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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- Is psychology really a science? (re-upload due to terrible type first time - pls comment again if you want to contribute)
This video features in order of appearance: Luke Jones, Penny Lewis, Daniela Montaldi, Deborah Talmi, Warren Mansell and Ellen Poliakoff.
University of Manchester School of Psychological Sciences: www.psych-sci.m...
Videos by Brady Haran
www.bradyharan....
First, as a psychologist myself, I love the questions Brady asks in this series. Second, I am very pleased to see such a capable group defending the field. On this video, though, I am noticing that everyone seems willing to limit psychology to a study of human behavior, et cetera. I think it is broader and has to include a study of all animals.
I've always viewed psychology as a science, just a young one.
1:14 But if psychology is a subdivision of biology then surely biology is just a subdivision of chemistry because we are powered by reactions between molecules and we are made from atoms but if that is true then chemistry must just be a subdivision of physics because all atoms and chemical reactions follow the laws of physics and so why doesn't every scientist call themself a physicist since everything is just a subdivision of that?
I agree. I am myself doing a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry. My argument rests on stating that use of the scientific method does not by definition make something a science. There are aspects of psychology which are scientific, by which i mean objective and quantifiable. However far too much of it is subjective and often unfalsifiable. My auntie is a Dr. of developmental psych. We have this argument all the freakin' time.
Ultimately, modern psychology is fusing more and more with neuroscience and can often offer causal explanations for many types of dysfunctional behaviors and trace them back to brain malfunctions or learned disorders and often can have quite a bit to say about how to treat them even without medication. In fact, it is quite uncommon to put people on permanent medication because of "chemical imbalance". Psychologists primarily use medication to enable people to get started on therapy.
Its the pursuit of psychologists to investigate questions such as what is happiness and how may we interact with it how may we measure it?
I like the quote: "I'm interested in time behaviour" While there's a TARDIS right behind him in that scene.
Alright Brady!!! Now you have a Physics, Math Chemistry AND Psychology channel!!! :D you have officially made a channel for all my academic interests! THANK YOU!!
I wouldn't ask that question, I wouldn't ask this one either. Instead, if I wanted to ask a genuine question regarding psychology as a discipline, I would ask something along the lines of: "Is psychology a natural science in that it studies material objects?" "Is psychology based on scientific methods similar or akin to those of the physical and biological sciences?" or something alike. Perhaps Brady wanted to ask both of these.
I'll do It.
1.) Lack of objective analysis - Not true. It's objective, there is no space for interpretation in a science. Instead, interpretation could be present in Clinical Psychology, maybe, sometimes. But there is a reason, an important one, and I won't deal here with It.
2.) Lack of empirical data - Not true. As a science, It can provide a lot of empirical data with a wide range of instruments (especially technological ones).
I understand that many of those within the video above said that Psychology is a science because it involves scientific methodology and it is objective, however many geographical research also does the same - does that make Geography a science?
I am majoring in Computer Science, and I get this sort of thing ALL THE TIME from people asking me what makes Computer Science a science. People always view it as nothing but learning how to code a program, but there are so many things that can be studied about computers and computational patterns. A great example of this is Conway's Game of Life. Brady, have you ever considered starting a Computer Science based channel by any chance? I think that would be astounding! Any chance of that?
Not everybody in the world is concerned with physical appearance. Good looks doesn't make a person smart or stupid.
This makes me think of chats I have had with my brother-in-law. He tells me about how the psych majors were so laid back at he school because there classes were so easy, but then I compare that to my psych major roomate who was always ether in the library or on the couch studying.
There needs to be more videos on this channel because Psychology is super interesting!
i believe psychology technically is science in the strictest sense ('science' means the study of the natural order) but it cannot control or manipulate variables as easily without affecting what is statistically measured, i.e. the sentient psyche. this is the crux of the answer. it ought to be a branch of biology, although today it seems like a field of study that forcefully and rather artificially wants to establish itself as a unique pursuit, disparate from sociology or zoology.
