From: Cathy Reason <Cathym.nul>
Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:38:24 +0100
Archived: Fri, 20 Apr 2012 15:43:06 -0400
Subject: Re: Ufology And Psychiatry - Summary


>From: Eugene Frison <cthulhu_calls.nul>
>To: <post.nul>
>Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:45:04 -0500
>Subject: Re: Ufology And Psychiatry - Summary

<snip>

>The research that is conducted in psychology is done according
>to the standards of the scientific method, using either
>qualitative or quantitative methods or both. It makes extensive
>use of induction, deduction, and abduction (the three modes of
>inference). It uses controlled experimentation in laboratories,
>observation in natural settings, computational modelling, and
>neuropsychological methods to name but a few.

Evidently your notion of the scientific method is something that
depends on a lot of complicated procedures and elaborate
constructions of logic. To me this involves a serious
misunderstanding about what science actually is - and unlike
you, I don't think all this is just a matter of opinion.

The cornerstone of science is: You develop hypotheses and then
you test them. Without this, your elaborate methodological
rituals are no better than alchemy, and your reverence for logic
is just the modern equivalent of Medieval rationalism.

The sort of methodolatry which is prevalent in the social
sciences calls to mind the state of astronomy before the time of
Johannes Kepler. Astronomy was considered in the Middle Ages to
be one of the liberal arts - something which could be understood
entirely in terms of logic and esthetics. The modern notion of
astronomy as an empirical science would have been quite alien to
the medieval mind. It was originally alien to the mind of
Kepler, whose eventual abandonment of Medieval rationalism and
conversion to modern scientific empiricism can be regarded as
the beginning of astronomy as a true science.


Cathy



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