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How reliable is Graphology?

I was going to bring up that point in a different way. Yairho refers many times to psychology testing and results not being repeatable. Yet latter on we have Yairho saying that his arguments don't apply to experimental psychology.
Mind you experimental psychology was only excluded after they found out that including it showed the OP to be wrong.
 
Mercutio & Jeff Corey, I have found that you are arguing for the sake of argument.
You have found wrong. We are arguing because you are continuing to claim things true that are not.
No, it was you who was wrong in assuming I spoke of experimental psychology. It was you who started talking about experimental psychology which I did not talk about. You have a problem with the term psychology?
No, I know full well what "psychology" is. You continue to use the term improperly. Even after correction, you say you will still use the term "psychology" to refer to a small sliver of what the knowledgeable world knows as psychology.
Now you want to talk about Freud? Freud is taught in ALL the universities which teach clinical psychology. He is one of the most famous people who contributed to the expanded field of psychology even though his theories remain controversial. He is often times referred to when speaking about psychology:
First off, the Goethe prize is a prize in literature. Freud wrote brilliantly. Have you read any of his books? Wonderful use of metaphor, excellent imagery, and clarity even with difficult topics. That does not change the content. Secondly...I have taught about Freud many times. No history of psychology would be complete without some mention of the rise and fall of psychoanalysis (there are still psychoanalysts, yes; there are also still flat-earthers). The same course in clinical psychology will also teach about Galen's notions of the four humours; indeed, our modern vocabulary still describes people as sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic and choleric (or bileous). This does not mean that we currently bleed people for hypersanguinity.

If we do not learn from our past, we do not progress as a science. Teaching Freud in a clinical psych class is perfectly understandable, but does nothing to support your definition of "psychology".
Will this quote not stand on firm ground in a court because of the use of the word 'psychology' and not something else like 'psychoanalysis'? maybe, but that is your huge problem not mine. Get over it or stop posting in forums which are intended for people of all walks of life and not just from the field of psychology.
If you do not wish to be clear in your vocabulary, don't blame others for clearing up your mess. You may be beyond help, but someone could read this thread and think, mistakenly, that you know what you are talking about. You may ignore our corrections if you like; just think of them as for the other people, and not for yourself.
oh, and BTW, Freud's theories still remain controversial because psychology is not a science!!
The theory of evolution by natural selection is controversial, too. Methinks it possible that in both cases, what has happened is that ignorance has gotten all gussied up in its controversy suit and is pretending.
Maybe now you can understand what I am saying.
Yes. You are quite simply wrong; thank you for making that clear.
Lastly, I'm sorry if I have been rude to you two but I really believe you were arguing for the sake of argument which is not what I had in mind in starting this thread. You have to understand that people here are from all professions and their terms are sometimes not the correct terms that a professional in that particular area would use. It is up to you to clarify exactly what the OP is referring to.
Ok, now we have clarified that the OP has used improperly defined terms. Care to start over?
Regards and no hard feelings,
Yair
No hard feelings at all, actually. A question for you, though. In grad school in Physics, do they teach about N-Rays?
 
S
Now you're just plain annoying! You probably know why but I'll explain it to you anyway:

So explain it to me. Explain to me why, if biology is a "science," I can put two radishes in identical pots, water them identically, and three weeks from now, one is going to be a centimetre taller than the other one?

Explain to me why some people are "friendly drunks" but others are "sullen drunks" when they're drinking the exact same amount from the exact same punchbowl?

Do you now see why I'm saying that you don't understand me?

No, I don't. Because I understand you clearly. You're simply wrong.
 
Molinaro said:
Mind you experimental psychology was only excluded after they found out that including it showed the OP to be wrong.
That is just a plain big lie. I never meant to include ex. psychology since I said a couple of times I don't know about it. I said I was talking about clinical psychology because that is what most layman mean when they use the term psychology. You sir, for being a fat liar are excluded from any further comments from me.
 
Your first few posts refer to psychologists performing tests and the basis of your argument centers around the non predictive nature of the results of those tests. Try as much as you want to say you didn't want to include experimental psychology you in fact did include it from the get go. Once people pointed out how it proves you wrong, you started to object specificaly to it being used to counter your claim.
 