You're really speaking my language. You seem to understand science just the way I do :) Earlier I was getting into arguments with so many people because I made the point that science is defined by subject AND method. I don't think psychology is a science just because it mimics empirical behaviourism and develops statistical quantities.
(cont) You're right though. My entire point is really that science is defined by a physical subject not the mimicking of method. I accept real economics and neuroscience. But I reject positivism, historicism, relativism and most empirical methodology from subjects like human action. And I don't even know how you would apply any methodology to the mind itself. The brain is a separate physical subject.
This channel has a great potential.
Awesome videos so far!
Keep up the great work, Brady!
(cont) The other side of that coin is I don't think mimicking the "natural" sciences can invalidate Freud and Jung if they had validity in the first place. But I don't have a clue how you study the psyche. Talking to people is the best way I know, but that isn't traditional "science".
what of the argument that science by definition has to have clearly defined terms which are quantifiable. How can you define Happiness? How can you measure Happiness? I might tell you on some arbitrary scale that I currently feel 6.5 on a scale of one to 10 and tomorrow I feel 13...
yes they do have defined terms, especially in the DSM, but those terms are often muddled and misdiagnoses are common. taking a class is one thing, dealing with patients in the real world is not the same, patients are individuals and each one is unique.
That's because 'ego' is another layer of abstraction. This contributes to the sheer difficulty of clearing up such confusion--there's so many steps between what we're interested in--the mind--from the tools that we currently have.
For psychology to be considered scientific it has to have clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled experimental conditions, reproducibility and, predictability and testability. Psychology is not science. Great video, awesome channel!
(cont 5) And a physicist knows that they use empirical logical positivism to quantify the behaviour of particles, but wouldn’t employ the same method to observe human action or the biological behaviour of the brain.
Neurobiology is part of the physical sciences but its subject is the brain NOT the mind. We can’t observe the relationship between memory and ego under a microscope. It’s like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
i am currently a science student majoring in psychology. at my university you can get either a science or arts degree in psychology. from looking at how the classes are divided between the two disaplins shows that specific kinds of psychology are arts (social, clinical etc.) where as other are more science (behaviour,etc.)
Well my only point was on the character of science. It's subject and method, the relationship between theory and history etc. I wasn't saying psychologists should do anything. I'm only really interested in Physics, biology, economics and history. I've given you your answer on "physical" now btw ;)
"Memory" and "purpose" are human abstractions that we use to simplify conversation. They hide a lot of detail, so they can't be used as a basis for understanding the human psyche. In other words, such ideas are experience-far. We need to develop a phenomenology of human experiences first, by paying close attention to how people live in their world (like anthropologists do, but with more intimacy), before we can even contemplate having psychology as a science on the table. That's what we need.
"I'm interested in time behavior" he says with a TARDIS behind him, haha
I think you're thinking along the lines of counseling psychology from your earlier post, about how people talk to therapists to relieve stress or solve relationship problems. Clinical can be very biology- and behaviour-based. But even something seemingly trivial like relationships are being studied scientifically, often for how the mind works. For example, one study found that people in a committed relationship actually rate attractive potential partners the lowest out of a group of people.
In psychology, we deal with great numbers of variables and are often interested in the interaction effects between variables. The difference between psychology and other sciences is often the amount of experimental control available to researchers. The questions asked and the methods used to answer them follows the scientific process. The application of psychology is also scientific when practiced ethically.
I really hope you keep up with this channel brady! I love all your stuff but I love psychology stuff!
I'm completely tired of answering these methodological propositions now so I hope no one thinks i'm rude if I don't respond but I'll make my point for the last time.
Not just psychology but all science and pseudo-science in general is defined by it's subject AND it's methodology. If a subject isn't physical i don't see how it can be called science. Psychology is the study of psyche (motive). The discipline can mimic empirical behaviourism all it likes but the mind can't be put under microscope.
