The Omission

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There is a blurb in the About section about SciVille's aversion to psychology. Naturally, this may require some explaining. Psychology is fine to a point. In fact, the psychology courses I took were quite fun. However, while it is certainly arguable, it stands far away from the natural sciences.

Colleges and universities differ on this when you simply see what departments are in what schools. Usually, psychology is found in a social sciences school. Oftentimes, Arts and Sciences are all in one school anyway. Then, on occasion, you'll find psychology sitting there in the School of Science along with our friends Biology, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, and others. Well, everybody has their own opinion.

So what is the Science Village stance on this? Psychology studies thought, mental development, and basically anything else to do with the psyche, appropriately enough. Psychologists are studying and coming out with theories on how our own species feels and thinks in response to certain stimuli or lack thereof. In a basic sense, that is all fine and good, but what does this lead to? There are widely accepted theories they churn out about child development, sexual relationships, mental trauma, and other mental phenomena, but a "science" about our own thoughts, feelings, and intellects often means putting each other into groups. Labeling each other. Attaching these labels to people based on more superficial properties: what seems like the innocent reports of statistical social flows is actually the germinating seeds of discrimination. In a way, these social studies have, even if by accident, been reinforcing stereotypes and therefore justifying prejudice. Also, individual humans are just too psychologically different, regardless of age or whatever else, to really draw concrete conclusions from any of these studies.

Now, I realize similar accusations could be made about biology and other natural sciences. After all, we do work by trying to find theories that work everywhere within their own areas. Taxonomy is a good example, since there are arguments about the right way to classify organisms. I'm sure geologists have the same problem with rock and mineral classification. Watching for and projecting trends is how the Periodic Table of the Elements wound up in the odd shape it is in! Medicine really hits the same troublespots as psychology since it deals hands-on with individual cases, and chances are we have all been in a situation when a standard medical fact did not apply with ourselves or people we know.

Of course, this could all lead to a philosophical conversation that could go on forever. I could conclude then that psychology just deals with something about ourselves that makes us unique from one another. I'm not saying it is completely pointless, but, to be honest, there are certain psychological studies that you just wonder why they wasted their money on it! Then again, certain natural science research projects may be just as useless. It is just that the "science" that deals with our thoughts, something that makes us all unique, cannot yield nearly the applicable results and findings as natural sciences, something that studies what makes us all the same.