Political Discussions for "Adults"

~~jwb~~ · 08-10-2019, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by elphenor

Focault's first book (which I haven't finished tbh) focuses on psychology and mental illness

he proposes that categorization of certain behaviors as mental illness is political and in conjunction with power

Idk that he uses this example, but you could look at homosexuality

I don't trust shrinks either tbh

But psychology isn't even really a hard science

Maybe I'll give him another look. I just wasn't really impressed with him in the Chomsky debate

OccultHawk · 08-10-2019, 12:12 PM

Quote:

psychology isn't even really a hard science

Do you think that’s the nature of the discipline or the fault of those who study it?

~~jwb~~ · 08-10-2019, 12:18 PM

If I had to guess it's just more complicated and also it's a relatively young science

It's like biology is less of a hard science than physics cause in ways the systems you are dealing with are more complex as they build on chemistry which builds on physics. Psychology then builds specifically on human biology. As a result it's understandable that it's less precise ATM

**Marie Monday** · 08-10-2019, 03:23 PM

Ideas like social darwinism are not the fault of psychology or other sciences of course. That is just a blatant misinterpretation, and if anything real science would have prevented such an idea being spread.
Of course psychology is less exact than physics or mathematics, and that is not at all a bad thing, it doesn't make it inferior. The problem, I think, occurs when people try to treat psychology or sociology etc. as more of an exact science, for instance by treating statistical correlations as causal ones. Feynman has an interesting essay about that, I think

~~jwb~~ · 08-10-2019, 03:25 PM

These days astronomy is apolitical too

But that wasn't true in Galileo's time

~~jwb~~ · 08-10-2019, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarieMarie

Ideas like social darwinism are not the fault of psychology or other sciences of course. That is just a blatant misinterpretation, and if anything real science would have prevented such an idea being spread.
Of course psychology is less exact than physics or mathematics, and that is not at all a bad thing, it doesn't make it inferior. The problem, I think, occurs when people try to treat psychology or sociology etc. as more of an exact science, for instance by treating statistical correlations as causal ones. Feynman has an interesting essay about that, I think

To be fair Darwin himself wrote stuff about how blacks are inferior IIRC

Times change

**Marie Monday** · 08-10-2019, 03:28 PM

That is also true, in a sense. The essence of all science is apolitical, or rather, science is completely apolitical when it's carried out and treated right

**Marie Monday** · 08-10-2019, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jwb

To be fair Darwin himself wrote stuff about how blacks are inferior IIRC

Times change

Didn't know that. Ouch, and I had Darwin on such a pedestal

~~jwb~~ · 08-10-2019, 03:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarieMarie

Didn't know that. Ouch, and I had Darwin on such a pedestal

Abe Lincoln did too.

OccultHawk · 08-10-2019, 03:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarieMarie

Didn't know that. Ouch, and I had Darwin on such a pedestal

You can’t expect a person from the past to be completely enlightened by today’s standards. In Darwin’s time the idea that whites and blacks were intellectually equal was pretty much entirely off the table. In the 1830’s after Nat Turber’s rebellion most whites who opposed slavery simply didn’t want blacks around period. Most white people who didn’t own slaves considered simply killing all blacks a solution at least worthy of consideration. In fact, many northerners had even more calloused opinions than southerners because interaction was so rare.

So unless you thought Darwin was some kind of Buddha it’s not really relevant to what he achieved. It’s very unlikely that any white person reading this would have been so revolutionary if we had lived back then.

08-10-2019, 12:18 PM	#2973 (permalink)
~~jwb~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 4,403	If I had to guess it's just more complicated and also it's a relatively young science It's like biology is less of a hard science than physics cause in ways the systems you are dealing with are more complex as they build on chemistry which builds on physics. Psychology then builds specifically on human biology. As a result it's understandable that it's less precise ATM

08-10-2019, 03:25 PM	#2975 (permalink)
~~jwb~~ Account Disabled Join Date: Jul 2019 Posts: 4,403	These days astronomy is apolitical too But that wasn't true in Galileo's time