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Religion and the APA

Started by doorknob, February 14, 2017, 08:56:51 AM

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Mr.Obvious

Quote from: Cavebear on February 15, 2017, 02:53:50 AM
So, what is your day job?  Are you a sociologist?

Nope, became a social worker.
I went and got a bachelor degree before doing my MANABA (masters na (=after) bachelor).
Maybe i'll one day do something with my masters. It means better pay if I find a job in it. But while my grades were alright, I always felt I'd make a better social worker than a sociological researcher.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Cavebear

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on February 15, 2017, 02:59:13 AM
Nope, became a social worker.
I went and got a bachelor degree before doing my MANABA (masters na (=after) bachelor).
Maybe i'll one day do something with my masters. It means better pay if I find a job in it. But while my grades were alright, I always felt I'd make a better social worker than a sociological researcher.

Then go with it and do good work...
Atheist born, atheist bred.  And when I die, atheist dead!

SGOS

While, I'm not heavily invested in how sciencey psychology may or may not be, it does gather data, publish, review, and attempt to verify.  Sure, there are charlatans in the field, but the approved methodology is much more organized than unsupportable "common wisdom".  Even if the collected data is not in the category of mathematical proofs, it does become part of a knowledge base that can be used to identify and reform common notions that don't correspond with reality, just as hard science attempts to do.

Blackleaf

Quote from: Cavebear on February 15, 2017, 02:40:46 AM
Psychology is a soft science, meaning that we don't have mathematical bases to support it.  YET...  All other branches of science were once "soft" too.  At some point (with evidence growing daily), psychology will eventually become "hard science".

Look up "How to do an ANOVA" and tell me we don't have math. Fortunately for me, though, we now have software that does the math for us. I don't know if psychology will ever become a "hard science." There's too many unpredictable variables involved in human behavior.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Blackleaf

Quote from: SGOS on February 15, 2017, 08:03:55 AM
While, I'm not heavily invested in how sciencey psychology may or may not be, it does gather data, publish, review, and attempt to verify.  Sure, there are charlatans in the field, but the approved methodology is much more organized than unsupportable "common wisdom".  Even if the collected data is not in the category of mathematical proofs, it does become part of a knowledge base that can be used to identify and reform common notions that don't correspond with reality, just as hard science attempts to do.

I don't know about charlatans, but even medical science has people like Andrew Jeremy Wakefield who claimed that vaccines caused autism. Research has to be peer reviewed, and anyone seeing your research could attempt to replicate the study and see if they get the same results. When the results can't be replicated, or the researcher makes false claims that the data doesn't support, they are discredited. Psychology is no different.
"Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,
Born under one law, to another bound;
Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound."
--Fulke Greville--

Baruch

A lot of research, peer reviewed, is faked ... particularly in sociology.  Even in medicine, because drug trials are expensive to duplicate ... this helps drug companies profits.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

SGOS

Quote from: Blackleaf on February 15, 2017, 10:01:29 AM
I don't know about charlatans, but even medical science has people like Andrew Jeremy Wakefield who claimed that vaccines caused autism. Research has to be peer reviewed, and anyone seeing your research could attempt to replicate the study and see if they get the same results. When the results can't be replicated, or the researcher makes false claims that the data doesn't support, they are discredited. Psychology is no different.

Exactly, I brought up Charlatans to clarify that they infiltrate any "science" or any "thing".  I did not intend to create the impression that psychology is some hokey equivalent of astrology.  I'm getting the impression that some posters might be thinking along those lines, and that's misleading.  Psychology is a dynamic recalibrating methodology that seeks to correct it's own mistakes, just as physics or medicine.

It differs perhaps in that the complexity of the human mind is more difficult to measure and study than the material aspects of what people are calling the "hard sciences."  But psychology as a methodology doesn't just throw up it's hands and say, "Fuck it.  It's just to hard to measure this stuff, so we might as well just pull ideas out of our asses."  The study of the human mind is just a lot more complicated than understanding the Laws of thermodynamics.

This is not the fault of psychology.  It's just a more difficult area of study.

