> Psychology is a science. People may argue whether it is a hard science, but it’s doing all the science things. True, when I say 'science' I mean 'hard scienc

> Psychology is a science. People may argue whether it is a hard science, but it’s doing all the science things. True, when I say 'science' I mean 'hard science'. Every theory is basically an arbitrary statistical model trained on extremely noisy signals. Generally, it can't carry out controlled experiments or predict new phenomena. > What is the difference between an RCT on how a drug affects cancer (given some formal rating scale for cancer), vs. an RCT on how a drug affects ability to concentrate (given some formal rating scale for ability-to-concentrate)? The former is considered medical research. The latter is considered psychological research. You can measure the size of the cancer in a fairly direct and objective way. To measure ability to concentrate you need to have a statistical model that interprets a very noisy signal. > Also, I don’t want people to drill holes in my skull. Most people don’t. It is, in fact, considered unethical by most medical boards to drill holes in a patient’s skull, if what you’re treating for would not be worse than a hole in the skull. It was a joke about lobotomies... > “Psychology” is to “neuroscience” as “ML” is to “Computer Science” It's more like what 'astrology' is to 'astronomy'.