I find their definition of science to be quite interesting. They heavily lean on the whole hypothesis-experiment-evaluation notion. What's funny is that according to this definition mathematics would not be a science, even though nobody ever questions if mathematics is a science. There's more to the definition of science than whats shown in this video.
and i dont count it as a science but i also did psychology for a year, it was a very interesting subject, but its so pompous and arrogant as a subject i decided to go for the other sciences, what annoyed me was that people were too caught up on referencing each other to make sure everyone got recognition, rather than collaborating and removing those restrictions(i had to spend hours memorising who did what in what study rather than what it showed us), that is where psychology fails in my opinion
"There are also zero scientific instruments involved."
Utterly false. Psychologists perform hard measurements of all kinds of phenomena in their research. Psychometrics has a long history that you apparently are completely ignorant about.
"People that are quick to call Psychology a science typically do not understand what "science" is."
No. The problem here is that you have no clue how broad the field of psychology is. Google "cognitive psychology" and "psychometrics" for a start.
i'm very happy you made this channel, brady. looking forward to future videos :)
Yes I think you're right there. Philosophers are often naive when it comes to science. Francis Bacons take on raw induction is proposterous for example. The various ideas of falsifiability and measurement are just what people focus on when they don't have a subject itself to focus on. My only point is the subject justifies the method. We can call psychology a science if we like but these people interviewed are wrong to say they're doing science because of method. Their method isn't right.
(con 9) I don’t see how we could study the mind itself in any traditional “scientific” sense. BUT THAT DEFINITELY IS THE SUBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY.
So when they claim their discipline is science because of method I think they’re confused about so many things. Empirical behaviourism is for cells and atoms, not actors. Even in physics we only use mathematics because we're dealing with the relationship between such huge quantities. The maths isn't THE THING ITSELF, only a description.
wow - had to pause vid and check out rosenhan. WOW. that fits with my experience, observations, suspicions, and privately held beliefs. thanks so much for posting that. regards.
Just wanna say, I LOVE the guy with the long hair. He is a great speaker and very thoughtful, and he seems to have already thought about a lot of these questions before. Great video.
Meditation is a very broad term which includes all kinds of mental exercises, so what do you want to meditate?
But if you want to think about a problem for example, search youtube for John Cleese creativity. You'll get an early 90's video with danish subtitles about how to think creatively with some good tips, maybe that may help you. It basically boils down to taking the time and space to think about a problem without judging the thoughts (they might be intermediate steps).
Very common "end-products" related to the "soft" side of psychology are advertisements and marketing practices. From the more scientific side, I would mention brain research, depression- and post-traumatic treatments, education methods, drug research etc.
I think that the biggest component they neglected to mention in this video that makes up the biggest reason why other sciences are called science and this one is on the fringe is the recreation of experiments that exhibit the same or fairly similar results. For Psychology it is hard to teach on that classical scientific method of reconstructing experiments and replicating results.
I think the question really means 'how should we study the mind?'
I made two continuations to my first response.
I never said that the mind (psychic) is discreet from the brain (biological). I said that it isn't a physical object that warrants mathematical, praxeological, historical, empirical, behavioural, or positivists treatment. You can't put love under a microscope. You can only observe neurological behaviour and read love poems.
I don't think these people are doing bad work necessarily. I just think they haven't clarified their subject or method.
Cathy I've tried really hard to teach you the nature of physical law and the relationship between theory and history but I can't spend any more time on this. Go ahead thinking what you like.
Psychology is more of a proto-science. We have some of the mechanisms of a scientific discipline down, but we've still got a long way to go before we can be truly considered a science (the "Toothbrush problem" being a prime example of why this is the case).
Of course, the relative lack of mathematics in (American) psychology, even with the "emphasis" on statistics (which is often little more than how to use SPSS or SAS) is also a big issue.
Yes, psychology is a religion, it is just not explicit but it is.
