or do. This is not true in any other field that the
public believes is scientific.

> We don't know enough about it yet to give much direction to clinical
> psychologists at the moment ...

Yes, and when psychology can do that, it will finally have the right to call
itself a science. But it's more likely that psychology will be replaced by
neuroscience, a process that is already underway.

> But your requirement that science must provide explanation is not correct.

On the contrary, that is a basic requirement for science. If I offer a
description, someone else can offer a different description and there's no
basis for choosing between them, as with the Ptolemaic and Copernican views of
the heavens. But if I offer a testable explanation (orbits must conserve
energy) then one of the prior descriptions must be abandoned. That is how one
identifies science.

> you apparently know nothing at all about cognitive psychology.

That's your argument? If I am called to serve on a jury in a murder trial, do
I have to be a murderer to qualify? No, all I need to do is be competent to
evaluate evidence.

The same rules apply here. All one need do is read the psychological
literature and look for the classic identifiers of science to see that
_psychology is not a functioning science_.

~~~
nessus42
_> Why would I do that? They study the brain, not the mind -- they're
neuroscientists, not psychologists._

They are not just neuroscientists and they _do_ study the mind. You might have
looked at the first sentence on the department's website:

"MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences stands at the nexus of
neuroscience, biology and _psychology_."

Or looked at the first sentence for the department in the MIT course catalog:

"The study of mind, brain, and behavior has grown in recent years with
unprecedented speed."

In fact, You can get an undergraduate degree from this department taking only
a single neuroscience course and all the rest being cognitive psychology and
cognitive science classes. Furthermore, the department offers a minor in
psychology, but not in neuroscience.

And, for your edification, here is the online material for the course
Cognitive Processes, which is one of MIT's definitive classes in cognitive
psychology:

[http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-
sciences/9-65...](http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/brain-and-cognitive-
sciences/9-65-cognitive-processes-spring-2004/lecture-notes/)

I took this class as an undergraduate, and it is a great class. The famous
childhood development psychology professor, Susan Carey, taught this class
when I took it.

Arguing with you seems fruitless: You just assert things that are patently
false without bothering to do the most basic of research or even just
listening to what has been said to you. You might even just consider the name
of the department: "cognitive" refers to the mind, not the brain, and
"cognitive science" is a synonym for "cognitive psychology". (Though when
using the term "cognitive science", the study is a bit broader, adding in
cross-disciplinary research from artificial intelligence and philosophy of
mind. MIT is big on cross-disciplinary research.)

How do I know this? Well, I might have just spent a few minutes looking things
it up before spouting off, but I also have a degree in cognitive science from
MIT.

 _> Yes, and that is why the reliable core of tested psychological theory
prevented the Recovered Memory Therapy fiasco of the 1990s, prevented
Facilitated Communications from ever getting off the ground_

There's no _one_ psychology. Have you studied any history of science? Have you
read Kuhn? Throughout all of the history of science there have been divisions
in scientific fields and "paradigm shifts". As Kuhn pointed out, the old
generation has to literally die off before the new paradigm in a field can
become the new orthodoxy. Until that happens, many scientists in scientific
fields will cling desperately to their already disproven theories. Just look
at Einstein, for instance. Why didn't he win a Noble Prize for Relativity?
Because there were many physicists who did not yet accept Relativity, even
long past the point in time when it was irrefutable.

Enough time has not passed for cognitive psychology to become the orthodoxy of
psychology, but some day it will be. Cognitive psychology is not going to be
"replaced" by neuroscience, but it will be informed by it. And vice versa. The
two fields have always informed each other.

Also, unfortunately, our understanding of the human mind scientifically is not
yet strong enough to offer a whole lot to clinical psychologists, so the
establishment of cognitive psychology as the new orthodoxy through all of
psychology will no doubt be delayed by the needs of clinical psychologists to
do their jobs, rather than just telling people with mental illness to go home
and chill for the next 50 years, until we understand the human mind and human
brain better.

As for "explanation", you completely ignored what I said. If you continue
this, there's little point in having a discussion with you. There's no
discussion if someone just talks and does not listen. I'll repeat this one
more time, however: Physics has not _explained_ why conservation of energy is
true. It merely has noted this fact, and has asserted that it is the case
based on empirical induction.

Other things, of course, are explained in terms of conservation of energy, but
conservation of energy has not been explained. The same thing was true for
Behaviorism. It didn't explain why the mind was putatively nothing but a large
collection of simple learned responses to external stimuli. That was its main
premise, which was a hypothesis based on scientific observation, etc. But
Behaviorism certainly _attempted_ to explain all the rest of psychology in
terms of this premise. And it's a universal principle of rational thought,
that once you have identified laws and/or principals, you can use these laws
and principles to explain other things, even if you have no explanation for
the laws themselves.

In any case, Behaviorism's problem was that their model was wrong, and so the
explanations failed to pan out, except in certain constrained situations, like
training animals. Of course now we know that even those explanations are over-
simplified, but they are explanations, nonetheless. In any non-fundamental
science, however, comprehensible explanations are likely to be over-
simplified. The human mind can only grasp so much complexity and many natural
phenomena are hugely complex.

~~~
lutusp
> "MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences stands at the nexus of
> neuroscience, biology and psychology."

There is no such nexus. The brain can be studied scientifically, the mind
cannot be. This would be like creating a new cosmology department at a
university that stands at the nexus of astronomy and astrology.

> Also, unfortunately, our understanding of the human mind scientifically is
> not yet strong enough to offer a whole lot to clinical psychologists ...

If this were true in medicine, doctors would have to stop offering treatments.
But the absence of science has had no effect on psychologists, who continue to
offer any treatment that comes into their heads, including complete frauds
like Recovered Memory Therapy.

If doctors offered the kinds of treatments that psychologists offer, on the
basis they offer them, they would be arrested. The reason? That could only
happen if doctors ignored the copious science that informs the medical field.

It's not credible to say that psychology is (a) a science but (b) has nothing
to offer clinicians. One, or the other. Not both. If psychology wants to be
regarded as a science, let them craft testable theories that define the field,
as every legitimate science has done. Such theories would place psychology on
a par with real sciences, each of which is defined by central, testable,
falsifiable theories -- physics has the Standard Model, Biology has genetics
and evolution, geology has chemistry, physics and plate tectonics. Each of
these theories is a clear statement that unites its field. Each of them is
testable and falsifiable, and all of them inform practice (engineering for
physics, medicine for biology as two examples).

Doctors cannot offer treatments that aren't vetted by research. The reason?
Medicine is guided by science.

Psychologists _can and do_ offer treatments that aren't vetted by research.
The reason? Psychology is _not_ guided by science.

Hos difficult is that? Want to change psychology's present status as a
pseudoscience? As a first step, expel clinical psychology from the field. As a
second step, forbid any treatments not vetted by scientific research. I won't
hold my breath for these steps to be taken by psychologists, but they
certainly, eventually will be taken by others.

> Physics has not explained why conservation of energy is true.

Conservation of energy _is_ the explanation. This theoretical idea unites most
of everyday mechanics and astrodynamics. It's disingenuous to claim that the
conservation idea isn't an explanation, because of all the everyday physics
that it _explains_ \-- planetary orbits, nuclear physics, and many more. Need
I add that there is nothing remotely like it in psychology for depth and
comprehensiveness.

The idea of scientific theories is they should explain as much as possible
with the fewest ideas. This is why physics has the scientific reputation it
has -- its theories explain a great deal with a handful of well-tested
principles.

Meanwhile, in psychology, virtually all ideas are excuses for debates between
differing factions. As an example, one group thinks focusing a lot of
attention on a few activities, or one activity, is a sign of mental illness
(Asperger Syndrome). Another group thinks this exact same behavior is the only
way to accomplish anything beyond the norm (the "Grit" faction). And they
don't bother to try to resolve the chasm between their views as scientists
would do.

Asperger Syndrome: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome>

A quote: "People with Asperger syndrome often display behavior, interests, and
activities that are restricted and repetitive and are sometimes abnormally
intense or focused."

"Grit": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grit_(personality_trait)>

A quote: "One way in which Grit differs from the need for achievement is that
individuals with high scores in Grit often set extremely long-term goals for
themselves and pursue them deliberately even without positive feedback."

Different words, same idea -- the ability to focus one's attention on a few
goals or one goal. Go to one psychologist, you may be encouraged to persevere.
Go to another, you may be diagnosed with an Autism spectrum disorder. Both in
the same "scientific" field.

The above is just one example among many. Want to turn psychology into a
science? Shape theories that unite different descriptions, then test them.
Just like real scientists.

~~~
nessus42
_> There is no such nexus. The brain can be studied scientifically, the mind
cannot be. This would be like creating a new cosmology department at a
university that stands at the nexus of astronomy and astrology._

Okay, you go to the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT and tell
them that they are all quacks. But if you ask me, it's you who are the quack,
not they.

 _> If this were true in medicine, doctors would have to stop offering
treatments. But the absence of science has had no effect on psychologists_

You act as if medicine has always had the scientific foundations that it now
has. It's been getting more an more scientific over time, and it still has a
long way to go. Psychology is currently at the state medicine was 100 years
ago. And that is simply because it's a more difficult field to study
scientifically. We didn't even have the conceptual frameworks to study it
scientifically until computer science and artificial intelligence were
invented. This is why Behaviorism was such a bust. It attempted to study
psychology scientifically, but the prerequisite conceptual frameworks did not
yet exist.

Btw, how are you going to rationalize the fact that primary care physicians
routinely hand out antidepressants for depression, a disorder identified and
classified by psychology?

 _> If doctors offered the kinds of treatments that psychologists offer, on
the basis they offer them, they would be arrested._

Nonsense. The most common psychological treatment is just talk therapy, which
has been proven effective, at least for treating depression. In the worst
case, it's harmless and acts as a decent placebo. (Which is a real effect, of
course.)

 _> It's not credible to say that psychology is (a) a science but (b) has
nothing to offer clinicians. One, or the other. Not both._

Clearly logic escapes you. Cognitive psychology is a science. This is
indisputable. It hasn't developed to the point where it offers much clinical
advice. It does offer some, but mostly for mnemonic techniques for those who
are suffering from cognitive impairments.

 _> If psychology wants to be regarded as a science, let them craft testable
theories that define the field,_

That's what cognitive psychology is doing. See previous discussion on paradigm
shifts.

 _> Such theories would place psychology on a par with real sciences, each of
which is defined by central, testable, falsifiable theories_

Cognitive psychology is full of them.

 _> Each of these theories is a clear statement that unites its field._

I don't think you've ever studied chemistry. Organic chemistry is as much
about all the exceptions, as it is about the rules. It's as sloppy as science
can get. And necessarily so, because chemistry is a useful but problematic
simplification of the underlying physics. No one even understands why or how
lithium ion batteries even work. And yet we use them every day. How
unscientific! (And that's not even organic chemistry.)

 _> Psychologists can and do offer treatments that aren't vetted by research.
The reason? Psychology is not guided by science.

Clinical psychology may not be guided so much by science. That's a far cry
from claiming that cognitive psychology is not science.

_> As a first step, expel clinical psychology from the field.

Psychology is not a single field. Some subfields of psychology are scientific.
E.g., cognitive psychology. And some not so much. E.g., clinical psychology.
Many disciplines have schisms in them, especially when undergoing a paradigm
shift. See previous discussion on paradigm shifts.

 _> As a second step, forbid any treatments not vetted by scientific
research._

There's no central psychological organization that could do this.

 _> Conservation of energy is the explanation._

And in behavioral psychology, stimulus response is the explanation.

 _> It's disingenuous to claim that the conservation idea isn't an
explanation_

That's good, because that's not what I claimed. I claimed that physics offers
no explanation for why the conservation laws apply, which is analogous to
Behaviorism offering no explanation for why stimulus response applies. Both
were low-level observed phenomena that were then used to explain higher-level
phenomena.

 _> Need I add that there is nothing remotely like it in psychology for depth
and comprehensiveness._

Psychology is an intrinsically much more difficult field than physics. Physics
is the Platonic ideal of science. Comparing other fields to it is what is
disingenious. An honest debater might compare psychology to biology or
economics or organic chemistry, fields where a grade school notion of what
science is does not apply nearly so well.

And even in physics there are the type of divisions that you are describing.
E.g., there is serious debate, for instance, on whether super string theory is
a worthwhile approach, or not. Or even whether it is properly scientific.

 _> Meanwhile, in psychology, virtually all ideas are excuses for debates
between differing factions._

I'm not aware of any serious debates against cognitive psychology. Other
subfields are just a lot more impatient than cognitive psychologists are.

 _> As an example, one group thinks focusing a lot of attention on a few
activities, or one activity, is a sign of mental illness (Asperger Syndrome).
Another group thinks this exact same behavior is the only way to accomplish
anything beyond the norm (the "Grit" faction)._

This sort of thing happens all of the time in other sciences. Syndromes in
medicine are very comparable, since for syndromes, no cause has usually been
determined, and whether the syndrome is actually caused by a single disease or
a number of different diseases is up for debate. And yet syndromes are treated
by doctors anyway.

 _> And they don't bother to try to resolve the chasm between their views as
scientists would do._

See previous discussion on paradigm shifts. Cognitive psychology is the future
of psychology. It is perfectly scientific, and this is why there is a world-
renowned department dedicated to it at MIT.

~~~
lutusp
>> Meanwhile, in psychology, virtually all ideas are excuses for debates
between differing factions.

> I'm not aware of any serious debates against cognitive psychology.

That's not what I said -- read it again. I said that factions _within_
psychology differ about which of them is real, is scientific. For example,
clinical psychology and psychiatry famously doubt the validity of the other.
But neither of them have scientific evidence to support their claims, which is
why that debate goes on and on.

Before you make a predictable objection, remember that in real science, fields
are united by theory, not divided. Genetics doesn't only guide the activities
of geneticists, it unites all of biology. SO does evolution, in exactly the
same way -- any evidence that either supports or casts doubt on evolution
changes the entire field of biology at once. This pattern is true of all
legitimate sciences -- all of them are simultaneously defined and united by
their theories. It is not true of psychology, which has factions that pursue
similar subjects but come to diametrically opposite conclusions, with no on
noticing or caring. The reason? Everyone tries to describe, but no one tries
to explain.

> Psychology is an intrinsically much more difficult field than physics.
> Comparing other fields to it is what is disingenious.

1\. Unless you're planning to invent a new word, do look up the word
"disingenuous".

2\. There is precisely one kind of science. Science is not an ice cream store
with dozens of flavors -- science has one flavor. Any scientific field can be
compared to any other scientific field as to methods and results. When this
comparison is made with psychology, psychology fails the comparison, as the
more candid commentators within the field freely acknowledge (see below).

> Cognitive psychology is the future of psychology.

Yes which partly explains why psychology is being replaced by neuroscience.

> It is perfectly scientific ...

Scientific fields craft and then test falsifiable scientific theories,
_explanations_. Cognitive psychology can only describe, a failing freely
acknowledged by its practitioners.

<http://www.simplypsychology.org/science-psychology.html>

A quote: "Despite having a scientific methodology worked out (we think), there
are further problems and arguments _which throw doubt onto psychology ever
really being a science_."

I could produce any number of quotes like the above, included in the papers of
psychology's honest advocates and supporters, but I don't think it will make
any difference -- your mind is made up and you refuse to be confused by the
facts.

~~~
nessus42
_> Before you make a predictable objection, remember that in real science,
fields are united by theory, not divided._

You are ignorant on the history of science. Read Kuhn's _The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions_. It will set you straight.

 _> Scientific fields craft and then test falsifiable scientific theories,
explanations. Cognitive psychology can only describe, a failing freely
acknowledged by its practitioners._

You cherry pick your quotes. Cognitive psychology is just like any other
science. It constructs models, uses those models to make predictions, and then
performs empirical experiments to test the accuracy of the models.

If you don't understand that science is about _models_ , then you don't
understand science.

------
Houshalter
The low hanging fruit in major fields has long been picked clean. It's not
that there's fewer smart people, if anything there are far more than ever in
history, it's that discoveries that haven't been made yet are becoming scarcer
and scarcer, and the ones that remain are only still there because they are so
far out of reach.

------
ArbitraryLimits
There probably won't be any more scientific breakthroughs that mess with
people's conception of their place in the world the way relativity and quantum
mechanics did. That's not the same thing as no more breakthroughs.

