Psychology: The pseudo-science desperatly trying to keep up with it's partners.

Recently, I've been doing a lot of research into linguistic psychology. I've been finding out many fascinating things, and they're all presented as though cutting edge.

I have also been reading a book called An Outline Of Science which was written in 1927. I got to a chapter called "The Origins of Speach". It floored me. The theories presented by the author are the same that I've been reading about online and in psychology magazines.

All the other sciences have been making incredible leaps and bounds, which is to be expected as more discoveries have been made and more questions become known to be questions (The book had a statement saying "Now that we have unlocked all of the secrets of the solar system, astronomers are starting to look beyond it.") Psychology, on the other hand, has been fairly stagnant. Small theories have cropped up here and there which are revolutionary, but not as often as physics has had major discoveries, even in this past year.

This seems strange, since there are so many more psyciatrists and psychologists then there are physicists. You would expect psychology to advance well beyond any of the other sciences...Except for one reason. They don't know. Everything is theory, and what applies to one person doesn't always apply to another. We have yet to unlock the mind, and how it works, and until we do that, psychology will remain a pseudo-science. Not based on facts, but theories and suppositions based on small case studies (or in the case of sociology, large case studies of small groups).

Look into the field of Cognitative Science. It's like AI with grounding in pyschology. There have been several theories as to how humans generate speech. This field is a bit more ahead. I list some references below:

jamaica.u.arizona.edu...

assets.cambridge.org...

note that they usually code what they're talking about so it's provent to be at least moderately correct (on a given set of data, anyway).

Yo, you best step off! Psychology in a classical sense is, indeed floundering. Every research area has its waxes and wanes. However, think about this- as more and more human beings begin living in homogenous areas (re-cities/suburbia), then what will be the telling factor in behavioral characteristics?

Genetics.

Neuroscience is proving to be where the leaps and bounds are being made, my friend. As more and more research on the function of the brain and genetics is loaded into the psychological profession, it's changing. Very rarely do you simply talking things out or look at ink blots- instead, a psychologist sits you down, wires you up to an EEG device, and gives you a series of tests if he suspects psyhopathological symptoms.

Times are changing, JJ. Just because cars aren't made by hand anymore doesn't mean the industry is shrinking.

DE

Originally posted by DeusEx
Neuroscience is proving to be where the leaps and bounds are being made, my friend. As more and more research on the function of the brain and genetics is loaded into the psychological profession, it's changing. Very rarely do you simply talking things out or look at ink blots- instead, a psychologist sits you down, wires you up to an EEG device, and gives you a series of tests if he suspects psyhopathological symptoms.

Times are changing, JJ. Just because cars aren't made by hand anymore doesn't mean the industry is shrinking.

DE

When I said "We have yet to unlock the mind, and how it works, and until we do that, psychology will remain a pseudo-science." I was refering to exactly that. Just recently we have discovered ways of mesuring brain activity, and what it means, and this has been a leap forward for psychology.

However, there's still the question, in neurscience, as to why a scent, which is registered in one part of the brain, trigger a memory or emotion in another part of the brain. I was reading about a study where an answer may be at hand, and this would be another great leap forward for both neuroscience and psychology. There's a theory supported by strong evidence that while neurons communicate largley through electrical stimuli, glia may be communicating at the same time chemically.

If this proves true, new instruments will be developed which will be able to monitor this activity, as well, and cause both sciences to advance forward lightyears.

In all the sciences, advances have been limited by the equipment used to measure and detect. As I said before "We have unlocked all the secrets of the solar system" Then new advances in measurement tools were made, and we realized we really didn't know anything about the solar system exceot there were 8 planets. Whoop, now there's 9, maybe even 10.

If we manage to decifer how the brain communicates with it's self even more, we will be able to make even more advances in the realm of psychology. I'm not bashing it as useless, every science started out in the "pondering" stage, and slowly measuring instruments were developed with stronger and more accurate results. As they come out, even more discoveries come out. Psychology and neuroscience haven't had a way to measure brain activity until recently, as opposed to the stars, which we've had equipment to measure them since at least the 1600s.

Originally posted by junglejake
This seems strange, since there are so many more psyciatrists and psychologists then there are physicists. You would expect psychology to advance well beyond any of the other sciences...

there are also many more medical doctors than medical researchers. apples and oranges. the average psychatrist is dealing with a flood of patients, many severely disturbed. they're 'in the trenches', so to speak.

there's no denying that psychiatry is a study in its infantcy. but it's no wonder that the little we do know is put into immediate practice. what are we supposed to do as a society? look at the mentally ill and say "sorry you were born with a broken brain. have fun being a second-class citizen."? I should hope not.

Just like we didn't have the proper tools to research genetics in 1600, we don't have the technology needed to map ALL of the brain. Nix that... we have some. We have the EEG and MRI. However, to properly study chemical interactions in a viable human being, we would have to actually jam stuff into their brain, potentially damaging it. Anyways, i don't think "Hey, bend over a bit and let me drive this through your skull" would go over well with too many patients.

It should also be noted that psychology as a modern discipline is less than a hundred years old.

DE