Why psychology isn't science

Psychologist Timothy D. Wilson, a professor at the University of Virginia, expressed resentment in his Times Op-Ed article on Thursday over the fact that most scientists don't consider his field a real science. He casts scientists as condescending bullies:

"Once, during a meeting at my university, a biologist mentioned that he was the only faculty member present from a science department. When I corrected him, noting that I was from the Department of Psychology, he waved his hand dismissively, as if I were a Little Leaguer telling a member of the New York Yankees that I too played baseball.

"There has long been snobbery in the sciences, with the 'hard' ones (physics, chemistry, biology) considering themselves to be more legitimate than the 'soft' ones (psychology, sociology)."

The dismissive attitude scientists have toward psychologists isn't rooted in snobbery; it's rooted in intellectual frustration. It's rooted in the failure of psychologists to acknowledge that they don't have the same claim on secular truth that the hard sciences do. It's rooted in the tired exasperation that scientists feel when non-scientists try to pretend they are scientists.

The reason the vultures can look alike but not be related is the same reason why anything can look alike without being related. Unrelated species look similar because they have adapted the same way to the same environment.

Again, Darwinism says they ARE related. How closely is irrelevant. Animals adapt to their environment, but they don't change into other animals.

Vultures only give birth to other vultures. A Vulture will never give birth to a anything other than another vulture.

If you accept that animals can and have “adapted the same way to the same environment” then you accept evolution.

Do you have a mechanism to explain HOW an animal can adapt in “the same way to the same environment”? Would it be natural selection of genetic variation? Divine intervention? A lamarkian will to change? What?

How does an animal adapt to its environment?

And if you accept that old world and new world vultures adapted the same way to the same environment (losing neck feathers to better feast on carrion) - then obviously a non vulture bird population “adapted” into being a vulture population in response to the “environment” of being a carrion eater - two different times in two different locations (the old world and the new world) from two very different bird lineages.

And a non vulture bird need not give birth to a vulture bird in one generation, as one unlearned entirely in biology would conceive of it - no more than a speaker of Latin would give rise, in one generation, to an Italian speaker unable to converse with his or her parents.

then obviously a non vulture bird population “adapted” into being a vulture population

You say this is obvious, but it is not. In fact there is no proof that this ever happened. In fact you simply assume it happened. You don't think you have to prove it, because it's just so obvious. That's not science.

Natural selection is not the same thing as evolution. Natural selection is animals adapting to their environment. The theory of evolution goes much further and says that all animals are descended from one common ancestor. If you don't know the difference between natural selection and speciation, then you are in fact completely unlearned in the the field of biology, unlike me.

If the non-vulture became a vulture over many generations, (something you have no proof of) then it would at some point have stopped being a non-vulture, and become a vulture. All you have to do is prove that a non-vulture gave birth to a vulture at some time, but you won't ever be able to do that, because non-vultures don't give birth to vultures, they only give birth to non-vultures.

It was you who said that new world and old world vultures “adapted the same way to the same environment”.

How?

What was the mechanism of this adaptation?

If they look the same (i.e. ‘like a vulture’) because they “adapted the same way to the same environment” - then it follows logically that previously they did not look the same (i.e. ‘like a vulture’).

So if we are to accept YOUR reasoning that they look the same because they “adapted the same way to the same environment” - then two different bird populations adapted the same way to the same environment through adaptations that MADE THEM LOOK LIKE VULTURES.

And once again, speciation is not a case of a non vulture giving birth to a vulture in one generation (as only one unlearned in biology would have it).

So what mechanism would cause these two populations to look the same through “adapted the same way to the same environment”? And what would you call them BEFORE they “adapted the same way to the same environment”?

Animals adapt to their environment through natural selection, but they don't turn into other animals. A vulture can adapt to its environment, but it remains a vulture. It was always a vulture.

The fossil record does not support the idea that evolution happens slowly over long periods of time. You need to go back to school and learn about punctuated equilibrium. Darwinists now claim that evolution happens quickly after long periods of equilibrium, so yes the non-vultures would have to have become vultures quickly, because that's the only way it possibly could have happened without leaving any fossil evidence of this alleged transition. Darwinists are always having to change their theory because the evidence is always proving Darwinism WRONG. That's why you don't want to defend the idea of universal common descent, because even you know that there is no evidence to prove such a preposterous idea. So now you want to blur the distinction between natural selection and speciation, in order to muddy the waters and cause confusion, because people will only believe in Darwinism if they are confused about how it is supposed to work. I am not confused about how it is supposed to work because I studied biology and biological anthropology in college, so I know exactly how evolution is supposed to work. The more I came to understand the theory of evolution, the less I believed it. You want everyone to just accept your theory uncritically without thinking about it, because that's the only way you can fool people into believing that it's true.

Swiftly in evolutionary terms is still hundreds of years. So you are contradicting yourself again!!!! First you say that common descent is assumed based on looking similar. Wrong. Then you say old and new world vultures look the same because they made similar adaptations to similar environments. Then you contradict yourself and say they were always vultures and would not change. And now you contradict yourself AGAIN and say it had to happen quickly!

Wow are you ever ignorant and confused.

Common descent is assumed by you, not by me. The vulture made similar adaptation to similar environments, but they were always vultures. The way they looked changed, but they never changed from non-vultures to vultures. Darwinists are the ones who say it would have to happen quickly, not me. I say it didn't happen at all.

You're the one who is ignorant of your own Darwinist beliefs not me. The only reason you believe in Darwinism is because you are too stupid to understand it. If you understood it, you would see how darwinists are the ones who have contradicted themselves. They said that evolution had to happen very slowly, then they said it had to happen quickly. They said every animal was descended from one common ancestor, and now they shrug and say, well maybe all animals are not related after all.

You need to get out of the pathetic Darwinist internet chatrooms where you "learned science," and go to college like I did. Then you won't be so ignorant.

If they didn’t look like vultures before the adaptation why would you call them vultures? Because someday they might adapt to look like vultures? Your absolute ignorance and inability to keep your story straight is quite telling. Someone educated in science asks for evidence not proof.

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