In the last week, my peers have severely chastised for the article I recently wrote on the values and personal motivations of psychology students. It appears as though I have struck a nerve with a lot of people. I must say that my intention was never to hurt or malign anyone. Rather, it was to encourage all of us to pay closer attention to how our personal motivations influence how we do our work and how we relate to those who are influenced by psychology. It is most important to pay attention to these influences in this particular field because such influences will, in one way or another, affect other people's lives.

One of the things I have been taken to task to is my implication that psychology's individualistic, reductionistic, and scientistic (as opposed to scientific) approach is ill-conceived. I firmly stand behind my implication. Personally, I have never meant to suggest that science or the search for scientific "answers" is in itself bad. Much good has come out of the scientific approach. My concern is primarily with scientism: the notion of Science as religion. Psychologists' belief that the scientific method is the only valid way of acquiring psychological knowledge has become perverted: it has turned into the belief that the only valid way of being is through Science. Now we move away from science as a tool and towards science as a way of life. However, a way of life necessarily involves a subjective interpretation of what is an appropriate way to live, and what is an inappropriate way to live. To my mind, this is based much more on individual, personal motivations, than on some purely objective, value-free assessment. It has always struck me as interesting that some scientists say their ultimate reason for pursuing the scientific method isn't so much to uncover knowledge—or even to predict and control the world—as it is to use that knowledge or predictive ability to somehow "harness" nature or to "triumph" over it. To me, this sounds like it comes more from a personal motivation than from a professional one (although I don't at all mean to suggest that personal and professional are, or should be, two separate entities—but that's another conversation altogether).

Several people have suggested that just because science isn't perfect, doesn't mean that we should abandon it. However, they fail to recognise that I'm not talking about science per se. What I'm talking about is scientism. But even if I were to talk about science itself, I would suggest that if you've tried a thousand times to revive a man who's having a heart attack, at some point you have to stop because you know the man is dead. Why does the same principle not apply to a discipline that at times seems to be trying in vain to prove or control something scientifically when it is becoming a stronger and stronger possibility that this is just an impossible effort? On this issue, it's not arrogance or pessimism that I'm expressing; rather, it's pragmatism (and this expression is all the more powerful, given that generally, pragmatism isn't something I hold in the highest esteem).

On a related note, I found another interesting letter in Monitor on Psychology (April 2003) criticising an article that suggested nonscientific knowledge is basically silly and invalid:

As a soon-to-be PhD in psychology, I would like to voice my displeasure with Dr. Kurt Salzinger's February Monitor "Science Directions" column. In the name of scientific credibility, Dr. Salzinger skewers clairvoyance, psychokinesis and other "natural" processes, [claiming] that good psychologists should reject them since evidence that would verify their existence is not available. I would counter that evidence for anomalies that violate the current scientific paradigm is strong. Witness the results of carefully controlled, double-blind experiments on distant healing, psi and remote viewing. The last 75 years have yielded more than 1,000 replicable experiments in the subjects that Dr. Salzinger derides.

According to Dr. Salzinger, showing respect for such inquiry constitutes "behaving in an irrational manner" and should be considered a psychological problem—one that might be solved by enrolling in more courses in psychology. Having completed 20 psychology courses, I can assure him that my coursework has taken me in a different direction than the one he espouses. I would hope that psychology would follow.——Thom Markham, Novato, Calif.