Psychology 489/689
Fall, 2006
Daryl J. Bem
I. Empiricism: Knowledge obtained only through experience (senses).
A. The 18th Century British Empiricists: Locke, Berkeley, HumeB. Metaphysical Propositions, Agnosticism, and Atheism
1. Questions and assertions that can be neither confirmed nor disconfirmed by empirical means (observations) are "metaphysical" propositions" and are not to be permitted in scientific discourse. Popper's Falsifiability Criterion: An empirical proposition is one that is falsifiable in principle. Thus the explanation that a pet bird lived (or died) because it was God's will is not falsifiable and is, hence, metaphysical. As a theory, "God's Will" explains everything and, hence, explains nothing.)2. Different from technically difficult questions (Is there a mountain on the dark side of Pluto?) or definitional (analytic) questions (Which is really the left side of this room?)
3. Thus, scientist qua scientist is an agnostic on metaphysical questions--including religious questions. (A gnost = Unknown/unknowable)
II. Criteria for a "good" theory
A. Empirical AccuracyB Deductive Fertility: How many predictions (deductions) can be made from the theory?
C. Parsimony: How "simple" is it (i.e., fewest number of assumptions, axioms, or generating principles)? (Cf. Ptolemy and Copernicus on the solar system)
D. Generality: How many phenomena can it embrace?
E. "Understanding reality" has not been a decisive criterion (e.g., quantum theory)
III. The Context of Discovery versus the Context of Justification
IV. Determinism: All effects have causes. There are orderly laws governing the universe. Nature is not capricious. If a closed system of variables is in State A at time 1, then there are laws that enable us to predict the State of the system at any other time 2. If A then B. Nature will not change the laws themselves over time. [Wow your friends: "The differential equations of motion of the system do not contain time explicitly"]
A. If prediction not borne out, assume (1) Variables not measured correctly; (2) Not all variables accounted for (not a closed system); (3) Theory wrong; correct law not discovered yet. But determinism itself is not challenged.B. If system cannot be closed or all variables cannot be measured or accounted for-: science adopts statistical determinism (e.g., "30% probability of rain tomorrow"). Strict determinism is still assumed to be operating. Statistical statement simply reflects our ignorance, not a state of nature. We do not assume that "God's will" or "free will" accounts for an erroneous forecast.
C. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle does not disprove determinism--"If A sometimes not B"--but renders it untestable: We can never completely assess A or B.
V. Psychological Determinism and the Ideology of Free Will
A. Invoking "free will" as an explanation of some behavior is, from a deterministic point of view, simply an admission of ignorance, not an affirmative empirical assertion about causality. As more causes are found, "free will" retreats correspondingly.B. The assertion that one's sexual orientation is "chosen" merely pushes back the scientific question of what variables cause one to "choose" a particular orientation.
C. Psychological Determinism clashes with Western ideology and Christian theology. Criminal responsibility, prediction and intervention, "voluntary" military service, surrogate motherhood.
D. The problem of non-coercive persuasion.
E. How, then, can individuals differ in "will-power"?
VI. Ideology of Science I: "Normal" Science vs. Paradigm Shifts (Kuhn)
VII. Ideology of Science II: Which questions get asked, how they are framed, how they are tested.
A. Which Questions: What interferes with the process by which male and female children become masculine and feminine adults?B. Framing: Meteorites. What causes homosexuality? vs. What causes sexual orientation?
C. Methods are themselves theory driven (e.g., masculinity-femininity scales vs. androgyny)
D. Accordingly, the distinction between the Context of Discovery & the Context of Justification gets blurred. Both have extra-scientific elements.
VIII. Ideology of Science III: Determinism & Empiricism are themselves metaphysical articles of faith. "Working assumptions" to get the enterprise off the ground. If one accepts them (or at least, empiricism), however, then it is possible to evaluate one theory against another (e.g., creationism versus evolution, the reproductive theories of some "primitive" societies versus "scientific" theories of reproduction.) Science becomes--at least in principle--self correcting. The "real world" bites back and enables one to separate reliable knowledge from nonsense.