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Mercutio said:
The "psychology" you speak of is... not experimental psychology. I suspect that you would get close to 100% agreement that it is not science.
Thank you for finally admitting I was right and I see that you did understand to which part of psychology I was referring to.

Mercutio said:
There are areas of "psychology" where I will agree with you 100%--humanistic psych, for instance, will never be able to explain human behavior

Thank you again for admitting I was right all along.
I didn't notice these two comments made by you earlier in which you whole heartedly accept what I have said.

So why are still arguing? I said it before and I'll say it again. For the sake of arguing.
Will you now keep quiet? We have totaly agreed with each other, what more do you want? Do you have some kind of need to throw up more information so that people will have more appreciation of you? I don't understand this I admit.


Mercutio said:
If you do not wish to be clear in your vocabulary, don't blame others for clearing up your mess. You may be beyond help, but someone could read this thread and think, mistakenly, that you know what you are talking about. You may ignore our corrections if you like; just think of them as for the other people, and not for yourself.
Don't be a hypocryt! If you have ever in your life (and I have no doubt that you have) wanted to address say QM and have referred to it as physics or ever in your life talked about friction and gravitation and referred to it as physics and not as Newtonian physics or mechanical physics then you must bow down and appologize a thousand times.
If you really read some of my posts then you would have seen that I referred to clinical psychology or psychoanalysis the moment you wanted to be 'court of law' precise. The only reason I referred to it afterwards as psychology was so I wouldn't need to write those long words but we would all know what I was talking about.
If it was opposite and we were to talk about mechanical physics I would not have said a word if you used the word 'physics'.
If you can please try and be honest from now on. In hebrew there is a saying that "the paper can withhold anything" meaning that you can write whatever you want whether it be hypocyt, false, true, whatever but try and be more honest.

Mercutio said:
Yes. You are quite simply wrong; thank you for making that clear.
You have admitted before I was correct so how can you say now that I am wrong?
Mercutio said:
The "psychology" you speak of is... not experimental psychology. I suspect that you would get close to 100% agreement that it is not science.
Please please please, try and be honest.

Mercutio said:
Ok, now we have clarified that the OP has used improperly defined terms. Care to start over?
In a court of law the term psychology may not be acceptable if I really want to speak of clinical psychology (BTW, I'm not sure this is true since layman sit in the audience and so is the judge and so are the jury) but here it is plenty acceptable especially after I have said so clearly what I meant.
I thought we already should have started over but you keep arguing for the sake of argument.

admitting defeat is very difficult so I can sympathize with your inability to do so but try, please try to be honest.

Regards,
Yair
 
Mercutio said:
A question for you, though. In grad school in Physics, do they teach about N-Rays?

Personally I never heard of N-Rays. Then again I did not go to grad school in Physics. I have a B.Sc. in Electrical engineering and M.Sc. in Electro-optical engineering. There they do not teach about the story of the so called N-Rays (I googled about it after you mentioned it. very interesting.).

Reminds me of the paper you linked many posts ago about bias in physical experiments. Also very interesting. I passed it to other scientists I work with. Thanks for that.
 
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judging clinical psych by what freud did is like discounting modern medicine because doctors used to use leeches to cure disease.

Even if Freud is non-science, I'd say he's irrelevant to most of what modern clinical psych is doing.

Look in the journal of clinical/counselling psych and judge for yourself whether it's science. I suspect you might be surprised, though it's not my area (got enough of my own problems to be arsed with those of others!).
 
Yairhol, with all due respect, I think everyone here understands you but your understanding that pysychology is not science is...wrong. Jeff, Mercutio, drkitten, etc have patiently tried to explain that to you but you are ignoring it.

I can tell you that I have been following the thread and have learned a lot about the subject matter, I hope you do to.
 
Thank you for finally admitting I was right and I see that you did understand to which part of psychology I was referring to.

