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[Natalcya Katla]

Wasn't it Freudian theory that said little girls want to marry their daddy?

Freudian theory is unfalsifiable pseudoscience.

[Havohej]

Wasn't it Freudian theory that said little girls want to marry their daddy?

Freudian theory is unfalsifiable pseudoscience.

I think all psychology counts as unfalsifiable pseudoscience :p

[Lillith Blackheart]

Wasn't it Freudian theory that said little girls want to marry their daddy?

Freudian theory is unfalsifiable pseudoscience.

I think all psychology counts as unfalsifiable pseudoscience :p

Your use of hyperbole (i.e. "all") invalidates the statement.

[Havohej]

Opinions are valid on their own merit, there's no invalidating a person's opinion.  There's just disagreeing with it, which doesn't effect the opinion itself in the least

[Casiella]

Except your opinion was a thin veneer over a factual statement. "Unfalsifiable" has a technical meaning, and while I personally think of psychology as a "pseudoscience", along with all the other soft sciences, much of it is indeed falsifiable.

[Natalcya Katla]

Plenty of psychology (including all good psychology) is falsifiable. Freudian theory is not. It can explain every conceivable behavior in hindsight, and as such, can not be used to make any accurate predictions about future behavior.

It's about as useful as astrology.

[Havohej]

I just don't personally believe that any science based on what and why people think or feel can be truly, concretely proven or disproven.  Not to the point where any "scientific law" can be stated, anyway.  Of course, there're thousands of psychologists with much more expensive educations who'd probably disagree wholeheartedly with that.  :p

[Lillith Blackheart]

I just don't personally believe that any science based on what and why people think or feel can be truly, concretely proven or disproven.  Not to the point where any "scientific law" can be stated, anyway.  Of course, there're thousands of psychologists with much more expensive educations who'd probably disagree wholeheartedly with that.  :p

Neuroscience is Psychology, and also quite provable.

[Lillith Blackheart]

Opinions are valid on their own merit, there's no invalidating a person's opinion.  There's just disagreeing with it, which doesn't effect the opinion itself in the least

Also about this: Opinion is one thing, however when one makes a statement that contains the words "all" or "never" that statement is often invalidated because the conditional is unapproachable, much like infinity.

[Havohej]

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system.

Psychology (lit. "study of the soul" or "study of the mind")[1] is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of human (or animal) mental functions and behaviors.

Okay, wikipedia's lame for defining things, I know.. Miriam-Webster, instead:

Psychology:
 1 : the science of mind and behavior
2 a : the mental or behavioral characteristics of an individual or group b : the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity
3 : a theory or system of psychology <Freudian psychology> <the psychology of Jung>

Neuroscience:
: a branch (as neurophysiology) of the life sciences that deals with the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, or molecular biology of nerves and nervous tissue and especially with their relation to behavior and learning

My point being, they're really not the same thing at all.

Opinions are valid on their own merit, there's no invalidating a person's opinion.  There's just disagreeing with it, which doesn't effect the opinion itself in the least

Also about this: Opinion is one thing, however when one makes a statement that contains the words "all" or "never" that statement is often invalidated because the conditional is unapproachable, much like infinity.

Everyone knows what hyperbole is, I don't think it's really necessary to point out its use.  I do think that its use naturally identifies a statement as an opinion.

[Ciarente]

The discussion on IRL psychology/psychiatry/neuroscience to might be better placed in the speakeasy? Happy to split the thread if requested.

[Havohej]

The discussion on IRL psychology/psychiatry/neuroscience to might be better placed in the speakeasy? Happy to split the thread if requested.

Indeed, by all means do 

[scagga]

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system.

Psychology (lit. "study of the soul" or "study of the mind")[1] is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of human (or animal) mental functions and behaviors.

Okay, wikipedia's lame for defining things, I know.. Miriam-Webster, instead:

Psychology:
 1 : the science of mind and behavior
2 a : the mental or behavioral characteristics of an individual or group b : the study of mind and behavior in relation to a particular field of knowledge or activity
3 : a theory or system of psychology <Freudian psychology> <the psychology of Jung>

Neuroscience:
: a branch (as neurophysiology) of the life sciences that deals with the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, or molecular biology of nerves and nervous tissue and especially with their relation to behavior and learning

My point being, they're really not the same thing at all.

Opinions are valid on their own merit, there's no invalidating a person's opinion.  There's just disagreeing with it, which doesn't effect the opinion itself in the least

Also about this: Opinion is one thing, however when one makes a statement that contains the words "all" or "never" that statement is often invalidated because the conditional is unapproachable, much like infinity.

Everyone knows what hyperbole is, I don't think it's really necessary to point out its use.  I do think that its use naturally identifies a statement as an opinion.

Thank you. I was a bit miffed when I read to the contrary...

[Natalcya Katla]

As a direct study of the mechanisms of the brain, neuroscience most definitely is the same as "the science of mind and behavior". Mechanisms of the brain are what makes up the mind. And given that neuroscience is taught in basic psychology courses at universities as one among several "schools" or methods of psychological research, then yes, it is psychology.

I personally would argue that even "softer" schools of psychological research are good science as long as they are able to form testable hypotheses and are scrupulous in how they conduct experiments. Even though human behavior at the individual level is more erratic than, say, gravity, if psychologists are able to determine that humans in a representative sample are 70% likely to respond in a certain way in a certain situation, and these findings can be consistently replicated by other scientists, then that is still useful, scientific knowledge. Even when a whole paradigm of psychological thought is essentially proven wrong, like behaviorism was, the fact that it could be proven wrong testifies to its adherence to scientific principles, and the fact that it was proven wrong is also useful knowledge. This is an important part of scientific progress.

Freudian theory, in contrast, can't be proven wrong. There is literally no way to prove it wrong, as there is no conceivable behavior in any conceivable situation which it can't explain in hindsight. And that's why it's not good science.

[Mizhara]

No, it's not psychology. It's biochemistry and biology. Merely related to psychology. Psychology is a faux science simply because it's theories can't be proven right, merely wrong. Yes, you have to learn a bit of biochemistry and biology to properly grasp psychology, and yes there's 'these theories fit for the most part, barring few exceptions' within it that allows psychology to be a reliable field of medicine.

However, it's still not a science, as long as it's theories and methodology can't be proven to be 'truth'. Merely indicative of truth. There's a certain 'Purity of science' XKCD strip that's very good at comparing the various fields. Psychology and even worse, Sociology lies somewhere on the iffy side of the scale.