From: murphyg@Software.Mitel.COM (Gary Murphy)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Psychology (not unlike Re: NLP and what the .... etc.
Date: 9 Oct 92 13:40:38 GMT
	<1992Oct6.032050.4475@pony.Ingres.COM>
	<1992Oct8.215839.16036@news.Hawaii.Edu>
Followup-To: sci.psychology
Organization: Applications Software II, MITEL Corporation, Kanata, Ontario,
	Canada
In-reply-to: lady@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu's message of 8 Oct 92 21:58:39 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.215839.16036@news.Hawaii.Edu> lady@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Lee Lady) writes:
   A skeptic posts an article,
   for instance, asserting that academic psychology is totally worthless,
   useless and not a real science.  His article makes it quite clear that
   he doesn't have the slightest idea what psychology is and has never had
   a course in it or read a text.

Oh, but I _have_ ;-), and far too many years and texts wasted.
Cognitive was fun, and Developmental cute, but Clinical was a crock!

   But he can say "The burden of the proof
   is on you to show that academic psychology is worthwhile.  Why should I
   waste my time and money on reading books and taking courses in
   something that's probably worthless?"  This sort of argument can go on
   fruitlessly until one of the parties becomes exhausted.

True, and Jon, take note: the way science works is _not_ by induction,
but by the blind proposition of an explanation for the phenomenon which
is refined through comparison with the empirical facts.  The "burden of
proof" approach is pointless, because science, nay, _knowledge_ does not
operate with _proof_ but with _refutation_.  Just as Jon rightly
observes that the repeated success of the Meta Model in a thousand cases
says nothing about its chances (logically) in case 1001, the burden of
refutation of the meta-model is not to show individual cases where there
is a glitch, but a clear case where the model is applicable, but does
not work.

The "every case I've seen" of the skeptic/proponent model reminds me of
the story from Karl Popper's "conjectures and refutations" where, in
1919, he put a case story before Adler for his analysis.  When he asked
Alder how he could be so sure, he replied, "because of my thousand-fold
experience" whereupon Popper quipped, "And with this new case, I
suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold."  I also find
it no surprise my wife's first therapist is now a third-rate UFO-hunter
anxiously awaiting the Dec 8th return of Toutasis, an earth-crossing
asteroid and possibly the upper stage of an old launch vehicle, to whisk
him away to be with Cmdr.  Adonai of Elohim's interplanetary space
force, and her second has left the profession to develop her own
'inner-child' while supporting herself by tarot readings and casting
astrology horoscopes!  Meanwhile, Bradshaw reaps a 7-figure income,
Courage_to_Heal sells 800,000 copies and real psychology get tarred,
feathered and banished to fantastically meagre grants :-(

   It is a poor sort of skepticism which merely delights in challenging
   those claims which conflict with one's own belief system.  

unless it is sincerely interested in finding weak points in that belief
system ;-)


--
Gary Lawrence Murphy/murphyg@software.mitel.com/mitel!software!murphyg@uunet.ca
 Mitel Corp - 350 Legget Drive, Kanata, Ontario, Canada - (613) 592-2122 x3709
"Enlightenment is the natural response to the environment." --- Morita