Thank you again for admitting I was right all along.
I didn't notice these two comments made by you earlier in which you whole heartedly accept what I have said.
Nice try. Not correct, but nice try.

A- "all cars are red"
X- "this is not true. some cars, it is true, are red."
A- "thank you for agreeing with me that all cars are red"
So why are still arguing? I said it before and I'll say it again. For the sake of arguing.
If you honestly believe this, then you are still unclear on the concept. I find it hard to believe that this is the case at this point.
Will you now keep quiet? We have totaly agreed with each other, what more do you want? Do you have some kind of need to throw up more information so that people will have more appreciation of you? I don't understand this I admit.
We have not totally agreed. Some have tried to correct you, but you have chosen to stick with your incorrect definitions.
Don't be a hypocryt! If you have ever in your life (and I have no doubt that you have) wanted to address say QM and have referred to it as physics or ever in your life talked about friction and gravitation and referred to it as physics and not as Newtonian physics or mechanical physics then you must bow down and appologize a thousand times.
Did you note in my posts where I admitted my ignorance of your area of expertise, and asked you to adjust my counterexamples if needed? Did you see where I said that I recognised that "what the **** do we know?" does not represent physics? I try, when speaking precisely, not to make claims on matters I am ignorant of, and when I find that I was unknowingly ignorant, I try (and sometimes succeed) to thank those who have corrected me.
If you really read some of my posts then you would have seen that I referred to clinical psychology or psychoanalysis the moment you wanted to be 'court of law' precise. The only reason I referred to it afterwards as psychology was so I wouldn't need to write those long words but we would all know what I was talking about.
Did you explain this reasoning at the time? If you did, I missed it, and offer my apologies.
If it was opposite and we were to talk about mechanical physics I would not have said a word if you used the word 'physics'.
My guess is that you would have, had I said something that was true about another area of physics but not about mechanical physicsl. And you should, if I am using too general a term.
If you can please try and be honest from now on. In hebrew there is a saying that "the paper can withhold anything" meaning that you can write whatever you want whether it be hypocyt, false, true, whatever but try and be more honest.
This is a two way street. I have been honest with you. I honestly say now, that if you misuse the term you will be corrected again. That is as it should be.
You have admitted before I was correct so how can you say now that I am wrong?
No, I have not. I have admitted that if you had used a more specific term, I would have agreed with you. The broader term was, is, and will be (if you use it again) quite simply wrong.
Please please please, try and be honest.
Please. I have my reputation here. You can try a lot of things, but accusing me of dishonesty for pointing out your misuse of a term does not sit well.
In a court of law the term psychology may not be acceptable if I really want to speak of clinical psychology (BTW, I'm not sure this is true since layman sit in the audience and so is the judge and so are the jury) but here it is plenty acceptable especially after I have said so clearly what I meant.
You have said so so clearly that everyone understands. Well, everyone understands but you. There appears to be 100% agreement among your critics. Perhaps you really ought to rethink how "clearly" you phrased what you meant.
I thought we already should have started over but you keep arguing for the sake of argument.
Repeating that does not make it true, you must realize. Again, your critics in this thread are clear that this is not a matter of arguing for the sake of arguing. It is a matter of correcting a misused term.
admitting defeat is very difficult so I can sympathize with your inability to do so but try, please try to be honest.
Admitting defeat is very easy. It is acknowledging that you know more now than you did a moment ago. You really ought to try it some time.
Regards,
Yair
 
Reminds me of the paper you linked many posts ago about bias in physical experiments. Also very interesting. I passed it to other scientists I work with. Thanks for that.

Actually, I was looking for a different case, one which was not in that paper. I will describe it here, albeit poorly, in case another reader knows what I am talking about. It was published (at least, where I recall seeing it) in one of the collections of articles from the skeptical inquirer, but the original research would have been in chem or physics journals.

A particular substance (element? compound? it escapes me), when examined (NMR? I don't recall) had a distinctive curve. Other substances had normal-curve distributions, but this one had a distinct "crater" at the center of the curve. It did not fit with theory, but the observations were clear. Over time, others saw this as well, and soon the odd-shaped curve was seen as a marker for that substance. Well, turns out it was wrong. When making such fine measurements, there can always be a reason to throw out this or that measurement, if you get really picky, and researchers were basically confirming the crater by throwing out observations that did not agree with it.

