"You can't turn a science into a technology until the science is solid, and repeatable. You can't have an industrial revolution until you can make parts."

"If the result doesn't sound plausible, well be prepared not to believe everything you read, even if it's brought to you by scientists. They're people too. They have ambitions. They have grants to find. They have budgets to run. Ask yourself what the evidence is."

"Psychologists are running around at the moment trying to explain why this [unreproduceability] happened. But I'm interested actually in the ones that they did manage to replicate. Because we still don't know if they mean anything useful. All we know is that under the same conditions, which is to say in a laboratory, full of psychology students, people did mostly the same things. We still don't know what that tells us about real life. So what can you do when you come across these kind of claims? You can start by asking yourself if it even sounds remotely plausible. "

Remember: Observation, Hypothesis, Experiment, Analysis, Conclusion.

"But although psychology has been using those [scientific] methods for over a century now, really it doesn't have very much to show for it. Psychology has not become what we call a cumulative science."

The reality is that only when psychology is based on neurology it meets the requirements to be considered as objective as the natural sciences are.

He is actually right about studies. How many times have we heard about research being done on smaller and smaller groups of people? I used to think that studies were good information (some are) but targeted surveys tend to be biased. If scientists are purposely picking people to get desired results it's not a very useful experiment. Plus, consumer culture borrows heavily from Psychology and what people are said to be influenced by. Take any business course and they'll tell you the power of colors or other things that "attract more business". I think the downside to over investing in Psychological medicine is that we become obsessed with making some aspects of everyday humanity seem like a syndrome (etc) with a hefty $🏷️ to "treat". I prefer balance in life and now only look at serious studies showing long-term data across many sectors of American or global life. Thanks and God Bless 🙏👍🇺🇲❤

Indeed. More disorders, more clients, more pills, more profits...yet more unhappiness.

Facts. Thank you.

Yes pls! Fewer studies!

I remember being stymied and trapped by a 'human' resources apparachik about positivity, knowing full well I was actually being milked to utter one of the magic words or phrases that would trigger my expulsion from a job I needed. Why because I am outspoken and expected a level field. In other words I expected the company minion to play by the rules they had published. Yes . I was overcome by anger when I realized what was being foisted on me and I 'knew' it was false. Thank you for having the endurance and intellect to study and expose the made up nature of the big shot psychobabbelonians

"We haven't really been making much progress in that direction ever since [1969] So maybe we need to rethink what we want from psychology. We could ask for fewer studies. We could ask psychologists to spend more time in real settings, with people from more backgrounds and cultures instead of what they currently do which is really party tricks in a laboratory. And this is mostly funded, almost all psychological research is funded by taxpayers money. So we're entitled to ask for that to be done better." Nick Brown, 'Limits of Scientific Psychology'.

I applaud the examination of science, but much of this presentation failed to recognize that healthy curiosity and profitable marketing as the reason many things exist and thrive. Basic human nature. This was a shallow attempt to dig a deeper wider subject.

This is a very good talk.

I didn’t like that the material wasn’t fully shown. I mean what visuals did he in fact use forrr justifying its arguments?

Common sense leads people thinking that only if we are objective we can talk about Science. Scientific sense shows us that Science itself is no more positivistc since, approximately, 20s or 30s with dudes like Einstein and Heisenberg, so the focus is no more on the cause/effect stuff, but on the process. Plus, you don't study only the "object", but the abstraction (the atom, for example, exists only in the eye of the researcher, it is not a factual element). However, It's true that Psychology has many epistemologcal limits, like Psychoanalysis or Cognitive Psychology, I think that we can shift into a more rigorous methodology by embracing Symbolic Interactionism or Constructivism stuff. Science is interaction, science is construction.

The humanities have a better shot at explaining complex human behavior than scientific psychology.

A theory may be absolutely true, yet not testable by scientific means. Just because a theory isn't testable, does not necessarily imply it is not true. The bummer is that if we don't demand scientific rigor, then the theory that pink elephants in the sky are governing our behavior has no way of being thrown out. This is why Freud's theory can be more resonating than Skinner's, even though Skinner's may be more "scientific." Science is very limiting when it comes to explaining human behavior and all the rest of it.

Alright,wait a second , where is the data for these statistics?(about research)

2:30 Both science and philosophy are same thing. Scientists test their theory by making predictions and make progress. While philosophers just sit and talk and stay stuck. But they are good at pointing out flaws in other and conceptualizing. 9:04 Report studies are the worst. As if people are going to know their feelings or going to respond honestly without fearing social norms and shame.

This should have been titled "Why psychological studies are junk".

I didn't learn anything from this Ted Talk

The "scientificness" of any field of study is its ability to predict and psychology is extremely successful at not just predicting but manipulating human behavior Psychological tools are extremely successful at inducing and affecting behaviours such as generosity, honesty, etc. Fields of applications include advertisement, debt collection, elections and more. So, no, psychology is not a pseudoscience but in fact one of the most successful scientific field

Psychology is a religion. When it cannot find a solution, it runs back to pseudoscience/religion 'hand it over to the universe (A God)'. 1 Corinthians 2:5- Your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men (human philosophy), but in the power of God.

Social constructionist argument gets seriously on my nerves - reminds me strongly of a populist political agenda

We need a better science to study the brain, we need neuroscience.

Pointing limitations and flaws and Bringing better theories and methodologies to solve those problems is what scientific method is about. He is doing scientific method while criticising scientific method. The title is self defeating. Most psychologist do acknowledge what he is talking about. But there is no one who could do better because of limited resources, energy and time. Including him.

Very inconsistent and oversimplified examples. All of these shortcomings of scientific psychology have already been considered and there are rigorous methods that have to be met for an experiment to be valid. Psychology is a new science.

Psychology and science should never be in the same sentence

He just stated that he isn’t fully a psychologist, so how will he really understand? There were no scientific evidence backing his statements as well.

So in summary, admits he's not actually a psychologist, gives a few cherry picked examples of bad studies as evidence for how psychology is not scientific, walks off stage.

Get to the fckn point!!!!!!!!!

Lol wtf was that? This was bad o.o