Tipsters:
There is something going on with the history and systems class that it
takes a long time to see (sometimes even to those who teach it!). To put it
in a slightly different context, think of the course as being a problem the
students are trying to solve. One of the things we teach in a seminar on
problem solving is that many problems are intransparent. One reason is that
sometimes the solution involves resources not available, another is that
the goal or solution is not one the group wants to see or to admit to. So,
you get a bunch of students with very varied interests. I find that those
students who see the benefit of a scientific body of knowledge behind
psychology and those interested in grad school to participate in that body
of knowledge, "get it". Those who are just interested in "helping people"
but don't believe that there can be any better way of helping than
developing empathy and a few clinical skills (i.e., who are seeking truth,
for lack of a better word) are strongly resistant to attempts to get them
to understand. I try to bring in as many examples late in the course as I
can of how the scientific principles and data are applied in various
settings that they might not expect or predict (an example being the US
miliary's use of classicial conditioning to increase the "kill" or "shoot"
rate from about 15% of soldiers firing in WWII to about 85% during
Vietnam). I have had much more luck getting them to see how the science of
psychology can have benefits (sic) far beyond the laboratory. However, some
of them still come back to the old homestead, "Psychology is the study of
people and they are spiritual and are too complex to reduce to formulas."
These people don't see any problem with insurance tables, life expectancy
charts, risk assessment, etc. they just don't think it is "really science"
no matter how well what we do fits within the definitions. It does not
matter to some, either, that Sigma Xi, or Science, or Nature, or (in
frustration he adds) if Yahweh herself were to proclaim on CNN this evening
that psychology is a science they would argue that she was speaking
metaphorically but that people are really too complicated to study
scientifically.
Sigh
Tim S.
_______________________________________________________
Timothy O. Shearon, PhD
Albertson College of Idaho
Department of Psychology
2112 Cleveland Blvd
Caldwell, Idaho
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
208-459-5840
