John, I like your gravity question. If this were Google+, I'd click its +1 button. My wife, who studies these things, says that one of the fiercest contemporary criticisms of Newton's theories was that they depended on a mysterious (magical?) action at a distance.
*-- Russ Abbott* *_____________________________________________* *** Professor, Computer Science* * California State University, Los Angeles* * Google voice: 747-*999-5105 Google+: https://plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/ * vita: *http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/ *_____________________________________________* On Fri, May 18, 2012 at 10:10 AM, John Kennison <[email protected]>wrote: > > > Eric, > > A cannonball shot into the air eventually returns to Earth. In Newtonian > physics, we say that the cannonball does so because the Earth exerts a > force on the cannonball which pulls it back down. Would you say this is a > magical explanation? Why or why not? > > Also, would you say this is an instance of a paradigm at work? > > > ________________________________________ > From: [email protected] [[email protected]] On Behalf Of > ERIC P. CHARLES [[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 2:25 AM > To: Russ Abbott > Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Unsolved Problems in Psychology > > Russ, > I am about to get a bit defensive. I'm not sure why I feel the need to > defend a discipline I am largely disenchanted with, but here it goes: > > While I would NOT want to let "generally accepted" be a criterion for > "solved", I am a bit perturbed by your suspicion that psychology lacks > generally accepted results. > > Psychology has been an academic discipline for over a century, and likely > has more professional members today than any other academic discipline, > especially if you count people who do psychology-leaning neuroscience. > There are several major conferences in psychology that have more than > 10,000 attendees. There are over 1,000 peer reviewed academic journals in > the field. There are at least 10 major journals dedicated to literature > reviews establishing results as generally accepted, and several have been > operating for over 100 years. For a discipline without a dedicated > category, psychologists have also garnered a pretty impressive number of > Nobel Prizes. On what possible basis would you think there was not a > MASSIVE body of generally agreed upon results? > > We don't even have to get to the professional level for evidence: Any > introductory psychology textbook is full of references to published results > that are generally accepted. And a standard-size introductory psychology > text is now around 800 pages long. There are between 12 and 20 standard > mid-level courses in the field, each with a wide range of textbooks filled > with generally accepted results. > > On what possible basis would you suspect there are few generally accepted > results, and what could you possibly mean by claiming that any any accepted > results would probably be 'low level'? > > While, as in any science, some percentage of the accepted results will > later turn out to need revision (sometimes rejection, but more often notes > regarding required circumstances), there is a lot that psychologists know. > The big problem in psychology (IMHO) is the lack of a paradigm that > effectively organizes the accepted results and shows where to seek results > in the future. > > Eric > > > > On Thu, May 17, 2012 10:19 PM, Russ Abbott <[email protected]> wrote: > Perhaps we can approach the question of which problems in psychology have > been solved by asking which published results are generally accepted. I > suspect there are quite a few--even if most of them are relatively low > level. > > -- Russ > > > On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 6:30 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[email protected]> wrote: > Arlo, I agree completely about the process point. > > I was a bit less certain when you said, "something difficult about > psychology is that much of the data has to be collected through someone > else - those [people] involved in the study" > > I assume you would consider a person to be part of the physical world, > treatable in most ways like any other type of object. Yes? If so, how is > your statement different than the following, > > "something difficult about chemistry is that much of the data has to be > collected through something else - those chemicals involved in the study" > > Eric > > On Thu, May 17, 2012 06:23 PM, Arlo Barnes <[email protected]> wrote: > It seems so far science and tech have been regarded as thing, or > adjectives to describe 'problem' - whereas I consider them processes (and > to a much lesser extent philosophies in the) and not necessarily even ones > with discrete ends, but more a recursive approach - I see a phenomena, I > make a 'magic' explanation, I collect data on it, and see if the magic > matches the data. If not, I revise the explanation. If so, I see if it > predicts more data. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Really we are making rules > (that are not perfect and have exceptions, and are therefore not 'done') > and making more rules that govern the exceptions (and those rules also have > exceptions). So we have something asymptotically approaching whatever > objective Truth/reality there is by way of infinite regression. Then if we > are doing tech, we makes things that take advantage of this set of rules > and therefore work most of the time. > I think something difficult about psychology is that much of the data has > to be collected through someone else - those involved in the study. > -Arlo James Barnes. > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > Eric Charles > > Professional Student and > Assistant Professor of Psychology > Penn State University > Altoona, PA 16601 > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
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