No Standard Subject

            “Oh, I’m sure that somebody somewhere is studying the mind.”

Yes, I’m sure that somebody somewhere who calls himself or herself a psychologist is studying the mind.  But that’s just the point.  Somebody, somewhere.  Who?  Where?  Has anyone ever heard of her or him?

Where’s the standard subject?  It’s all one big hodge-podge.

“What’s the proper handling for fear of spiders?”

“Well, Jennings says...  But then, Smith says ….  And of course there are the classic studies of Pavlov.”

In physics, you have a formula such as F = M * A (Force = Mass * Acceleration), which is a simplified version of Isaac Newton’s Second Law of Thermodynamics. You need a more complex formula if mass or acceleration are variable.  If you enter in relativistic factors – for example, if the velocity of the mass approaches the speed of light – then the calculations become even more complex.  But those are all known factors.

The point is, physicists don’t argue about it.  It’s conquered territory.  There aren’t half a dozen or a dozen competing theories about it.  It’s just F = M * A, or the more complex versions of the formulas as appropriate.

Of course, there are debates at the frontiers of physics, but they eventually get resolved and turn into agreements.   That’s the natural progress of a real science.

We simply don’t get a similar pattern in psychology.  The debates that began with Freud 100 years ago continue today.  There are no stable theories, no conquered country.  In fact, if anything there’s more debate on the same subjects, not less.

There’s simply no subject here.  There’s no accretion of stable principles.  We started with a confusion 125 years ago, and we have more of a confusion today.