Patrick:
True; the social sciences study social values. But at least in
psychology (my major) there is a strong tendency to 'psychologize'
values. Everything is 'just' between the ears. That's true in biological
psychology, where one studies e.g. the influences of certain chemicals
that cross the blood-brain barrier and thus can influence the brain and
thus can influence behavior, but also in personality psychology (look at
how 'impersonal' the Big Five personality dimensions are!), economical
psychology, of course clinical psychology and cognitive psychology,
cultural psychology (although they try to 'reduce' behavior to culture
as well of course.), and even religion psychology. It's I believe less
so the case in developmental psychology and social psychology. But
eveluating psychology as a whole (which it actually isn't!), there's
this heritage of the physical sciences not only to be as 'objective' as
possible (explaining cognition in terms of algoritms run in the wetware
of the brain, for instance, as in cognitive psychology), but to treat
the psyche as dependend on the brain which is just an organ with a
highly accidental (one is inclined to say 'meaningless') phylogenetical
and ontogenetical history...
Erin: A joke I just read:
A biologist, a physicist, and a cognitive scientist were sitting aroun
discussing the great achievements of their fields. The biologist waxed
eloquent about the insights of Darwin's theory of evolution; the physicist
expounded on the implications of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Then the cognitive scientist spoke up " Our greatest discovery is the thermos.
You put a cold drink, the drink stays cold. You fill it with hot soup, the
soup stays hot. This is amazing, for how does the thermos know?
I think it was Rick who quoted Robbins once about psychology "Psychology is in
the state, surgery was when it was done by butchers"
I am in developmental psych right now and have to agree to this harsh
statement--we are in the infancy of developmental research (ha ha)
Erin
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