Instigator / Pro
0
1500
rating
13
debates
42.31%
won
Topic
#3126

Psychology is Pseudoscience

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Winner
0
3

After 3 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

Intelligence_06
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
2
Time for argument
Two weeks
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
Six months
Point system
Winner selection
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
3
1731
rating
167
debates
73.05%
won
Description

Psychiatry, Psychology, and all the numerous "sciences" whose label possesses the "psych-" suffix are all pseudosciences masquerading as real science. Therapy is nothing more than a lucrative scam. Psychologists and psychiatrists are self-deluded con-artists preying on the gullibility and scientific naïvité of the public. The best proof I'm right is how I used some fancy symbols in a very pretentious word that you don't know how to type without searching Google for "how to type special symbols", and then copy-pasting them into your pathetic excuse of a counter-argument that just screams of being yet another failed abortion of your incoherent thought processes.

Resolved:

Psychology, Psychiatry, etc. are pseudoscience.

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@fauxlaw

Any source is a reference to outside content. The debaters citing them, is how they should enter consideration for voters. The voting policy stuff against outside content, is in reference to stuff not cited within the debate rounds.

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@Theweakeredge

Thanks! I appreciate you taking time to read everything and share an in-depth RFV.

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@Intelligence_06

Also I'm ashamed Intelligence - that paper about the NDE had... 21 subjects - with evidence like - the person claimed to have an out of body experience and saw a crumpled car.... oh no shit sherlock - a crumpled car! She must be able to see! (Sarcasm friend)

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@Puachu

"Former Harvard University psychologist Marc Hauser fabricated and falsified data and made false statements about experimental methods in six federally funded studies, according to a report released yesterday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services's Office of Research Integrity (ORI). Hauser, who resigned from his Harvard faculty position in 2011 after an internal investigation found him responsible for research misconduct, wrote in a statement that although he has "fundamental differences" with some of the new report's findings, "I acknowledge that I made mistakes." He did not admit deliberate misconduct, however, and implied that his mistake was that he "tried to do too much" and "let important details get away from my control"
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/09/harvard-psychology-researcher-committed-fraud-us-investigation-concludes

Dude, the dude behind the theory was literally fired cuz' he wrote a fraud of a paper, by the university... ya know, of psychology - so yes - they do that - they have literal journals of peer-reviewed papers - do you actually research?

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@Barney
@oromagi
@MisterChris

Bump

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@Puachu

Because they taste yummy. Next question.

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@drlebronski

Why do you eat babies? Some questions have no answers.

why is the voting time 179 days?

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@Puachu

I don’t know if you get it, but these are jokes, not serious.

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@Intelligence_06

“I am 50% sure that Puachu is a bot” 😄

“Take a walk away from your computer.”

Never! 😠

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@Puachu

Hahahah that makes sense. I agree wholeheartedly with that assessment.
It seems like interactions like these too often end in apparent disagreement despite the fact that the people actually agree with one another, they simply don't understand the specific meaning they have for what they're saying. I'm glad we didn't end up like that, and thanks for answering all my comments on this!

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@Ferbalot

Well, we don't actually disagree on anything haha. I am also convinced that PTSD is a real thing. I am only arguing that psychologists are abusing the label of "science" in order to give themselves a level of credibility they do not deserve.

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@Puachu

I suppose I walked right into the "fundamental" counter-argument, I meant fundamental as in "The simple things that we can utilize in our everyday lives without too much work", not in the literal scientific sense.

Regarding my usage of the word "theory", I did not mean to associate PTSD with what scientists would describe as theory. I meant to say that it seems so self explanatory that unless you've got significant evidence against it, it would seem it does indeed exist. And if it does exist, then I'd assume that psychology would exist to you as well.

I'm not very familiar with scientific terminology which is why I'm falling into all these semantic traps regarding scientific wording, I'm talking like an ordinary person rather than a quantum physicist.