In Christianity there is a concept of a soul and 3 aspects of god i.e. the father, the son and the holy spirit. In psychology you are told there is only You (self-god) with a mind or psyche and 3 aspects of it: id, ego and alter ego.
Those all are imaginary things, they do not exist, yet you are told to believe in them without any proof, only a lot of mumbo jumbo - this is the predominant characteristic of any religion my friend.
(cont 1) First thing; I'm not just being a predictable chauvinist for the “natural” sciences that developed logical positivism (actually quite the opposite. I think one of their major flaws is the assumption that methodology makes something a science).
My main contention is these people don't seem to even know the subject of psychology, so how could they possibly know the method? The subject of psychology is the psyche.
The movement of particles, the huge empirical quantities involved in chemistry (but chemistry is still basically physics), the behaviour of biology, and the actions of animals are components of the physical universe. Even before we go into methodology (positivism, historicism, empiricism, mathematics, praxeology, topology etc) we can see these are subjects to be studied. Once we've exhausted economic and neurobiological analysis I think you're left with consciousness.
The best example of this is perhaps how anti-depressants can be used to enable people to become more active, get a positive feedback loop going and subsequently not need the drugs after they get their lives in order.
I think what you may be thinking about is cases where parents or lawyers are hounding "psychologists" either for access to drugs or for a diagnosis.
(cont3) I also think the guys on the video make some very valid points if you take the broader dictionary definition of science, referring only to systematic knowledge acquired through the 'scientific method'. So, ultimately, the more interesting question is why should we accept one over the other?
You're really focusing on method. My whole point is that behaviourism, relativism, historicism and positivism are methods inappropriate for the study of human action (economics/sociology). But human action isn't even the subject of psychology. The subject of psychology is the mind (psyche, motive). Not the brain (neuroscience). Not action (economics).
I think that psychologists are in the dark over what methods (in plural) they use in their research. That's probably why they resort to appeals from philosophical authority. Surely a science worth its salt can defend itself legitimately without such sophistry...
I guess what I'm trying to say is that while it is true that you cannot put the abstract "mind" under a microscope, it doesn't mean you cannot derive conclusions for and from it. I'll put this in the context of physics. You can't put the "physical world" under a microscope, yet by looking at the behavior of its components you understand more about the mechanics that make it function. (I'm not done yet, unfortunately the character limit on youtube is quite.. err.. limiting)
I find your argument pretty interesting in that it illustrates, in my opinion, the fundamental problem underlying the whole 'is 'x' a science?' discussion, and it's a problem of definition. Science is, after all, a name we humans give to a human endeavour. It's a name that has a lot of history, and has been in use since before we developed a lot of the methodology that we currently consider essential to science.
How does one "meditate" anyway? Does meditation have any hard beneficial effects or is it a placebo?
(con 8) It seems part of a different philosophical tangent than the “natural” sciences too me, but I’m not a philosopher. Five minutes in one of the speaker’s cuts psychology into two disciplines: the study of the mind and the study of behaviour. That’s great, but he goes onto say that the behavioural element isn’t science. AT LEAST BEHAVIOUR IS PHYSICAL, so it will have patterns (laws).
It is a soft subject. The hardest part is when they crunch numbers with statistics software (very often using it as a black box) and with data so bendable and being statistics so bendable, you get a subject that is very flexible to the researcher's view. All you need is money to get subjects and make the experiments and you get your results.
Great video! I was only minutely distracted by the Dalek and Tardis on the long-haired professor's bookshelf. Sorry for not knowing his name.
...and same thing goes for anything to do with processes and things we can't see in general. Given that the human perceptual system is quite limited in scope, we obviously have to augment our senses with instruments which are sensitive to things and processes we animals aren't sensitive to.
