From: murphyg@Software.Mitel.COM (Gary Murphy)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Psychology (not unlike Re: NLP and whatever are we talking about???)
Date: 6 Oct 92 12:49:47 GMT
	<1992Oct04.213813.103600@ua1ix.ua.edu> <1992Oct4.220314.7212@sfu.ca>
	<BvMyE5.3y7@news.cso.uiuc.edu> <1992Oct6.032050.4475@pony.Ingres.COM>
Organization: Applications Software II, MITEL Corporation, Kanata, Ontario,
	Canada
In-reply-to: jpk@Ingres.COM's message of 6 Oct 92 03:20:50 GMT


nice try Jon ...

The story so far:

Quoting just a tiny section of my post where I said:
   > if psychology is worth anything, psychologists should be saying to
   > B&G "Very nice observation! Ingenious apparatus!  Can you try this
   > here? My bet is it won't work in this case, and for a beer,
   > I will tell you why I think it never will!"

In article <1992Oct6.032050.4475@pony.Ingres.COM>
 jpk@Ingres.COM (Jon Krueger) writes only:

   And should they be saying this to the phrenologists, too?

   If not, why not?

If so, why?  Simple, so very simple, even a child can do it!  I am
amazed and a little dissapointed you missed it.  What is the predicted
_effect_ of phrenology?  None.  

Phrenology, like Astrology (oh! is that why it is called psychoLOGY? :-)
), do not claim medicinal effects, NLP does.  Therefore, the medicinal
effect of NLP should be subjected to the same criteria as patent
medicines (of the milder persuasions) and be applied, and results
observed, over a wide population over a wide expanse of space and time.

This is exactly what NLP practitioners do: they learn techniques and
models (tools, not theories) and apply them, counting success not when
the client _says_ they 'feel' better, like clinical psychology will, but
when the troublesome behaviour is no longer exhibited _permanently_.
Behaviourists have much the same criteria, and they also show consistent
results within their problem domain.

   The theoretician/experimentalist analogy misses important differences.

And just what are those 'differences'? --- unless you do equate
psychology with phrenological methodology.

   I suggest that proponent/skeptic models the facts better.  The burden
   of proof does not rest on the skeptic.

But your model is not the territory ;-) The burden of proof is up to
anyone willing to do the observation, but if you have a model, and you
do claim to have one, then what does it FORBID? Let us test it and spare
us the banter of yes-it-is/no-it-ain't/yes-it-is/no-it-ain't.  As Suzuki
Roshi told John Cage, "I love philosophy: Everybody wins!"

Proponent/skeptic was adopted by Galileo because the Academic Community
would not accept his real methodology, which was (a) apply the tools to
Reality and (b) observe the results.  Funny, eh?

                   "Let us work without theorizing;
             it is the only way to make life endurable."
                              -Voltaire

Your turn, Jon ...

--
Gary Lawrence Murphy/murphyg@software.mitel.com/mitel!software!murphyg@uunet.ca
 Mitel Corp - 350 Legget Drive, Kanata, Ontario, Canada - (613) 592-2122 x3709
          "The earthy situation of actual things as they are
              is the source of wisdom" - Chudjam Trungpa