From: elg@elgamy.sccsi.com (Eric Lee Green)
Date: 11 Sep 92 20:32:32 CDT
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: Re: Psychology as Science
Distribution: world
Organization: Eric's Amiga 2000 @ Home

From article <lavk95INN5l5@jethro.Corp.Sun.COM>, by tmhoff@oogoody.Corp.Sun.COM (Todd Hoff):
>
> I noticed some people critiquing NLP as not being scientific.
> This leads me to ask what has psychology proven with scientific rigor?
> After you remove advances in genetics, biology, and chemistry, which
> aren't under the province of psychology, how has psychology advanced
> science?

What is your definition of "science"?

Here's one: "a method for producing a formulation which accurately predicts
the behavior of X when factor Y is modified."

I would say that extinction curves and schedules of reinforcement would
very definitely qualify as "science" under these terms. Certainly as well
as Newton's original laws of motion, which were based upon the same sort of
observations as those basic behavioral laws.

Unfortunately, as with Newton's laws, we find that behavioral laws are
inadequate under certain situations. Just as Newton's laws fail to
accurately predict the speed of objects traveling at near the speed of
light, current behavioral laws seem to have predictive problems in the case
of self-reinforcement on the part of the subject, a factor which currently
isn't measurable and thus not scientifically amenable to solution at this
time. For example, knowing exactly how your behavior is being manipulated
tends to have some effect upon how you respond to the situation, ranging
from more eager compliance with the desired manipulation, to stubborn
resistance and removal of self from the situation. This is especially true
when the desired behavior is one which is not highly valued by you.
I once participated in a martial arts training session and observed the
interactions involved, when detirmining whether I wanted to continue with
this course or not (it was a "freeby", tacked on to my YMCA membership).
The instructor interacted with me in a certain way, but when he interacted
with the long-time students, he interacted in another way (and they
responded). It became apparent to me that there were certain behaviors
being trained here, and that some of them (such as uncritical acceptance of
the instruction of the authority-figure "master") were not behaviors that I
was particularly interested in gaining. Thus I removed myself from the
situation before those behaviors could be trained into me.

I think it is safe to say that the psychological sciences today are in
about the same situation as the physical sciences in, say, the year 1700.
We have some rudimentary idea as to a scientific method which produces
reproducible results, but we do not yet have a suitable store of knowledge
to produce theories which are highly predictive of human behavior in the
manner that a scientific law is extremely predictive of physical behavior.
We do have a few simple laws, but even those fail under certain
conditions. If you want to see a real psychological science, I suggest that
you check back in 300 years. By then we might, just might, have a good
handle on a true science of human behavior.

--
 Eric Lee Green  elg@elgamy.sccsi.com         Dodson Elementary
 (713) 437-6908  uunet!nuchat!elgamy!elg      Houston, TX
                "Kids are kids, no matter what"