(cont 2) I've said SO many times now that the inference of the psyche from the biological behaviour of the brain and the action and thought of animals doesn't mean that psychology ic a science. Action and biological behaviour are both physical and have their respective subjects and methodologies neurobiology (behaviourism) and economics (praxeology). I can't keep answering everyone who mesages me so can everyone watch Feynman first?
i am really glad that you are uploading more to this channel
Psychology can make virtually any claim and offer any kind of therapy, because there is no practical likelihood of refutation - no clear criteria to invalidate a claim. This, in turn, is because human psychology is not a science, it is very largely a belief system similar to religion. I recommend Richard Feynman talking about pseudoscience.
But I do agree with you on the lack of unifying theories in psychology. I sometimes find myself disillusioned with the way things progress in psychology, but it is a very young science (less than 150 years since it started using the scientific methods), so I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt.
Excellent channel. Thank you! I hope this develops as much as numberphile.
What happened to 'PsyPhile' by the way? Was that already taken or something, or is it an intentional pun?
Do a video on sociobiology/evolutionary psychology. Please ?
Would you mind provide me examples in which Keynesianism is a pseudo-economics?
i agree mate :D I'm doing physics at uni, its the best science then comes chemistry then biology/medicine
You can get a glimpse of how vastly the laws of the living are more complex than laws of physics simply by trying to program physincs engine and an AI. While physics can be written as few self emergent equations, the AI as like a large spiderweb of relationships and dynamic prorities. But it is not said that such cannot be fully explored and understood.
Does having scientific methodology make it a science? After all we parts of English require a scientific approach but does it make the whole subject a science or just that part?
You should also realize that psychology started out as a hard science working out the limitations of human senses using all kinds of objective tools and techniques to acquire the data and this tradition has continued right through fads like Freud. You might want to look up B.F. Skinner's work in Behaviorism as well. While the field ran into methodological limitations and has been superseded by the cognitive approach, it was thoroughly scientific and produced many interesting applications.
No, I'm assuming the opposite. Which is why I think psychology bares no relation to the "natural" sciences and is only mimicking positivism.
The psychology is not made totally of science, although a part of it can be considerate as science. Since there is no unifying theories and many times they jump into conclusions, so the part when they analysis the data is where can be a problem, a solid theory of what Consciousness actually is may take us to a new level of psychology.
Economics is not axiomatic deduction, contrary to your statement...unless you think that the economy can be only described in such terms. Unfortunately, the SMD theorem demonstrates that the axioms used to describe the law of demand do not result in a downward-sloping curve in the aggregate, for instance, this undercutting one of modern economics' main bedrock assumptions about the relationship between quantity and price. So these axiomatic foundations are on shaky ground.
It's a Rorschach test with the Greek letter Psi in the middle. I happen to think the logo is perfect.
(cont) I think if you mimic the methodology of the positive sciences when talking about the mind it's like asking how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
(cont1) Like every other word referring to a non-physical entity, it can and will change meaning as society changes, and meaning is not absolute. Our inability to classify certain disciplines as either scientific or non-scientific stems from the fact that we can't reach a consensus as a society as to what science should be, and that the discplines themselves are fairly eclectic
(con 7) But unlike the psyche we KNOW human action is a part of the physical world and can study it as such even if we don’t use empirical positivism. But the only thing we can infer from human action “on one end” and neurobiology on the other is the EXISTENCE of the psyche, NOT its nature.
I don’t know the scientific method of studying the psyche. I don’t even know if it NEEDS to be science.
I know of the traditional pecking order, in terms of what's fundamental--physics before chemistry before biology and so on. But the point is that such an understanding of what science is, is rather simplistic.
I'm not sure what you mean, as I asked before, by 'physical'. This is the problem:
1) How do you define 'physical' in the context of what we study in science?
2) By your definition of 1), is the human psyche 'physical'?
One of the errors is not doing a separation between Psychologies. Each psychology have a method, a epistemology and an object of study specific (well, they should have it). So, it's not the same between behaviorism and psychoanalysis, they are so different they shouldn't being in the same boat just because it's more easy that way.
