It seems to me it’s even worse: that when once in a while some theories say something falsifiable in principle, most psychologists don’t care, because they are more interested in learning “what X said” than whether ‘what X said’ corresponds to the territory. (Or maybe I just had shitty education.)
For example, Freud predicts that people who don’t have enough sex will instead find some other activity, such as art. On the other hand, Maslow predicts that people will first attempt to get sex, and only after they get it they will care about things like art.
So this is a rare situation where two famous psychologists were talking about the same topic, made predictions, and those predictions clearly opposed each other. And it’s like no one cares enough to make an experiment, which is guaranteed to falsify at least one of those predictions (possibly both if there is no relation between the quantity of sex and the art produced). Whichever of these two theories is right (at least in this specific aspect), its proponents should be doing the experiment, making the result popular, and rubbing it in the faces of their opponents all the time. But no one cares. And that leaves me with an impression that neither side actually cares about whether their favorite theories are true.
an experiment, which is guaranteed to falsify at least one of those predictions
Why do you think so?
Assume we run the experiment and 60% go Maslow way, 40% go Freud way. We try to replicate and 55% go Freud way, 45% go Maslow way. The results from running the test on undergrads at Somecollege show this and the results from running the test on middle-aged adults living in Boonieville show that.
Keith E. Stanovich (member of CFAR’s board of advisors) in How to Think Straight About Psychology
It seems to me it’s even worse: that when once in a while some theories say something falsifiable in principle, most psychologists don’t care, because they are more interested in learning “what X said” than whether ‘what X said’ corresponds to the territory. (Or maybe I just had shitty education.)
For example, Freud predicts that people who don’t have enough sex will instead find some other activity, such as art. On the other hand, Maslow predicts that people will first attempt to get sex, and only after they get it they will care about things like art.
So this is a rare situation where two famous psychologists were talking about the same topic, made predictions, and those predictions clearly opposed each other. And it’s like no one cares enough to make an experiment, which is guaranteed to falsify at least one of those predictions (possibly both if there is no relation between the quantity of sex and the art produced). Whichever of these two theories is right (at least in this specific aspect), its proponents should be doing the experiment, making the result popular, and rubbing it in the faces of their opponents all the time. But no one cares. And that leaves me with an impression that neither side actually cares about whether their favorite theories are true.
But the two theories predict the same observations, because art is a good strategy to get sex.
Why do you think so?
Assume we run the experiment and 60% go Maslow way, 40% go Freud way. We try to replicate and 55% go Freud way, 45% go Maslow way. The results from running the test on undergrads at Somecollege show this and the results from running the test on middle-aged adults living in Boonieville show that.
So what got falsified?
Both did. At least, each of them should make their prediction more specific, to explain why it doesn’t apply to large groups of people.