Reading over that, I realize just how poorly it is described. I can't wait to find someone who knows the real story, to see how well I did.
 
Skeptic Guy, As long as I am not confronted with convincing (to me) evidence there is no reason to change my critical thinking.
I quoted Mercutio before admitting that the psychology I was talking about is not science so why are you convinced that it is?
Are you referring to ex. psychology? Because if you are than I have no problems with that. In fact I have no opinion of it at this time.
If several people as opposed to one at some specific place at some specific time think differently than he does, does this make those several people correct and the one person wrong? Imagine you standing in a crowd of sylvia brown fans....a depressing thought isn't it? And I'm sure you would not change your mind. (not that I'm saying the guys here are anywhere close to being like sylvia brown fans. don't get me wrong.)
BTW, I have learned also from this discussion. That's why I'm here.

But please answer me Skeptic Guy why are you convinced that the psychology I was referring to is science when everyone here agrees it isn't?

Regards,
Yair
 
But please answer me Skeptic Guy why are you convinced that the psychology I was referring to is science when everyone here agrees it isn't?

Regards,
Yair

To the extent that "everyone here agrees" that it is not science, I think you will find that the same "everyone" would agree that it is not psychology.
 
Mercutio said:
We have not totally agreed. Some have tried to correct you, but you have chosen to stick with your incorrect definitions.

In post #109 I had explained in detail what I was referring to. this is post #134 and we are still miscommunicating. I fail to see why. If everyone here understands what I'm talking about how come there are still arguments?

Mercutio said:
To the extent that "everyone here agrees" that it is not science, I think you will find that the same "everyone" would agree that it is not psychology.
So now you're saying that clinical psychology does not go into the category of psychology? am I hearing you correctly?

Mercutio said:
Did you explain this reasoning at the time? If you did, I missed it, and offer my apologies.
yairhol said:
1. What do you mean when you say psychology - let's refer to psychoanalysis or clinical psychology for those of you who want to be the most accurate in definition. I will keep using the term psychology but refer to the above two examples.
This or that reasoning is not what's important. What is important is that I had tried to establish a common vocabulary be it because I wanted to write less or because I liked the sound that the word psychology makes. I remind you we're not in a court and we can use layman terms. Especially after I had tried so hard to explain what I meant and I think you did understand what I meant.
And if you want to be super duper extra accurate, then every time I had used the word psychology you should have stated that you I am partly right and partly wrong because you agreed also that clinical psychology and psychoanalysis were not science but they do go under the broader term 'Psychology'. Or don't you agree with that?

Regards,
Yair
 
I'm off to sleep now, it's half past midnight and I get up at 6:00 a.m.
Talk to you again sometime tomorrow.
Good night everyone.

Yair
 
In post #109 I had explained in detail what I was referring to. this is post #134 and we are still miscommunicating. I fail to see why. If everyone here understands what I'm talking about how come there are still arguments?
In point 1, you do indeed say that you are choosing to use a category label to refer to a very small and atypical member of that category. In point 2, you ignore that, choosing to post a definition much broader than the subset you claim you refer to in point 1. In points 3 and 4, you claim that X and Y are science for reasons that do not define science. In point 5, you make a statement of faith about physics given the unlikely event that "all the data about [a] system" are known. Point 6 and the second point 4 are not relevant to this particular argument. In the second Point 5, you make a statement of faith about psychology which contrasts nicely with your first point 5; you do not, however, explain why you deem it possible that "all the data" can be known in physics but not in psychology. (I strongly recommend to you Jacob Bronowski's "Knowledge or Certainty" chapter in his Ascent of Man.) You simply assert that "every person is still an individual and you cannot always predict the outcome of an experiment." (Please note, you did not claim that you can always predict the outcome of an experiment in physics either--your claim was that if "all the data about [a] system" are known, the outcome can be perfectly predicted. Both of your assertions--about physics and about psychology--are thus statements of faith, about what would happen, not what does.) In your second point 6, you again return to a definition of psychology that does not match your chosen definition in point 1.

