“...psychologists and the like are not scientists...”
I beg to differ. I earned a degree in psychology and attended a year of Grad School in Social Psychology 50 years ago. In those days, one of the most carefully discussed topics in the field was “what is it that we can SCIENTIFICALLY study as psychology?” These individuals would have failed that part of the course.
We made a real effort in those days to make the study of behavior (the scientific definition of psychology) as rigorous and fact oriented as physics. I consider myself a scientist; I can’t see how the ‘psychologists’ in this group even got into Graduate School.
“...psychologists and the like are not scientists...”
I beg to differ. I earned a degree in psychology and attended a year of Grad School in Social Psychology 50 years ago. In those days, one of the most carefully discussed topics in the field was “what is it that we can SCIENTIFICALLY study as psychology?” These individuals would have failed that part of the course.
We made a real effort in those days to make the study of behavior (the scientific definition of psychology) as rigorous and fact oriented as physics. I consider myself a scientist; I can’t see how the ‘psychologists’ in this group even got into Graduate School.”
Yes, social scientists tried mightily to apply scientific methods, but the data and variables on which they tried to apply the methods of hard science simply cannot be controlled in the way hard science data can. After taking many courses with professors who kept protesting too much how rigorously scientific and statistical they were being and teaching us to be, when it became clearer and clearer that for the subjects we were studying there are always too many other variables in play, variables they could never be separated out.
I realized that these fields, while interesting, were being misrepresented. They would have been better to just say they were observing behaviors of individuals and groups and providing some insights and tentative generations. These 1,600 are acting out of personal bias, not science.
I got a degree in Psych because that was the only Major I could get in what was left after I met Pre Med requirements. It was a 30 hour Major. That said, it included 4 semesters of Stats and a Senior Honors Thesis on Experimental design with Calculus. It was once a rigorous field of study. Some of my professors were grad students of the names in the textbooks. George Gamov actually did perception work with rattlesnakes, if you can believe it.
No disrespect intended toward you or anyone else who is actually a real behavioral scientist - I should have phrased my view better. I simply see too many unqualified people calling themselves scientists and using that label to give their views the weight of authority to a gullible news media.