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@Ferbalot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_field_theory

“QFT treats particles as excited states (also called quanta) of their underlying quantum fields, which are more fundamental than the particles.”

Quantum Field Theory (QFT) is the most fundamental theory of physics.

I sympthasize with your prioritizing of the truth over winning an online argument. Let's upgrade our standards for a scientific theory from “I think it's pretty obvious” and “Some things are self explanatory”, to the definition provided by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory:

“A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that can be repeatedly tested and verified in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results.”

“A scientific theory differs from a scientific fact or scientific law in that a theory explains "why" or "how": a fact is a simple, basic observation, whereas a law is a statement (often a mathematical equation) about a relationship between facts. For example, Newton’s Law of Gravity is a mathematical equation that can be used to predict the attraction between bodies, but it is not a theory to explain how gravity works.”

Do you see why PTSD is not a scientific theory? The observation that some soldiers returning from warzones suffer stress is a fact, not an explanation. Certainly their stress is not a theory either, even if you give it a long and fancy name like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

For the record, I am also surprised that the Law of Gravity is not a scientific theory.

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@Puachu

Firstly, the statistical fuzziness in physics you've provided doesn't really prove your point, since I think we both agree even psychology's most fundamental theories are a little fuzzy, whereas the fundamentals of physics aren't so. You basically have to get into quantum physics and other extremely complicated fields to encounter fuzziness.

I don't know if PTSD is recognized as a theory, but I think it's pretty obvious that it exists given how people act after coming back from wars and such.
It's true I haven't done a preliminary Google search to confirm this, just as I haven't done a Google search to get into the semantics of every single word you've typed to make sure I understand what you're saying. Some things are self explanatory and don't require extensive research to back them up, I thought PTSD would fit that description seeing as it's so well known and thoroughly recognized.

Regarding my expectations on what you do, I'm treating this discussion as a discussion, that being an attempt to get to work together to get to the truth no matter what our current positions might be, so to some extent I would expect you to research something like PTSD if you really want to contest something so fundamental like that. I prefer discussions to debates regardless of the format, since I want to find the truth, not learn how to convince people of a lie effectively.

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@Ferbalot

Statistical fuzziness in physics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_orbital

Regarding your alleged psychological theory, please let me know if this is an accurate description of your thought process:

You have no idea if PTSD is actually a theory, and haven't even done the most preliminary Google search to confirm this, but expect me to perform the search myself in order to support your own argument and refute my own?

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@Sum1hugme
@Puachu

To Sum1: That's interesting! I didn't know that.

To Puachu:
Can you give me an example of this statistical fuzziness in physics? I was not aware it was there to a similar degree.
And I think there are psychological theories, they're simply a lot less well known and have a lot more complicated names and features.
For instance PTSD is a pretty well known psychological thing, it has a name and I'd consider it a theory backed up with a lot of evidence.

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@Ferbalot

I understand that you believe there is a theory. But let's be honest with ourselves. There is no evidence that this theory exists. The word "theory" has occurred 9 times so far in this comment chain, and still, nobody has identified a single psychological theory by name. Not one!

The statistical fuzziness you speak of is an aspect of the Standard Model in physics, too. Psychology is not special in this regard. What makes psychology special, is its complete lack of a theory, and therefore complete lack of legitimacy as a scientific field.

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@Ferbalot

Lookup, "stress dwarfism." It's well documented that being emotionally abused or deprived as a child will consistently make you shorter. The amount of calcium deposited into your bones growing up is directly influenced, and in some cases, determined, by how loved you felt growing up.

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@Puachu

That makes sense, I understand your position better now. I do believe there is a theory, but it's not really as well recognized as something like physics...and I think that's largely because it's much more difficult to test and verify theories with psychology. It takes a lot of testing with a lot of people compared to something like physics which, as far as I'm aware, is pretty exact in how you can do experiments to find out what works and what doesn't. There's also a mixture of genes and other variables which change things in regards to psychology, it would be a bit like dealing with a lot of little universes with their own physics systems that sometimes align based on the environment and sometimes align based on the plans built to form them, sometimes seemingly a mix of the two.

