Hi On Sun, 28 Oct 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Although I do not apologize for being "self-righteous" about > > science's achievements and well-founded validity, I definitely > > regret that it is even necessary to say these kinds of things at > > the start of the 21st Century. > > I'm not challenging the acheivements of the scientific method and > its use in helping us learn more about the phenomenological realm > of psychology. It has been very helpful.
You certainly are undermining them when you assert that they are as equivalently based on faith as works written thousands of years ago and with little scientifically-valid foundations. But it is less useful in > helping us to understand the underlying assumptions of our discipline Wrong. The only way that we will properly understand science and its successes is by applying the scientific method (including large doses of scientific psychology) to the understanding of science. Science is a human activity. Clark and Paivio (1989), for example, demonstrated in an American Psychologist article that many of the qualities that Paivio's research has demonstrated for differences between concrete and abstract terms in natural language could be replicated for psychological terms, and that the findings and the correspondence with concreteness matched quite well claims of empiricist philosophers, contrary to the many philosophical critics of that perspective (and their followers in psychology and other social sciences). There is no alternative to methodical, thoughtful empirical and theoretial work for understanding any human activity, including science. > and certainly not helpful at helping us to understand how we should > apply the information we learn about behavior and mental processes. > I'm suggesting that we should help our students understand the > ontological and ethical dimensions of psychology. Worldviews help us > to do this. Science is a method, not a worldview. To my way of thinking, you do not want to help them to understand the legitimate academic contributions to these questions (e.g., from moral philosophy, developmental research on morality, ...); rather, you want a rationale to introduce a particular religious perspective into the classroom and legitimize it as making a serious academic contribution to the topic. Students, probably especially at a religious institution, already get that at church and at home. Why do they need it improperly introduced into the classroom? Universities are to expand boundaries, not to insulate people by perpetuating pre-existing beliefs that lack academic foundations. As to values and ethics, the one that I would like to see asserted more strongly is the tremendous benefit for humanity of deeper scientific understanding of their natural worlds, including humans (e.g., of the roots of ethnic conflict in the wake of September 11 and continuing events). And this is not something that I think needs to be taken on faith. > > As you can tell, I probably won't > > be signing up for the Christian Psychology list, especially since > > its mandate does not appear to include any questioning of the > > legitimacy of such an enterprise. > > Does the mandate of any of the other academic listserves, such as the > ones operated by the APA, include the questioning of their particular > underlying assumptions and philosophies? Or do they just take them > for granted. Certainly the underlying assumptions of scientific psychology (aka, Eurocentric psychology, sexist psychology, classist psychology, colonialist psychology, modernist psychology, ...) are debated in many settings, perhaps especially in the pages of American Psychologist. And note that you are again equating the legitimacy of a Christian approach (or worldview) to psychology and a natural science approach, as though the two warrant equal treatment. Sorry, but to me the latter has earned its stripes, the former hasn't. Hence, it is premature to act as though it were equivalent to and as legitimate as the others at its foundations. Best wishes Jim ============================================================================ James M. Clark (204) 786-9757 Department of Psychology (204) 774-4134 Fax University of Winnipeg 4L05D Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 [EMAIL PROTECTED] CANADA http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~clark ============================================================================ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
