Whoops, how did Economics and Psychology get into that list? Seeing
those two in a list of "sciences" trigger one of my most "sensitive"
trigger spots - "social sciences." Some background: BS in Physics, 27
years high school Physics teacher, MA in Clinical Psych, 9 years in
practice.
During my undergrad days I quickly became a "true believer" in whatever
psych theory we were studying at the time. Each theoretical school
claimed to be the Mother Church with reams of "research". And I
developed Multiple Personality Disorder trying to accept them all.
However the first crack appeared as I delved deeping into Freudian
Psychology. I violates the Law of Parsimony and I saw that it became the
Ptolematic version of Psychology. I think the capper was when I read an
article that blamed Schizophrenia on bad breast feeding by the mother.
Pschology and Economics along with the other "social diseases
(whoops...sciences) are art forms not sciences. A good therapist does
collect data and form hypothesis and there the similarities to science
end. Intuition, emphathy, intellegence, a broad knowledge of human
behaviors are the tools of psychology. Granted, intuition and
intellegence are probably the keystones of Physics too.
In relistening to Hawkings "Brief History of Time" tapes, he defines a
"theory" in the usual way - fits observations, predictive, simple,
testable and disprovable. Psych theory does not fit these criteria. All
that Skinner proved was the pigeons could be trained.
I'll probably be drummed out of the APA (not APS). I love the work with
clients but it ain't a science by any stretch of the imagination. As
for Economics...falls in the same category as used car salemanship and
weather prediction.
Ray Rogoway
--
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep
And I have no more papers in a heap
And in the morning I can sleep
And stroll in those woods so dark and deep.
r. frosted