I do think there are a few general truths regarding psychology, like it seems obvious trauma changes how we think about the world and would likely lead to things like crime and faulty relationships based on the distrust we could likely project into the world, based on patterns we see in studies like the ones I posted and again stuff I've seen in my own life. I do agree there's no official manual to the mind that clearly defines everything beyond the shadow of a doubt though, it's a tricky business.

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@Puachu

Fair enough. I'm just worried about other people who have already looked.

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@DeadFire27

If you're concerned about me unfairly influencing your own vote, you are welcome to refrain from voting or refrain from reading the comments until after you vote.

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@Puachu

Stop giving arguments in the comments.

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@Ferbalot

I appreciate you going out of your way to cite multiple studies for me, but that is missing the point. There's no theory to explain any correlation between environment X and crime Y. If there had been, you would have just named the theory, since that's easier than scouring the internet for the papers you did find.

Because there is no theory, there cannot be a field of science called psychology. There are just a lot of studies and conjectures (contradicting each other) which are labeled "psychology", and falsely represented as an actual field of science. It is immaterial how rigorously these studies were performed, because data-gathering and observation-making do not constitute a scientific theory in and of themselves.

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@Puachu

I don't know if I'll be able to prove you wrong there, but it seems like common sense to me..I've studied by own behavior and the behavior of those around me in response to different environments and it seems to have an extremely significant correlation, but I understand anecdotal evidence is hardly compelling.

After doing a quick search, I find a few pages on the matter, but I haven't had the time to verify them so do let me know if there's a problem there and I need to look into it more. I'd definitely be willing to do more research on this if need be.

http://marripedia.org/effects_of_family_structure_on_crime
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2771618/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-resilience/201310/why-the-impact-child-abuse-extends-well-adulthood
https://psychcentral.com/blog/how-childhood-trauma-affects-adult-relationships

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@Intelligence_06
@Ferbalot

I also despise semantic arguments, but I am using Wikipedia's crystal-clear definition of psychology, and I intend to win the debate on that point alone. Like I noted at the bottom of my first round, I was inspired by someone else, and in fact I did not have this opinion a week ago. But I now agree with it wholeheartedly.

If psychology is what you say it is, and this study is a legitimate science, you should be able to identify a theory based on these factors. For example, physics has the standard model, medicine has germ theory, chemistry has kinetic gas theory, etc.

Psychology has ... ?

It's important to emphasize that before these fields existed, we still knew that apples fell from trees, people got sick from contact with the dead, and the steam from a kettle cooled off over time. The fields came into existence with the development of theories which provided falsifiable explanations.

The observation of criminals robbing banks, on the other hand, is not explained by any psychological theory (prove me wrong).

For the record, my psychokinesiology argument was supposed to be based on the same logic as Paul Lutus' gourd argument, but I messed it up, because it has an explanation and so would actually be a legit science were additional predictions to hold true. For instance, I would fail a dare to reverse the course of the sun.

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@Puachu

Forgive me for my lack of patience to be entirely semantically correct, psychology as a field of science doesn't cause criminals to rob banks. Psychology is the study of environmental factors that lead to mental developments that lead to bank robberies.

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@Ferbalot

Psychology causes human actions? Are you using the word "psychology" to mean different things at different times in the same paragraph, or does the field of psychology cause criminals to rob banks?

This is not pointless quibbling, because my other interlocutors are similarly unable to maintain a coherent definition of "psychology".