Mr.Obvious

#37
I wouldn't say that particularly more sociological research is faked, relative to other research-branches.
Problem is though, Like with psychology, that you can argue if you are measuring what you claim to be measuring, using correct questions, interpreting data right, choosing adequate break-off points in percentages as to when a subject is concidered a or b,  ...
Replicability can be a bitch. And as such I think a lot of results aren't faked, it's more Like they are up for debate.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

SGOS

Quote from: doorknob on February 14, 2017, 10:37:55 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB7Dlwaufyk
I'm just posting this for people who are interested in why I bring this up.

There is a lot here that resonates.  I could bring up a lot of things, but one of her points about Sigmund Freud provides food for thought.  Freud overreached on a lot of his conclusions.  That's not uncommon in a new field that has no knowledge base to work from.  Bring up psychology and say the word "Sigmund" and many people will immediately point out that Freud was a nut.  Maybe he was.  He was also a cocaine user.  But many people simply reframe the issue and imply that since Freud was wrong, psychology must be wrong.  It's only implied of course, but a meme is established that everything Freud initiated must therefore be wrong.  This is the same fallacy we see theists frequently using.  They ignore the big picture, and focus on a single issue in an attempt to distract to gain an edge.

We shouldn't do this.  Freud was just a pioneer.  Darwin made similar mistakes, although he was quicker at owning up to the areas that could not be understood until DNA was discovered, when others could work out the details.  Neither of these pioneers did most of the work.  Their actual contributions were data poor and pitiful in comparison to what was/is yet to be learned.

I think a lot of people expect too much of pioneers, like they have to get it all right on the first trial, but pioneers crossed rivers in covered wagons.  They got stuck in the mud.  Many of them died.  It was hard and they made uncountable mistakes.

I like to give credit to Freud for his one, and possibly only contribution to psychology.  He basically said, "There is a lot more to our minds that effect us in ways that we ignore or deny.  We are filled with chaos in areas of our minds that seems out of reach of our consciousness, but I don't believe it's totally out of reach.  Some of it can be understood if we want to take a closer look."

He got the ball rolling, just like Darwin.  He was ignorant in many areas, just like Darwin.  He was premature in trying to explain it all in one fell swoop, but getting the ball rolling is not a small thing, and certainly not a failure.

Baruch

Example ... WebMD magazine, Sept 2016 ,,, big study of women (74,000) over years, starting with young women without any significant health problems ... after X number of years, women who were regular church people (one or more times per week) had 33% less mortality.  Of course some people deny psychosomatic phenomena.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

Mr.Obvious

Don't get me wrong, baruch. There is bullshit research out there.
I'm just saying I don't know if false research is relatively more present in sociological research.

That would require sociological metaresearch. But hey, if you are right, that might do us fuck all.
"If we have to go down, we go down together!"
- Your mum, last night, requesting 69.

Atheist Mantis does not pray.

Baruch

Quote from: Mr.Obvious on February 15, 2017, 02:18:49 PM
Don't get me wrong, baruch. There is bullshit research out there.
I'm just saying I don't know if false research is relatively more present in sociological research.

That would require sociological metaresearch. But hey, if you are right, that might do us fuck all.

I read it was more prevalent in sociology ... somewhere.  But not unknown even in medicine.

Here is a professional study of misbehavior in pharmacology:
https://www.elsevier.com/editors-update/story/publishing-ethics/bias-in-research-the-rule-rather-than-the-exception

Here is an example from psychology:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/scientists-replicated-100-psychology-studies-and-fewer-half-got-same-results-180956426/
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

fencerider

religion is a coping mechanism. huh! I got a better coping mechanism. I just point my finger at some body and say "he did it. its all his fault". all better, problem solved
"Do you believe in god?", is not a proper English sentence. Unless you believe that, "Do you believe in apple?", is a proper English sentence.

SGOS

Quote from: fencerider on February 15, 2017, 11:35:28 PM
religion is a coping mechanism. huh! I got a better coping mechanism. I just point my finger at some body and say "he did it. its all his fault". all better, problem solved
Religion uses that too.

doorknob

My coping skill is to just not deal with anything.

Let me just say that it's not a healthy coping skill. Very unproductive. Oh wait Christians do that too!