[From Bill Powers (2009.06.21.1327 MDT)]
Rick Marken (2009.06.21.1200) --
RM: Perhaps I'm somewhat less generous about it because my experience was so different than what you describe. While I didn't have a long history of accomplishment in conventional psychology before moving to PCT, I had recently completed a "conventional psychology" PhD, had several conventional psychology publications, was engaged in several conventional research projects, was teaching a full load of conventional psychology courses and was working on a conventional methodology textbook. I moved to PCT because I was convinced by the experimentation and modeling that I was doing to test your claims.
BP: It was very fortunate for you that you happened to be able to write programs and do your own testing. Actually I think a few others took the same route, but you have a knack for modeling and that must have helped more than a little.
RM: And if future research produces data that convinces me that some other theory is better than PCT then I'll move to that other theory. This is the way I thought science was supposed to work, idealistic sap that I am.
BP: The only thing sappy about idealism is demanding that everyone else live up to your ideals, too. If the only point of the idealism is to compare yourself with other people who are less idealistic, then that motivation sort of loses its distinction, and becomes just another kind of one-upmanship. If your idealism guides how you do science, that should be enough. It has nothing to do with anyone else.
RM: So I just don't understand why people would have a hard time moving to PCT because of previous accomplishments, loyalty to prior mentors, affection for other theories or whatever.
BP: You really don't understand? It seems fairly obvious, and commonplace, to me. I think you do understand, but don't want to accept what you understand.
RM: These things have nothing to do with science, from my point of view. PCT is not an ideology that one should have to be cajoled into accepting.
BP: What, then -- shamed into accepting it? Moralized into accepting it? Criticized into accepting it? We have to start with people where they are, not where we think they should be.
RM: So I'm not particularly on board with Fred Nickols suggestion that I go about trying to get PCT accepted in a different way.
BP: Neither am I. I do things my way because of who and what I am and have been. It's not as if I'm unaware of the problems. I'm just looking for a different solution. Hype and salesmanship are not my way. I don't want to attract the attention of people who can be attracted that way. I want people who take the time and trouble to learn PCT and stick around because they think it's right.
RM: The only "way" I'm trying to get PCT accepted is the way Galileo tried to get the Heliocentric model of the solar system accepted; by presenting data and models. Of course, there are people who will treat PCT as a disturbance just as the church (and many scientists) treated the Heliocentric model as a disturbance. But that's just the way it goes; when the data and modeling show that one's views (or the views of one's intellectual idols) are wrong that's just the way it goes; nature doesn't play favorites.
BP: No, but people do. I think if we decided to go for a large membership, it would have to follow a decision to establish PCT as a popular theory, for practical reasons, not scientific ones. That might be a way to go, though I wouldn't be very good at it. We would then have to go into teaching mode with the members rather than treating them as colleagues, tolerating their mistakes and trying to ease them into a better understanding without driving them away with too many discouraging words. That would create two intellectual classes within the CSG. You've been here since the start; you know what I think about that idea. So I agree with you about getting PCT accepted: we do it with data and models -- as long as doing science is the main idea.
RM: Scientists (unlike ideologues) are supposed to be able to be mature enough to either try to answer challenging data and modeling with their own or accept the better answer. The fact that the behavioral science establishment has not dealt with the "disturbance" of PCT in that way says more, I think, about the behavioral science establishment than about the few of us who are trying to show that that establishment has it all wrong.
BP: I just don't think that "holier than thou" is going to be effective. People do what they do, not what they're supposed to do. The attitude I'm trying to cultivate is one of calm factual observation without emotional pressure behind it. People might object to factual claims, but at least they'll know there's nothing personal behind them, like a contest over who is the better scientist. The issue is between PCT and conventional psychology, not between us and them. Every time we manage to keep the arguments factual, we win. When we start attacking personalities, we get dismissed as whiners.
Finding and maintaining the right attitudes isn't easy.
Best.
Bill P.