What is Descriptive Psychology?
Psychology prides itself on being a science. That is well and good. However, in many quarters, it seems not to have a good grasp on just what science is. We still hear statements like “Well, science is all about prediction and control.” On that account, both Mr. Darwin and Mr. Hubble might have responded, “Well, I guess that leaves me out.” Neither the theories of Evolution nor of the Big Bang is about predicting events or about controlling them. They are, one might say in contrast, about the postdiction of events that have controlled us. One of psychology’s major misunderstandings is about empiricism. Science is empirical, right? Right. At the end of the day, it is about how things are in the world–about how we evolved, about why the moon prescribes a slightly elliptical orbit around the earth, about how DNA is composed of four elements in various combinations arrayed in a double helix configuration–and on and on and on. So far so good. But psychology’s downfall as a science, I subm