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@Puachu

Admittedly close to the same logic, but not quite. The difference is that there's a clear reason why the sun rises everyday, and there's no reasonable reason to believe that it should rise because of telekinesis rather than what the established truth is. With psychology, the predictions of how a person will act based on their environment isn't usually predicted by other fields and it seems to make perfect sense that it would indeed by psychology that causes their actions based on common sense...if this thing called a human has a brain and their environment changes their actions and people who study how environments change human actions call that study psychology...it's reasonable to say that psychology can predict changes based on different environments causing different outcomes whereas other fields can't do the same. Of course you could argue places like Summerhill only worked because of genetics, and that's definitely a possibility. That's why I say I don't have enough hard evidence to prove beyond a doubt that it's psychology to someone else, but I've seen enough people change based on their environment in predictable ways to definitively assure myself that it does indeed exist.

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@Intelligence_06

You are just confirming my opening statement in the debate.

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@Ferbalot

I predict that tomorrow morning the sun will rise. I base this prediction on my own powers of psychokinesis, which I will use to lift it above the horizon. In a few hours my prediction will be put to the test. If it comes true, do I get to declare psychokinesiology a new field of science? Because this is the same logic you're using to defend psychology.

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@Pilot

You imply that psychiatrists practice psychology, not the pseudoscience of psychiatry. That's like an astrophysicist calling themselves an astrologer. Do you acknowledge how ridiculous that sounds? I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you misspoke, but you continue to confuse the mind with the brain after being corrected.

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@Puachu

Psychiatry and psychology are very much different subjects, I agree psychiatry is a pseudoscience. However...psychology ultimately is neurology. It's simply the outcome rather than the specific details. The forest rather than the individual trees. Take a neural network in a chess AI for example, neurology would be the science associated with looking at how the neural network as a whole was structured, whereas psychology would be looking at the outcome and what inputs lead to what outputs. Saying that psychology isn't real but neurology is...well, that's like saying that a chess AI doesn't have any readable output, which is clearly false because they can play against some of the best chess players in the world. It's also like saying the forest exists but the group of trees don't, again that simply doesn't make sense. Now, to get into the hard evidence rather than allegories for the specifics on whether or not humans have an output determined by input via the environment rather than genetics, I admittedly don't have a lot. I have enough that I'm convinced based on my own research alone that human psychology is real. I've had discussions with a passionate genetic determinist to test a lot of my ideas and I've come away with a better understanding of the subject as a whole, though thus far we remain disagreeing with one another.

Behavior can definitely be measured to some degree with neurology:
https://www.healthyplace.com/personality-disorders/psychopath/the-psychopathic-brain-is-it-different-from-a-normal-brain

And environment does seem to play a role, though maybe not a complete one:
https://psychcentral.com/blog/the-science-of-preventing-dangerous-psychopathy#2

Again I don't know enough to absolutely prove beyond a doubt that we aren't defined by genetics, but I do know that psychology exists. Too many predictions have been made and supported by future findings that had to do with psychology. I do think a lot of therapists misunderstand psychology though.

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@Puachu

Please read what you have wrote again.

Didn't notice it? Read it again.

Read it again and again until you notice something wrong.

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@Puachu

Believe me, it would be nothing short of criminal stupidity to allow me to practice psychiatry, so no, I'm not a psychologist. What I'm saying is brain function can be observed and understood by way of the scientific process, and therefore a science. Psychiatry is (mostly) derived from sociology which is the "study of social behavior", and is much less rooted in science. Psychology and sociology are two distinctly different subjects, and only one of them can be considered a pseudoscience, and it's not psychology.

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@Pilot

I think you didn't click my link to the Wikipedia article on Psychology, where it is explicitly defined as science of the mind. The link is blue, near the top of the page, so it's hard to understand how you could have missed something so obvious ... unless you are a psychologist.

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@Puachu

I think you're confusing psychology with sociology. Psychology is the study of how the brain functions and is demonstrably scientifically accurate. Sociology is a pseudoscience that is really rooted in art, not science.

"Psychologists and psychiatrists are self-deluded con-artists preying on the gullibility and scientific naïvité of the public."

You seem to be using your brain when typing this statement. Now use it a bit more and think about others who actually know how to deal with it.

I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement.