> In my experience it's usually the people who know the least about psychology or cognitive science claiming that the least can be known about psychology and cognitive science.
Perhaps, but in this specific example, the people who know the most about the topic agree that we don't know anything, and that a new approach is required. As one example, the director of the NIMH recently ruled that the DSM can no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has no scientific content.
Quote: "... each edition [of the DSM] has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."
> Of course the brain is complicated, and of course we're a long way from understanding it, and yet I could look at a scan that showed hypometablism in your anterior temporal lobes and be able to tell you with great specificity about the symptoms I would expect you to manifest ...
This is exactly the problem that the NIMH's new ruling is meant to address -- a focus on symptoms rather than causes. Until we can explain these symptoms, until we can move beyond simple description, mental research will remain a subjective dead end.
> So yeah, there are bad practitioners and bad papers and overbroad explanations, but that doesn't mean that nobody knows anything.
As long as vestal virgins can claim to have been raped and destroy their families without anyone asking some obvious questions, yes, no one knows anything: http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology
> For instance, go ahead and take a quarter out of our your pocket, flip it into the air and see how it lands on the floor. It's pretty easy to predict whether it comes up heads or tails, right? Except no, it isn't ...
Of course it is, the outcome is perfectly reliable if the coin is fair -- the probably is 1/2 that the result will be heads. No clean room or robot are required. I mention this to emphasize the difference between observation and theory -- the theory is perfectly reliable.
Perhaps, but in this specific example, the people who know the most about the topic agree that we don't know anything, and that a new approach is required. As one example, the director of the NIMH recently ruled that the DSM can no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has no scientific content.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...
Quote: "... each edition [of the DSM] has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."
> Of course the brain is complicated, and of course we're a long way from understanding it, and yet I could look at a scan that showed hypometablism in your anterior temporal lobes and be able to tell you with great specificity about the symptoms I would expect you to manifest ...
This is exactly the problem that the NIMH's new ruling is meant to address -- a focus on symptoms rather than causes. Until we can explain these symptoms, until we can move beyond simple description, mental research will remain a subjective dead end.
> So yeah, there are bad practitioners and bad papers and overbroad explanations, but that doesn't mean that nobody knows anything.
As long as vestal virgins can claim to have been raped and destroy their families without anyone asking some obvious questions, yes, no one knows anything: http://arachnoid.com/trouble_with_psychology
> For instance, go ahead and take a quarter out of our your pocket, flip it into the air and see how it lands on the floor. It's pretty easy to predict whether it comes up heads or tails, right? Except no, it isn't ...
Of course it is, the outcome is perfectly reliable if the coin is fair -- the probably is 1/2 that the result will be heads. No clean room or robot are required. I mention this to emphasize the difference between observation and theory -- the theory is perfectly reliable.