Re: Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One

Posted by Nick Thompson on Nov 14, 2011; 7:54am
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Theory-and-Why-It-s-Time-Psychology-Got-One-tp6988785p6991651.html

Dave,

 

I hate to bite the hand that feeds me, but I think there really IS a difference.  It’s not that hard scientists are less venal than soft ones;  Something in the state of play of the soft sciences themselves just does not reward rigor and head down, bull ahead normal science, in the way that it is rewarded in the hard sciences. I think being superficially uninteresting to the public goes a long way to protecting one from the kind of crap that goes on in the social sciences.  By the way, statistics itself is one of those tortured fields.  If you look at its history, you find that the statistics we were all taught in graduate school is an incoherent mélange of Spearman and Pearson (I think). 

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2011 12:02 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Theory, and Why It's Time Psychology Got One

 

 

On Monday, November 14, 2011 12:43 AM, "ERIC P. CHARLES" <[hidden email]> wrote:

 

"It is the behavior of a group that is not working towards consensus, and that is not clear on what the value of specific replicable results would be. It is the behavior of a group that vies for prestige through popularity contests and through bean counting publications regardless of replicability or actual progress being made. It is self-serving behavior, well adapted to the landscape of a field that lacks a core theory."

 

At the risk of annoying everyone (except perhaps Nick) - I would suggest that, with regard to the preceding paragraph, physics is no different from psychology.  Feyeraband, Knorr-Certina, Christopher Alexander ("self conscious process") and many other observers of how science is really done as opposed to self serving reports of how it is supposed to be done.

 

How fast a discipline's thinking ossifies to a consensual theory is a function of the need to protect one's research funding and repelling challengers with outre ideas - not the substantiveness of the "core theory."

 

dave west

 

 

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