I love your videos Bradly! Are there any more channels to discover besides sixtysymbols, numberphile and this?
Are you saying that conditions don't exist in psychology? I'm working in a psychology lab for school credit, and I can tell you that we utilize conditions in our experiments very regularly. From 2-3 to possibly 9 from a 3x3 matrix for interaction effects.
Read any science-oriented psychology textbook and you'll see how manipulations occur. Priming is a big one (google it if you don't know), perceptions can be altered (with manipulation check methods), and the situation can differ between groups.
Maybe the main argument surrounding psychology is the way it's perceived, Seems to me that most of us think of a psychologist in the same way we think about a dentist or a cardiologist, meaning, it's like going to the doctor because something's wrong or unhealthy, Should we look upon it this way when the debate about it being a science or not can still be raised? Should we rely so much on something that is fairly new and keeps proving itself wrong all the time throughout recent history?
Actually, I do. May I suggest a book recommendation? I became interested in such matters before university, by reading Steve Keen's book "Debunking economics". Ever since then, I have been quite skeptical of economists when they pretend to understand how the economies of the world operate, since they rely on such shoddy logic, such as the idea that we can just add up the behaviours of individual demand curves to yield an aggregate demand curve that's also sloping downwards.
(cont2) (psychology, for example, spans everything from clinical psychology to the bit of neurobiology that tries to link the psyche to our very physical brain).
I think you make an excellent argument should we choose to accept your definition (although, like Brady said, it might so happen that one day we'll be able to understand the psyche as an observable enity).
i have a massive interest in science, i havent done it to a great level in that ive done all the sciences (including maths) at A level, but no further than that unless you count my hours spend searching the pages of new scientist and the web for more detailed information. i havent heard of a lot of those words before but after looking them up yes i do. Im afraid my expertise have now shifted from science to computers as i spend most of my time learning to program rather than researching science.
I subscribed to this channel before even viewing any of the videos simply because it is one of Brady's.
The one who appears last in the video (they're mentioned in order of appearence)
I actually study physics at university. It's just that I'm not sure what you mean by 'physical', which I haven't had a reply to. As for economic science--what do you think it is? For me, economic science is just as 'metaphysical' (according to your understanding of the word) as politics and ethics, since we're studying the functioning of economic systems, which is a human abstraction in itself far removed from what we study in the natural sciences.
Yes, I was thinking in Freud, but I wasn't trying to diminish the value of psychology.
Notice at the beginning how both psychologists look up and to the left when told psychology is not a science. The man moves his head to the right but the woman leans hers to the left. What is the psychology behind looking to the top left? And does the direction they lean there heads mean that the woman is left handed and the man right handed? (sorry I didn't know there names)
Have you ever taken a class in psychology? They do have defined terms and the things you just wrote, albeit slightly modified so that its relevant to its respective field.
There are many things you can quantify in psychology, especially towards the more neuroscience, brain structure and activity-based end. I see this as like a scale, and there are more scientific aspects to psychology and less scientific ones.
best channel yet, brady. keep it coming.
So how would you define the word 'science'?
No physics. But I love science. If you wanted to boil down my point I was really talking about the relationship between subjects. All "science" as I understand the word is physical. The methodology of each varies. Some are more empirical than others, some are more "positive", but all science is observable. (but science ISN'T measurement). The sciences I accept as value free and sound are physics, chemistry, biology, and economics. I don't know how you could ever observe the nature of psyche.
I agree that the study of the human psyche does seem to have a rather philosophical nature to it, but I think that stems from our lack of access to it. We can observe neurons firing and measure electrical impulses, but at this point we can't quantify consciousness. I do think, however, that the psyche can be analyzed quantitatively through its causality with the right tools, just like study particle physics through causality (as you know better than me).
Have there been studies a sequencially elliminate other environment clues that we might be used as a clock such as us using a sound that occurs at regular intervals, to set the tick tick tick in our head.