XPost: alt.astrology, alt.astrology.metapsych, alt.paranormal   
   XPost: alt.psychology   
   From: Cord.Hockemeyer@uni-graz.at   
      
   On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 00:19:01 GMT, Lefty  wrote:   
      
   > It would be very easy to prove that psychology does not meet the   
   > criteria of   
   > a science. It is also neccesary to accept most psychological findings on   
   > "faith", since most psychological findings cannot be proven.   
   [...]   
   > Psychologists speak of id and ego, subconscious and mental illness, and   
   > all   
   > manner of things, yet it cannot be proved that they exist at all. No   
   > different than talking about God. These things must be accepted on   
   > -FAITH-.   
   > This is why psychology IS a FAITH, and again the question remains, what   
   > happened to the separation of church and state ?   
      
   Hi,   
      
   just quoting two paragraphs of your longer posting for the sake of brevity   
   -   
   most if not all of the deleted text would point into the same direction.   
      
   Working as a computer scientist in psychology departments at different   
   European   
   countries I see one important mistake in your posting that I see similarly   
   in   
   many every-day smalltalks: psychology is not (only) Freud and Jung.   
      
   Most things you are writing about belong to psychoanalysis and   
   psychotherapy,   
   labelling them as psychology is for me similarly to calling a car   
   mechanician   
   a physicist. Psychoanalysis etc. are based on psychology but that's it!   
      
   And if you look at other areas of psychology - e.g. thinking, learning,   
   knowledge & memory, social & organizational psychology, or   
   neuro-psychology -   
   you will find that their findings are based on and tested by experiments   
   fulfilling all the typical criteria for scientific experiments. There is a   
   reason why (at least in Europe) psychology students get to clinical   
   psychology   
   usually not before the third year of their studies.   
      
   And this does not mean that psychoanalysis, -therapy, etc. are like   
   religions,   
   i.e. strongly based on faith as you write. If you look, e.g., at the   
   psychiatric   
   medications, they are again based on medical findings.   
      
   I think there is one point which may make understanding and accepting   
   psychological findings quite difficult: Many issues can not (yet) be   
   explained   
   as "A happens because of X" but only seen in coincidences as "A and B are   
   often   
   happening together". The human mind and psyche are complex entities, and   
   psychology   
   as a science is rather young (modern psychology started little more than a   
   century ago).   
      
   Just a few comments,   
      Cord   
      
      
      
      
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