Remember: abduction, gathering of data and spotting patterns.
Got the daily weather report for Athens for the years 150-100 BC?
Neolithic man had a deeply vested interest in the weather, but that doesn't change his advancement of weather science. The gods were useful for many thousands of years.
Sure, the general idea of watching the weather -- long history there. But that just proves my point. There was a huge gap between seeing and naming it, recording it, spotting patterns, making falsifiable theories, and making predictions. We're just at the "seeing and naming it" stage with climate science. The use of computer models hide this fact, sadly.
Oh, ok. So it takes making predictions to quality as real science.
Here's a real prediction, with actual confirming evidence: giving someone with a high MADRS score an SSRI will reduce their score.
That's beyond seeing and naming depression, it's beyond recording patients' reactions to SSRIs, it's beyond spotting patterns in their reactions, it's even beyond making falsifiable theories about its mechanism of action. It's making predictions which are confirmed on a statistically significant basis.
Does this mean you think psychiatry has the same epistemological standing as physics?
Got the daily weather report for Athens for the years 150-100 BC?
Neolithic man had a deeply vested interest in the weather, but that doesn't change his advancement of weather science. The gods were useful for many thousands of years.
Sure, the general idea of watching the weather -- long history there. But that just proves my point. There was a huge gap between seeing and naming it, recording it, spotting patterns, making falsifiable theories, and making predictions. We're just at the "seeing and naming it" stage with climate science. The use of computer models hide this fact, sadly.