psychological theories have
been disproven. Most of the disproven theories are long forgotten, which
occasionally leads to their reappearance and a subsequent re-disproving. One
problem in psychology is that many people are in denial about the range of
things that have been disproven. For example, learning does not require a
brain; intelligence is affected by genetics; men are better at some things and
women are better at others; many human behaviors are best modeled as
closed-loop systems; the state of gut bacteria is tremendously important in
determining mood, often more so than "external" factors or anything you can
measure about the brain; behavior is typically best predicted by a person's
location, not by their "personality"; you could list over 20 disproven
hypotheses regarding the moon illusion; you could list many disproven
hypotheses regarding the "cognitive" factors that predict how long an infant
will stare at a display; etc., etc., etc. Of course, any of these could be
phrased in terms of 'proving' or 'disproving' depending on how you wanted to
phrase the initial hypothesis, and some would prefer to say that 'support' or
'fair to support', etc.
The Cannonball trajectory problem seems to be solved, but maybe we need to take
relativity or whatever into consideration for certain cannonballs. Or maybe
cannonballs will start to behave differently next year (for example if
basic physical constants can suddenly shift). But we can (I
think) disprove the roadrunner theory of falling. The important thing
about scientific theories is that we can imagine ways of disproving them. So
what psychological theories have been disproven?
________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Nicholas Thompson [[hidden email]]
Sent: Thursday, May 17, 2012 2:18 AM
To: [hidden email]; 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology
Well, On Peirce’s account (yes I am still reading Peirce) Truth
(or “solved”) is like “settled law”. It could come undone
any time, but usually doesn’t. (Actually, I have that wrong. Truth is
what wouldn’t come undone, but, of course, we never live to be sure that
that’s what we got.
N
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Carl Tollander
Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 10:16 PM
To: ERIC P. CHARLES
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology
Eric,
Re: 1) humming makes my sinuses happy, generally.
Re: 2) I quite agree, it's not so simple. Yet, one has to start
somewhere, and the 'magical thinking' pejoration is, by my lights, kinda simple
on the face of it. I don't agree, by any stretch, that all 'bright minds'
are necessarily scientists. Science, as I understand it, is a continuous
process of intensively figuring out what are the right questions to ask and
wondering how to interpret such data as one can find or generate. I do not see
that it is legitimate, even in science terms, to cast the folks who sincerely
tried to make sense of their experience as living in cartoons because they did
not choose to live in the context of one's decades of training in whatever
discipline.
Re: Is there anything you think is a "solved scientific question" or
do you think the category is incoherent? Yes, since I think science is about
rigorously evolving questions, yep, the notion of "solved scientific
questions" is indeed, at the very least, incoherent. Which is not at all
to imply one can't aim one's canon, but that's a different world of discourse.
C
On 5/16/12 9:45 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
Well, to make two more general claims then:
1) I am not sure anyone is able to play the game in the order you suggest.
Oh, some people can hum a few bars, but until you break out specific examples
and dig into the details of them, it is just humming.
2) The line between a tech problem and a science problem cannot possibly
be as simple as you suggest. By my read, at one point the trajectory of a
cannon ball was a scientific question, there was a genuine question of how a
cannon ball flew, and bright minds - people we would now call scientists -
wrestled with the possibilities (a startlingly large part of the
population still think falling works like the roadrunner cartoons). I
can't see how you think it is a "tech problem".... except.... in so
much as it is a solved question, it is now something that it is fairly easy to
do tech with it.
Is there anything you think is a "solved scientific question" or do
you think the category is incoherent?
Eric
On Wed, May 16, 2012 11:15 PM, Carl Tollander
<[hidden email]><mailto:[hidden email]> wrote:
Eric, so you've got a tech problem, not a science problem, and sure, the tech
problem of trajectories wrt local gravitation can be "solved". How
do I aim the cannon (or the canon) and better, how do I metabolize my
error when my initial notion turns out to be a bit off. Still, do we
understand gravitation in the (apparently more general) context of
quantum mechanics, well, no. So there again is my worry about the notion of
"solved a problem", which seems, um, problematic.
As to your idea of "the game", my text was in reply to Jochen and
perhaps others who, perhaps, had weighed in on the idea of "magical
thinking" as, somehow, a bad thing, rather than Nick's inner universe,
specifically.
Carl
On 5/16/12 8:41 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES wrote:
Carl,
My guess is that Nick can't play the game to anyone's satisfaction in the order
you proposed. He could go down that road, but it will digress endlessly and
readers will become sad. The only way to have things stay on topic is for
someone to propose things until they find one Nick thinks has been solved....
and only then will he be able to explain in any satisfactory detail what it
means (to him) for that particular problem to be solved. If five
things are found that he thinks are solved, presumably some sort of general
rule will emerge.
Eric
P.S. To flip the question (and please rename the thread if you take this
bait): As far as I am concerned the problem of the path of a cannon ball
shot out of a cannon is solved. It was solved several hundred years ago,
parabolic trajectory, a little wind resistance, blah, blah, blah. If you think
that problem is not solved, I would love to know the sense in which it is not.
On Wed, May 16, 2012 09:39 PM, Carl Tollander <[hidden email]> wrote:
OK, what does it MEAN to you to have solved a problem in psychology?
Are there criteria you can state succinctly?
Where did those criteria come from?
If you really can't say, phlogiston will have to do. Folks were
grappling with how to describe their inner experiences coherently, given
all the other things they were thinking about. I'm not prepared to be
snarky about how they were (or are) deluded, or ignorant, or dim.
All explanations worth their salt start out magical. Somebody,
somewhere, somehow, perceives that the best data they can access or the
best conversations they can find, don't make sense in some newly
understood context, and makes a leap.
C
On 5/16/12 4:25 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> It is the task of science to replace magical explanations by
> scientific ones, isn't it? Chemistry has replaced alchemy,
> astronomy has replaced astrology, neuropsychology has
> replaced phrenology, etc
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/mysticpolitics/6333162973/
>
> I must admit I was hoping we could lure Nick
> back to the list from his self-chosen exile by asking
> some provocative questions. What would Nick say,
> are there any unsolved problems in psychology?
> Is there still any phlogiston theory in it which is
> waiting to be replaced?
>
> -J.
>
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
Eric Charles
Professional Student and
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org