I do not understand how stuff like psychology or sociology can be considered a science...

Because sixty years ago neurology research was not nearly as good as it is today. The first MRI scan was in 1971 and it didn't become widespread until the late 90s. Today, you don't even need to go to a hospital to get one as technicians offer their service for cash.

The world has changed, but academia is slow. These are the same people who are still skittish about even considering racial-based genetic studies because it might cause another Hitler. It'll take another generation to cause traditional psychology to be rendered defunct in the face of neurology. This is especially true as robotic/mechanical surgeons/surgery equipment become more widespread, thus making complicated brain surgeries both possible and accessible.

Human mental/hormonal development is important but belongs inside a regular human behavior textbook. Most of the important parts of psychology (the study of brain illnesses) have been taken over by neurology.

Have they found the culprits behind Depression or Anxiety yet?

Would you mind expounding just a little on this?

>I do not understand how stuff like psychology or sociology can be considered a science

Does anybody else here have respect for fields like psychology but is disgusted by sociology?

I mean, early sociology of Max Weber and Emile Durkheim was amazing, but these days it's just one bullshit paradigm talking past the other bullshit paradigm with no possible consensus between both. Structuralism is bullshit, critical theory and Marxism are bullshit, feminism is bullshit, poststructuralism is bullshit, yet people in those paradigms still believe their trivial theories are of scientific value. It's no more rigorous than a political debate at this point.

Partially:

youtube.com/watch?v=NOAgplgTxfc

Assuming I'm remembering it correctly the rough outline is that a depressed person's brain creates too much serotonin which causes anxiety, which causes the person to gradually shut down as a way to preserve energy. This was found out as SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors), originally developed to treat Parkinson's, were found to treat it's symptoms.

Problem: when depressed people get energy and begin acting on their thoughts again, they occasionally act on suicidal thoughts. This is why SSRIs are popularly believed to "cause" suicides, and it's why their use is regulated and why doctors tell people to stop taking them if they're having suicidal thoughts.

There's far more to this but this is the past 40-50 (ish) years of research into the subject.

>were found to treat it's symptoms.

*were found to be also capable of treating depression's symptoms

Right,

So you think that decades old, largely discredited research is still accurate?

How do you explain that SSRI's cannot treat moderate depression more effectively than a placebo?

If the physical mechanism of depression was understood AT ALL this could not be true

>So you think that decades old, largely discredited research is still accurate?

Not all of it is discredited, hence why SSRIs are still in active use.

>How do you explain that SSRI's cannot treat moderate depression more effectively than a placebo?

Because SSRIs are meant to treat extreme depression. They're not useful for more moderate situations and that is a limitation.

>If the physical mechanism of depression was understood AT ALL this could not be true

It isn't understood completely, hence why I used the term "partially". In the absence of better information, SSRIs are the best treatment available. Hence why pharmaceutical companies are still researching the problem.

Thanks for the pedantic correction, sweetie

you can account for that shit through sample size and statistics. Psychology tests are actually extremely interesting, like the Stanford Prison experiment.

>SSRIs are still in active us

Or $$

>SSRIs are meant to treat extreme depression

Hence the ethical conflict with prescribing them mostly to people who do not have a major depressive disorder

From the Wiki:

"The cause of major depressive disorder is unknown."

The pretense to knowledge is more harmful that admitting a lack of it

Yes but the Stanford Prison Experiment in particular is arguably a more of a "business management" or "human behavior" study than a "psychology" study. This is one of the issues people are starting to realize the field has: we've applied so much "science" (or, more accurately speaking scientific methods) to other fields that make the original field (such as psychology) redundant.

That may sound daring but academic disciplines evolve as best practices are discovered and applied across all fields.

You're not alone. I have respect for cognitive psychology, neurology, early sociology, and some kinds of social psychology. The problem is that both the general fields of sociology and psychology are tainted by obvious ideological agendas. You can't even read an intro. psych. textbook without being fed this crap.

>Are men even necessary? Maybe science will enable women to replace men. Here's a snippet from some (((New York Times))) article or something that has absolutely no relevance to the chapter.

My fucking god. I wasn't even a conservative until I started noticing this shit everywhere.

human behavior is psychology dummy

>Hence the ethical conflict with prescribing them mostly to people who do not have a major depressive disorder

Yes, but that's a problem with licensed doctors not researchers.

>"The cause of major depressive disorder is unknown."

Yes, in part (key words: in part) because we don't know why exactly the brain produces too much serotonin. But regardless, SSRIs have been shown to treat the symptoms well enough which at least offers a chance for a patient to improve their condition. Most of the time it works, sometimes it ends in disaster. This is where the individual personality of the patient becomes a concern, and where doctors need to exercise discretion when writing prescriptions.

three words: prove it

I'm more a fan of NeuroScience because of the pretty brain pictures

fMRI imaging may not measure what it claims, and Neuroscience may have no consensus science backing it up...

But the pictures are really pretty

Hey, its a new field! It will all get worked out with time....

Yes but psychology can be broken down into two parts:

- the biological study of the brain (neurology)
- the practical study of human behaviors itself (which in many but not all cases is business/personnel management)

Why have them both under one umbrella? We do so now because it's habit and it's convenient. In time it might make more sense to split the discipline if the rift grows further and further apart. This is one of the areas where genetic research comes into play: because genes offer an easy bridge between brain processes and human behavior. And it is for this reason why psychologists are so cautious when discussing the subject.

>- the practical study of human behaviors itself (which in many but not all cases is business/personnel management)
That's quite a stretch. We can't have that all under one umbrella for the same reasons chemistry and biology haven't become physics. We also need to throw in sociology for human behavior on large scales.

Why not split it into sociology/human behavior and neurology, then?

I'm not saying that such a thing is completely justified, because again genetics offers a solid (if quietly avoided) link between the two.

What part is understood? Any studies/authors to reference?

>>>>>>>>>>

Wow broad fields have distinct branches what a revelation, jackass

>What part is understood?

The part about serotonin. See the video I posted (which is an actual university lecture at a leading college by a leading researcher) on it here What is understood is that blocking the brain from using serotonin often causes depression symptoms to go away. The exact cause of serotonin imbalances is not yet understood, but again that's why I used the word "partially" to start this whole conversation off with.

Dude please, Sapolsky?

I wanted a scientist not an Evangelist

I've specifically said multiple times now that we don't fully understand depression and that the serotonin angle is the best we have until more research is done. That's hardly evangelicalism (defined as: zealous in advocating something).

What else do you want me to say? I have given the most moderated, middle-of-the-road nonanswer someone could have created.

Right now sociology and psychology are both necessary and much more effective than neurology in most cases. Neurology is a great field in its infancy though. Genetics is making great strides in more important issues like disease eradication. We are far off from using gene modification on behavior. That will need some serious legislation too.

Nice dubs OP

>Hey, its a new field! It will all get worked out with time....
t. a psychologist projecting

Statistical analyses of variations among the population.