Chalres Darwin: the most influential psychologist in history

[steve_bnk]

And a derail.

Pointing out how your baseless assertions are absurdly wrong is not a "derail" it is my duty.

LOL - coming from someone who has only posted baseless assertions against my posts! Sources, please, or you're as baseless as you like to call others. Hermano, don't throw stones at another's roof when yours is made of glass.

We can make this a a nice exchange of information or a flamewar. It's easy... one flame at a time. On the other hand we can quote sources and refrain from including hot language.

As to the assertion Darwin said we should study other animals to understand our own psychology, I see two shrieking chimps flinging feces at each other.

Looks like Darwin was on to something...

 

[fromderinside]

How old was Darwin in 1814?

Well, experimental psychology dates from as early as 1796 to 1820 when Bessel formalized the 'personal equation'.

From "

Mollon, J.D. and Perkins, A.J. "Errors of Judgement at Greenwich in 1796​

"​

http://www.albany.edu/~scifraud/data/sci_fraud_3740.html​

The incident, recorded in the printed version of the
Greenwich observations and noted by von Lindeneau in 1816 (ref. 2), prompted Bessel at
Konigsberg to study differences between himself and other well-practised observers(3). Bessel
introduced to astronomy the concept of the ‘personal equation', an attempt to correct for the
constant errors of particular observers, and his measurements led to the general realization that
perceptual and cognitive processes took a quantifiable time. This astronomical interest in the
personal equation in turn gave rise to the studies of reaction times and order judgements that
dominated the first laboratory of experimental psychology, founded by Wundt in Leipzig in 1879
(refs 4-6); and chronographic instruments, developed by astronomers to minimize personal
differences, provided the necessary apparatus (7, 8). Historians have taken Kinnebrook's
dismissal to be the event that gave birth to experimental psychology (9)"'. Drawing on previously
unknown correspondence and a new analysis of the raw data, we here reexamine the events
around 1796.

 

[fromderinside]

Actually, ideological dung is bad for science. For example, you are repeating the anti-scientific attitudes of the mid 20th century. The good news is that such anti-scientific prejudices are losing ground:

http://www.psychology.sunysb.edu/ewaters/345/1_2009_freud/craemer_defenses today.pdf

Recently, the negative conclusions of Holmes have been called into question. Paulhus et al. (1997) pointed out that "equally careful reviewers (Cooper, 1992; Erdelyi, 1985) have drawn much more favorable conclusions from the same literature" (p. 568). In fact, defense mechanisms and defensive processes are being discussed today across the broad field of psychology.

Although there were procedural errors in many of the early experimental studies of defense, the real sticking point in the refusal to accept the conclusions of these earlier studies was that they implied the existence of
unconscious cognition (see Lazarus, 1998). Yet, recently cognitive psychologists have rediscovered the existence of unconscious mental processes. Virtually every leading cognitive psychologist today accepts the premise that mental processes go on outside of awareness (e.g., Greenwald, 1992; Jacoby, 1991; Kihlstrom, 1987; Roediger, 1990; Schachter, 1987).

Currently, any basis for skepticism in academic psychology regarding the existence of "significant unconscious phenomena has crumbled in the face of recent research" (Greenwald, 1992, p. 773). Although this research has not focused on motivated unconscious processes such as defense mechanisms, it does provide support for the existence of unconscious mental processes, which is a requisite for defense mechanisms.

Psychologists in the field of social psychology have continued to (re)discover the existence of processes by which humans deceive themselves, enhance self-esteem, and foster unrealistic self-illusions. These defensive processes have been "relabeled or rediscovered under the aegis of social cognition or other current theoretical frameworks" (Baumeister, Dale, & Sommer, 1998, p. 1116). "Certain core concepts, for example, cognitive dissonance, were simply euphemisms for the study of defense mechanisms" (Paulhus et al., 1997, p. 563).

Freud didn't set back the progress of psychotherapy. It was the Freud wars that did it, the cultural war between those who were horrified by Freud and those who were enthusiastic. In fact, the decades following Freud, which are the years of the Austrian diaspora and creating of the psychoanalytical hegemony in the clinic were the years of Carl Rogers, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, and Fritz Perls, all psychoanalytically trained (except Rogers, who nevertheless was theoretically influenced by Otto Rank, an Austrian psychoanalyst of Freud's first batch of followers). And in psychology proper, they were also years of great discoveries which in large degree had nothing to do with Freud and were not set back by the Freudian hegemony. There is no evidence of a "dark ages" in psychology in that period (which more or less covers between 1930-1970 or 1940-1980, take your pick), and instead it was quite fruitful both in psychoanalytic and non-psychoanalytically inspired developments.

So I call bullshit.

And if you have any intention of rebutting this, go ahead, make my day, I have a large stash of documented evidence to reply with, which I have been itching to unpack and throw around generously.

......

"Mind" as well as "instinct" are outdated words but still useful. Grosso modo, I do believe in mind (i.e. cognition and emotion) and instinct (i.e. inherited behavioral factors).

Nice try. A little anti-scientific accusation, a little hand waving, a few gratuitous quotes, and wallah we have your psychology.

So, hell no, I'm not following some antiscientific track.

I described what science is. Its a thread of continuous progress from an inception point. You are spouting stuff from a recycling behavior to genetics view bound up in a little 80% recidivism therapy usefulness that is just now transitioning from structure to process after venturing from structure behaviorism to structure genetics over the last century. (sorry about the use of philosophy terms however they come from  Percy Bridgman a nobel prize winning physicist) Your very quotes validate my claim that psychology has been a recycling dung heap competing of structure and function driven by nature or nurture for over 150 years. Anytime one see a re-discovery in a quote one is alerted to the truth of what I write.

Psychophysics, that branch of psychology that has had a continuous thread of discovery and insight since the personal equation, just keeps true to analyzing process and increasing basis for theory. Can't say that for the stuff it looks to be that you are preaching. Not an accusation mind you, just a too narrow perspective, You write from what seems to be in apologetic slant to those wonderful psychologists who are not back in favor. For instance the terms you accept as not being very useful (ie instinct, mind) and the others you seem to be promoting (unconsciousness) reflect an thing point of view for the study of neuroscience (I like more descriptive words don't you).

This brings me to the second thread of my critique, nature-nurturecology verses neuroscience seen from a consistent point of view over time of comparative or evolutionary neuroscience. Now we are at least referencing some of the same material, but, now Darwin is seen in context of behavior, society, neuroscience and can be traced forward as a continuous thread rather than patched into what others did to relieve themselves. For instance it relates to Lamarck and Darwin's grandfather Erasmus Darwin, Karl von Linne (Linnaeus), and even the geologist Charles Lyell. Now we have the theory of evolution fitting into a developing scientific context. (from Pre-Darwininan Theories http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_1.htm)

I don't blame you for your sentiments. They reflect a majority point of view within populi psychologae. There's always such risk when one delves into a cultural web of thought with new tools. Its often forgotten that the tools transcend the cultural web, just as mathematics transcends physics, chemistry, ecology economics and opinion, leading to tendencies to emphasize the field of study (cultural web) rather than the science of the tools (observation, repetition, public demonstration, experiment, publication, validation, theory). Hell my critique might even apply to current status in Physics if you read the current issue of Scientific American (A Crisis in Physics).

Gosh ain't science and the internet wunnerful.