User talk:Serj198
continuation of phobia discussion
[edit]I wish you to eventually overcome your phobia. Well thanks, but it's not a big deal. My house is clean and I rarely come across a spider, so it's not really an issue.
I disagree when you talk about treatments being testable. You are saying that behaviours are not testable. But the statistics are used to evaluate crime in a city, to evaluate how much somebody con move an arm, to evaluate a lot of behavioural variables, and it's done in a scientifical way. Being testable means that you can define a dependent variable and modifiyng independent variables you see how that affects the dependent variable.
What I mean is that we don't know exactly how human behavior works because there is no way to do proper experiments. And proper means dissecting the human brain and finding out exactly and precisely how it ticks. Observing behavior only gets you so far, and there are many different conclusions one can draw from behavior, and that does not honor the Null hypothesis.
For example, if you watch someone flip a coin ten times and each time it was heads, what do you draw from this observation? The coin must have heads on both sides, right? Maybe, and beyond a reasonable doubt, because the chance of getting heads ten times in a row is slim. However, that does not prove that the coin has no tails side. The only way to know is to take the coin and look at it.
Same thing with human behavior. Observation and any kind of behavioral-based therapy is pseudoscience. The only way for it to be scientific is to experiment on the brain itself which is not doable for ethical reasons.
However, note that phobia treatment is not the best example of pseudoscience in psychology, as phobias have a higher treatment success rate than most other disorders, and is generally more down to earth if still not scientifically sound. For more extreme examples, Schizoid personality disorder is a highly personalized label that is backed by anything but scientific evidence. Some parents obtain fringe diagnosis's for their children to control and abuse them, and use it as a substitute for responsibility. ADHD, Aspergers and Bipolar disorder are examples of frequently misdiagnosed disorders.--Spectatorbot13 (talk) 18:27, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
therefore neither climatology, nor physics would be sciences according to you. Wrong, physics is highly governed by science because its core theory is testable and can be falsified with experimental evidence. To find out how far I can bend a piece of metal before it breaks, I do so and find out, and it's perfectly legal because the piece of metal has no feelings or rights. This way we can build a bridge, because we know the functions and limits of the materials we use.
However, the core of psychology is not testable, only its secondary characteristics such as behavioral, because we can't treat someone's brain as a piece of metal.
regarding "finding how the brain ticks". Nobody knows exacly, therefore according to you, nothing related to brain functioning would be a science, cause it's related to something we don't know in detail how it works, self-consciousness is still quite mysterious. Correct. However, it's not that we "don't know in detail how it works." What you say about behavioral statistics is correct, it can describe human behavior, but it can't explain. We all know people love owning cell phones nowadays, and we can safely conclude that from statistics, but we don't know why.
you say "The only way for it to be scientific is to experiment on the brain itself which is not doable for ethical reasons." as if behaviours couldn't be measured. Therefore education is pseudocience for you, and all the medicines that medics don't exactly know how them work (most medicines) are pseudocientific. Technically, yes, education IS pseudoscience but that does not imply that it is unnecessary. It is simply the best method we have to date, and we NEED to teach our children somehow. But just for an example of how education can sometimes be ineffective, think of children with ADHD. Most are really smart, creative and capable of being successful, but their state of mind prevents them from progressing in the same class as students without ADHD.
As for pseudoscientific medicine, look up Rebecca Riley. She was prescribed treatment for ADHD and Bipolar disorder and it resulted in her death. Where was the science involved in labeling this 2-year-old and prescribing her strong drugs? None.--Spectatorbot13 (talk) 07:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)