Jedi Master Spock wrote:Wong tends to exhibit (as seen, say,
here) outright contempt for the humanities and social sciences, which make his frequent forays into
humanities topics - such as ethics, literary critique, et cetera - a little more understandable.
Since he thinks that the experts in the field are "idiots," that means that he, as someone who isn't an idiot, is at least as qualified as anybody else to make claims about them despite his lack of education.
This is him running into nonoverlapping magisteria.
You're right. Psychologists, sociologists, and psychiatrists seem reluctant to employ the scientific method properly. Theories which throw Occam's Razor to the wind (eg- multiple personality disorder) become "chic" and easily accepted. The fact that psychology and sociology are typically found in the <I>ARTS</I> faculty of any given university explains it. I've read through sociology and psychology textbooks; their use of "scientific methods" is restricted to statistical analysis.
This is because these sciences are not strictly mechanical, as astrophysics and chemistry are. They are partially 'why' based. Mechanical observation and mechanical data recording doesn't have any authority over 'why'. This is where things, such as philosphy and the like enter into it. No amount of math is gonna explain things like this.
Such mechanicstic thinking is best ignored because of its outdatedness and limited nature.
It can be relied upon when they say something which is as obvious as the nose on your face. It cannot, however, be relied upon for, say, convicting someone of a crime (unlike other scientific fields; a mechanical engineer's testimony on the forensic analysis of the twisted wreckage of a car should hold far more weight than any "psychological profile" in the mind of a jury, but it does not).
This is par for the course when all you focus on in life is the mechanics of things. This example of twisted wreckage is a play at emotionality, something that is a part of the softer sciences, which he bashes, yet he feels it's fine, as long as he prefaces it with 'a mechanical engineer's testimony'.
And if that psychological profile of the driver that caused the accident shows a documented and accepted chemical imbalance that's genetics based? Well, that's just part of the psych profile. Psych profiles are part biology, part not. Discard it. It's what happened with the cars themselves that matters.
And it may or may not improve. I see two key problems with sociology and psychology:
Many practitioners are not trained in proper scientific methodology.
That's a pretty bold statement. I'd like to see his evidence that most schools that teach sociology and psychology don't teach proper scientific method usage. I'm sure he wouldn't make such an overarching statement about an entire field (and more than one at that) without evidence. That wouldn't be very scientific of him.
Human brains are a complex system. Complex systems incorporate a certain degree of unpredictability.
I think the key is not to imagine that we can someday predict human behaviour with equations, but to recognize that at best, it will become like meteorology: useful but no guarantees.
He also leaves out 'why'. The why aspects that creep up when one finds that people are more than the some of their parts, even outside the unpredictability aspect of them. I would like to see him explain why such rigorous methodology can be applicable to areas, like philosophy. The best he can do is explain the mechanics of a thing.
Nowhere can science offer an explanation to meaning. It'd be trying to explain cooking in terms of geometry. You can't. You have to learn cooking and talk of it in terms of cooking.
The proof is in the pudding. If a science is reliable, then it can be applied by engineers. Physics is applied by mechanical engineers, civil engineers, etc., and it works well. Chemistry is applied by chemical engineers, and it works well. Quantum physics is applied by computer engineers (the real ones who work in places like IBM labs, not those fucking MSCE's), and it works well. Relativistic physics is applied by aerospace engineers, and it works well. Now, let's turn to the so-called "social sciences"; they are applied in "social engineering". And how reliable is social engineering? I think the point is made.
Far from it. The softer sciences is called that because 'softer' is in reference to the areas that are not mechanical. This includes areas that science has no place. Philosophy, religion, spirituality. But, there are still some mechanics because the biology of people is also in question, it is partially based on mechanical science.
It's worth studying, but a psychology degree does not necessarily include any formal training in the scientific method. I know; many of my dormitory acquaintances were taking psychology, and I saw their textbooks and homework assignments. They don't learn jack shit about the scientific method. Deal with it.
Oh, here's his evidence. It's from what he 'observed' from his dormitory aquaintances who were taking psychology. That's very scientific.
The goal of psychology is just as worthwhile as the goal of natural science. Unfortunately, the result is near-worthless because it is so unreliable. The subject matter is difficult to study by nature, and psychologists only exacerbate the problem with their unrepentant refusal to employ the scientific method.
The only reason why one might find the subject difficult to learn is if the person has trouble with abstract thinking, as well as conceptualizing. This might explain his attitude.
I think the gist of what others have been saying is that those fields would be more useful if they did, in fact, conduct themselves like scientists. The results would still be limited by the inherent problems with the source data, but it wouldn't be as arbitrary as it is now.
But, if one were to be scientific, the method he's suggesting involves outright ignoring facts. Those facts are there are areas that science has no business in: meaning, philosophy. When one ignores that fact, you are not applying the scientific method appropriately. Thereby, you self-defeat the whole point of the attempt before you even begin. It'd be worse than partially arbitrary. It'd be totally worthless.
We also get irritated when people take the title "scientist" and apply it where it clearly does not belong.
I do marvel at the irony of this.
If a psychology degree required knowledge of scientific methods, it would be useful. Unfortunately, psychology is taught in a manner which closely resembles sociology, history, English literature, and every other field of the "humanities", which is to say that theories are judged on how convincingly you can argue for them or at best, produce shaky statistics to grant them false credibility, with no formal method of determining their objective usefulness or accuracy.
Of course, the idea of the actual application of logic versus the misuse of logic has no barring on his thinking, despite this is of paramount importance to the field.
Then prepare to be surprised. I've read psych textbooks, and their discussion of scientific methods is limited to proper use of statistics. In their minds, that is the scientific method. Argh.
Fact has been overridden by the books Wong has read. But, he never went through the program, so he can't really judge the cirriculum because he is not an authority in such a field. He does not have a degree to prove he has taken the tests and studied. :rolleyes:
Igot sidebar
Then what we have is a wrong educational system, which should teach the scientific method to the students in this area as a method to be followed, not some "side topic in the philosophy books".
This person needs a serious study in nonoverlapping magisteria. That way, he'd see how wrong this stance is.