"Are you saying they shouldn't be able to exercise their right to own a gun because they might use it illegally at some point? So how is a gun any different than a screwdriver, brick, hammer, etc.?"
Screwdrivers, bricks, and hammers are not designed to kill people. The only thing handguns are really good at is hurting/killing people.
Every law enforcement officer I've talked to has been in favor of more strict handgun laws; because handguns can so easily be concealed they make officers' jobs much more dangerous. Shotguns and rifles you can see coming, and are used for other purposes than shooting people or people shaped targets. Indeed, a shotgun is the best home protection you can own because it requires little aim and seeing one or hearing the click of the slide will elicit a flight reaction from just about anyone.
Wait, are you posting that as flamebait, or are you serious?
Psychology is absolutely a science. It applies the scientific method as rigorously (if not more so) than any other branch of science. It still has a long way to go, but it's also one of the youngest sciences.
The whole science is wish washy and based on subjective judgment as opposed to a first order science that basis it's classification scheme on measurable objective facts.
Experimental psychology's "classification scheme" is of course based on measurable objective facts. Like other sciences, psychology uses operational definitions. A psychologist might define intelligence as a score on an IQ test, just as physicist uses a current balance to define amperes. When it comes to mental health, a symptomatic medical model is used.
Weather or not something is considered a disorder or not is basically voted on ( majority opinion is so scientific after all).
Majority rules is exactly the way science works. Whatever the preponderance of evidence supports, is the position that "science" (as if this was a separate entity) takes. Mainstream science is just the aggregate of scientists' opinions. As Thomas Kuhn has brilliantly illustrated, scientific thought is internally divided and continually evolving. Science builds on what comes before, but every so often someone comes and blows up the foundation. (Copernicus, Einstein, Pasteur, etc).
It's a bit ironic that you level your criticism at "psychology formal" and not counseling or psychiatry, because these are the least scientific. These folks are most interested in helping people feel better and cope, science be damned.
Anyone who calls experimental psychology unscientific is either unfamiliar with science or good psychology, or is a troll.
Are you serious?
"It's easy to forget that most of Africa's problems stem from the fact that the culture places very little value on human life." Think you used a big enough brush there? You just simplified the world's second largest and second most populous continent of 61 territories and roughly 900 million people into a single culture. There are well over 1,000 languages spoken in Africa; it would be difficult to make any accurate and meaningful remark about "African culture" as a whole. Although, Africa is home to more Christians than North America, so perhaps this explains its "culture of death."
"Yeah, most of those funds end up in the hands of the corrupt government leaders and/or military, who are MORE than happy to let everybody starve if it means more cash for them." So, we're supposed to believe that if the leaders of a country are dishonest and callous to needs of their people, somehow the whole population is corrupt and doesn't value human life? Geez, that won't paint America in a pretty light.
Thanks for getting me angry enough to make my first comment.
Slashdot Mirror
"Are you saying they shouldn't be able to exercise their right to own a gun because they might use it illegally at some point? So how is a gun any different than a screwdriver, brick, hammer, etc.?"
Screwdrivers, bricks, and hammers are not designed to kill people. The only thing handguns are really good at is hurting/killing people.
Every law enforcement officer I've talked to has been in favor of more strict handgun laws; because handguns can so easily be concealed they make officers' jobs much more dangerous. Shotguns and rifles you can see coming, and are used for other purposes than shooting people or people shaped targets. Indeed, a shotgun is the best home protection you can own because it requires little aim and seeing one or hearing the click of the slide will elicit a flight reaction from just about anyone.
Psychology is absolutely a science. It applies the scientific method as rigorously (if not more so) than any other branch of science. It still has a long way to go, but it's also one of the youngest sciences.
The whole science is wish washy and based on subjective judgment as opposed to a first order science that basis it's classification scheme on measurable objective facts.
Experimental psychology's "classification scheme" is of course based on measurable objective facts. Like other sciences, psychology uses operational definitions. A psychologist might define intelligence as a score on an IQ test, just as physicist uses a current balance to define amperes. When it comes to mental health, a symptomatic medical model is used.
Weather or not something is considered a disorder or not is basically voted on ( majority opinion is so scientific after all).
Majority rules is exactly the way science works. Whatever the preponderance of evidence supports, is the position that "science" (as if this was a separate entity) takes. Mainstream science is just the aggregate of scientists' opinions. As Thomas Kuhn has brilliantly illustrated, scientific thought is internally divided and continually evolving. Science builds on what comes before, but every so often someone comes and blows up the foundation. (Copernicus, Einstein, Pasteur, etc).
It's a bit ironic that you level your criticism at "psychology formal" and not counseling or psychiatry, because these are the least scientific. These folks are most interested in helping people feel better and cope, science be damned.
Anyone who calls experimental psychology unscientific is either unfamiliar with science or good psychology, or is a troll.
Learn Swiss..........Swedish hot chicks
Layne
...er, 1. There is no Swiss language. 2. Beyond that, they sure as heck don't speak it in Sweden.