In sum, you have claimed to have narrowed your definition, but you do not behave in accordance with your claim, starting with your second point.
So now you're saying that clinical psychology does not go into the category of psychology? am I hearing you correctly?
Please remember your calls for honesty.

I am saying that "clinical psychology" is not identical to "psychology". It does indeed go into the broad category, just as meteorology goes into the broad category of physics. You are making a category error here--and every point but Point 1 (above) shows that you are not sticking to the narrow definition you claim you are using.
This or that reasoning is not what's important. What is important is that I had tried to establish a common vocabulary be it because I wanted to write less or because I liked the sound that the word psychology makes. I remind you we're not in a court and we can use layman terms. Especially after I had tried so hard to explain what I meant and I think you did understand what I meant.
There is already a vocabulary that is accurate. There is no need for you to introduce a new one. It would be much easier (and better for you in the long run) for you to simply learn the proper vocabulary.
And if you want to be super duper extra accurate, then every time I had used the word psychology you should have stated that you I am partly right and partly wrong because you agreed also that clinical psychology and psychoanalysis were not science but they do go under the broader term 'Psychology'. Or don't you agree with that?
In points 2 and following, if we substitute your claimed narrower definition for your actual use of "psychology", then you are not "partly right and partly wrong". You are quite simply wrong. I hope that my detailed response to your post 109 adequately explains why.
Regards,
Yair
 
My father (major anti-woo) fired a guy that was hiring PAs based on handwriting, once.

Caius, can we get your father to emigrate here and run for Prime Minister? It would be a welcome change from our current one and at least father wouldn't ask us to "pray for rain" (we've been in drought), and then take credit when we get floods!
 
Caius, can we get your father to emigrate here and run for Prime Minister? It would be a welcome change from our current one and at least father wouldn't ask us to "pray for rain" (we've been in drought), and then take credit when we get floods!
Erm, I hesitate to ask...


































Where the hell are you from? We have nutters here, obviously, but pray for rain?
Oz, innit?
 
Mercutio said:
In point 1, you do indeed say that you are choosing to use a category label to refer to a very small and atypical member of that category. In point 2, you ignore that, choosing to post a definition much broader than the subset you claim you refer to in point 1.
Point #2 was to clarify (if anyone doubted my position on this) that psychology is done in scientific ways.

Mercutio said:
In points 3 and 4, you claim that X and Y are science for reasons that do not define science
I do not agree with you. One of the strongest criteria in exact science is repeatability of experimental results. Another criteria is the ability to rigorously prove these results. You are not all that familiar with some of the criteria for exact science but that doesn't mean they are not correct.
Maybe the term exact science is not how you would term it. Maybe 'hard' science or 'pure' science. Take your pick. This is just semantics.

In point 5, you make a statement of faith about physics given the unlikely event that "all the data about [a] system" are known.
yairhol said:
5. Have we already found all there is to know in physics so we can predict anything associated with it? No. There is still much more to discover. But! Once everything is discovered in certain field in physics we can make a theoretical model of it and predict its outcome. In electricity, give me all the data about my system and I will predict its outcome.
I don't see any faith here. Only pure hard facts as is demanded in exact sciences.

Mercutio said:
I am saying that "clinical psychology" is not identical to "psychology". It does indeed go into the broad category, just as meteorology goes into the broad category of physics. You are making a category error here--and every point but Point 1 (above) shows that you are not sticking to the narrow definition you claim you are using.
Not true again. See my comments above. All of my reference to psychology was to clinical psychology or psychoanalysis. Probably there are more fields in psychology which can go under the 'not a science' category but that is irrelevant now.

Mercutio said:
In points 2 and following, if we substitute your claimed narrower definition for your actual use of "psychology", then you are not "partly right and partly wrong". You are quite simply wrong. I hope that my detailed response to your post 109 adequately explains why.
You just misunderstood my point 2. It is explained in the above comments.

Regards,
Yair
 

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