I had mentioned that the above TV programme had opened with a quote from Freud to the effect that he had invented a new scientific method for studying the mind. I sneered. On the contrary, I said, Percival Bailey had an old paper in which he claimed that Freud's scientific period ended in 1897. Bailey pointed out that Freud never carried out any experimental tests after that date, and all he did was speculate. "Lie" might be a more accurate term given what Allen Esterson, among others, has uncovered. These boffins are far too polite.
Chris Green took me to task for this (or perhaps it was Bailey he was laying into, not sure about this). I'm also not exactly sure what we're debating, but that never stopped me, especially when I have something less attractive to do, such as setting exams. Anyway, the problem may be that Bailey confused science and experiment, which aren't synonymous. OK, I accept that. And I accept Chris's other point which was that some branches of science, such as deep space astronomy, don't do experiments. Nevertheless, a handy web search suggests that deep space astronomers do call what they do experiments, even if they don't randomly assign planets to conditions. For example, NASA has something called "Clementine Deep Space Probe Science Experiment", and I think their feelings are going to be hurt by Chris's dissing it. So Iet me invoke that old weasily phrase "it's only semantics". Especially since Bailey didn't actually refer to "experiments" but to "experimental tests", by which he means making predictions and seeing whether observations support them. We do this; deep space astronomy does this; Freud did not, at least after 1987, according to Bailey. But my main point, referring back to the opening quotation of the programme, is whether anyone actually thinks that whatever it was that Freud did after 1897 (when he stopped work in neurology), that it could be called "scientific", much less that he had invented a "scientific method". Pseudo-scientific is more like it. Stephen ______________________________________________________________ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips _________________________________________________________ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
