fostel@ncsu.UUCP (11/29/83)
Well, I hope this is the last time ....
Again, I have been accused of ignorance; again the accustation is false.
Its fortunate only my words can make it into this medium. I would
appreciate the termination of this discussion, but will not stand by
and be patronized without responding. All sane and rational people,
hit the <del> and go on to the next news item please.
When I say psychologists do not do very good science I am talking about
the exact same thing you are talking about. There is no escape. Those
"rigorous" experiments sometime succeed in establishing some "facts",
but they are sufficiently encumbered by lack of controls that one often
does not know what to make of them. This is not to imply a critisism of
psychologists as intellectually inferior to chemists, but the field is
just not there yet. Is Linguistics a science? Is teaching a science?
Laws (and usually morals) prevent the experiments we need, to do REAL
controlled experiments; lack of understanding would probably prevent
immediate progress even in the absence of those laws. Its a bit like
trying to make a "scientific" study of a silicon wafer with 1850's tools
and understanding of electronics. A variety of interesting facts could
be established, but it is not clear that they would be very useful. Tack
on some I/O systems and you could then perhaps allow the collection of
reams of timing and capability data and could try to corrollate the results
and try to build theories -- that LOOKS like science. But is it? In
my book, to be a science, there must be a process of convergence in which
the theories more ever closer to explaining reality, and the experiments
become ever more precise. I don't see much convergence in experimental
psychology. I see more of a cyclic nature to the theories ....
----GaryFostel----
P.S. There are a few other science which do not deserve
the title, so don't feel signled out. Computer
Science for example.mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (12/01/83)
Credentials first, then argument. I have been a research psychologist
for 25 years, having a first degree in Engineering Physics. I have been
involved with computers in one way or another for 30 years. As a psychologist
my interests have drifted from sensory psychology to cognitive
psych and psycholinguistics, but I have always taken something of
an engineering approach to theory (ie look at things functionally
and structurally, using numbers where suitable).
I agree with Gary Fostel that Psychology cannot be called a Science
in any classic sense of the word. Certain aspects of psychology can,
notably those areas that have to do with sensory processes. There are
several reasons why the central (pun) areas of psychology are not
scientific, but most notable is that the problems are intrinsically
too difficult for humans to handle. Too many things work together
in ways that we cannot consider all at once. (This is not a question
of parallel computation, nor a question of complex rule systems. If
you want an analogy, the best I can come up with is that everything
looks like bits of a hologram. As Ted Nelson said: Everything is
deeply intertwingled.)
Physics may be a Science as the philosophers see it. The problems of
physics may be within the grasp of the human mind (but maybe not).
Problems of difficulty just beyond what one can handle are the most
attractive, and there is a tendency for physics to attract the
brightest "scientists". Psychology tends to attract many people
whose credentials could do with a little polishing, because it is
a field in which sloppy questions can be answered sloppily but
relatively satisfactorily. The only problem is that those answers
often cannot be generalized to situations more interesting than
the ones actually tested. "Real world" application of laboratory
results is seldom successful unless carried out by someone with
good intuition. This is different from the situation in physics.
Real-world application of physics results can be done by engineers
with the appropriate manuals and handbooks.
I have no doubt that psychologists come up with magnificent insights,
based usually on data insufficient to justify them. But psychological
theories cannot be expected to have the beauty and precision of
physical theories yet, and by yet I may mean for as long as human
brains have to encompass them. In future, it may be possible to have
a computer-assisted science of human behaviour, but at present, we
have to make do with generalizations that are gross compared with
what we would really like to predict.
All of that doesn't make psychology any the less challenging; and one
can always redefine "Science" if one wants to think that psychology
should be one. Personally, I think it is fun trying to find out what
one can find out, and to use what one can use in the real world; and
that's what matters.
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmtstekas@hou2g.UUCP (J.STEKAS) (12/02/83)
It is true that psychology is not a "science" in the way a physicist
defines "science". Of course, a physicist would be likely to bend
his definition of "science" to exclude psychology.
The situation is very much the same as defining "intelligence".
Social "scientists" keep tightening their definition of intelligence
as required to exclude anything which isn't a human being. While
AI people now argue over what intelligence is, when an artificial system
is built with the mental ability of a mouse (the biological variety!)
in no time all definitions of intelligence will be bent to include it.
The real significance of a definition is that it clarifies the *direction*
in which things are headed. Defining "intelligence" in terms of
adaptability and self-consciousness are evidence of a healthy direction
to AI.
Jim