From Greg Williams (930328 - 2)
Rick Marken (930328.1000)
Building a better mousetrap and showing it off is certainly not
arrogance, but the temptation for an observer to see arrogance is
great if someone touts the "better" mousetrap which doesn't yet exist
and demeans the existing mousetraps RELATIVE TO the non-existent
"better" one.
I agree that it would, indeed, be arrogance (a better word might be
"cant") to tout a "better" mousetrap which doesn't exist. It is also
rather annoying to have someone say that you are doing this, when you
are not. Could you please give us one example of where a PCTer has
done this. When have we ever said that PCT is a better mousetrap when
we did not demonstrate this claim?
When you claim that all of psychology needs to be rebuilt from the
ground up on a PCT foundation, I think that sounds like a claim for
having a "better" trap to catch WHATEVER psychologists want to catch.
(See examples below.) To date, no one has demonstrated that after the
rebuilding, the resultant edifice will actually suffice to meet
psychologists' (including your own) goals for "understanding" or
"predicting" (take your pick) high-level human behavior generally. Or
do you claim to know in advance that it will suffice? If so, upon what
basis do you make the extrapolation from rubber-banding and tracking
experiments?
When dealing with phenomena where
1) we have a good idea that control (pur-poseful behavior) is involved
and 2) we also have a good idea what variables are controlled, then we
have been able to demonstrate that PCT is better than existing
mousetraps.
I agree, subject to (3) in some CIRCUMSCRIBED situations. Where does
any extrapolatory faith come from?
But I don't believe that PCT has claimed to be a better
model of the kinds of statistical phenomena that we criticize.
I think the closest a PCTer has come to this claim is when Bill Powers
suggested some time back that the best way to handle social behavior
is by first handling individual behavior. I suppose Bill will deny
that he meant using individual models to build up predictive social
models (from which could be derived population measures), so I guess
you are correct in your belief.
In
fact, we explicitly say that there is probably nothing to explain (as
would be the case if an astrologer asked for your better explanation -
- than that fire and water signs don't get along -- of why Aries and
Pisces don't make good mates).
Many users of statistical data on human behavior understand already
that they are NOT explaining. And at least in some cases they are
happy about not needing to try any explaining. But they do try to
predict sometimes, and if you think prediction should be an important
aim for psychologists (as you sometimes seem to, see examples below),
perhaps you think that PCT (someday) can make better predictions of
population measures than correlation studies? If so, how is that claim
supported by the accomplishments to date of PCTers?
Arrogant
individuals make unsupportable claims of self-importance: they profess
to have a better mousetrap than the others, but it turns out that they
don't even have a mousetrap.
Again, give me an example of this. I think that you are just
confused. PCT is not not saying that it has a better mousetrap and
not producing it; it is (usually) saying that that there ain't no
mice around here (behavioral science) and what you (behavioral science
mouse catchers) have been catching is lint; PCT is a mousetrap to
catch mice (purposeful behavior); the linttrap (SR models) that that
the behavioral sciences have been using might work to catch lint; we
want mice.
It is entirely possible that I am just confused. Maybe even more than
I usually am! Be that as it is, it seems to me (see below) that you
claim that non-PCT behavioral scientists can NEVER understand/predict
high-level purposeful behavior of individuals, yet PCT can... SOMEDAY,
you believe. You say that the non-PCT linttrap cannot catch mice...
but I think you'll have to admit that the PCT mousetrap has so far not
caught any really big mice. A nice big juicy one would be predicting
my behavior for "one whole minute" -- Bill Powers already passed on
that challenge; perhaps you would like to try (someday), since you
think a tool "isn't much of a tool" if it "can't help us predict
things" (see below).
ยทยทยท
-----
Below are some examples (from Rick's posts during the first three
weeks of March 1993) of what I believe some non-PCT behavioral
scientists would consider "arrogant" (and a few other things of
tangential interest). {} delimit Rick's remarks about which I make
comments delimited by {{}}.
[From Rick Marken (930301.1000)]
Ed Ford (930228:0920) --
A close friend needs good references in the current literature
(books and articles) on the best explanation of cognitive theory.
I would appreciate anything you could offer.
I don't have easy access to the current literature on cognitive
theory. {And it would be hard for me to evaluate what might
constitute the "best" explanation of this theory -- since I
think they are all equally ridiculous.}
{{Here you don't explicitly say that "ridiculous" refers only to
trying to handle purposive behavior; it would be easy for a reader to
accuse you of arrogantly claiming that cognitive theory is
"ridiculous" with respect to its own goals, which are not necessarily
limited to handling purposive behavior.}}
Allan Randall (930226.1730) --
You do not like information theory.
It's not a matter of like or dislike. It's a matter of "SO WHAT"?
Information theory contributes zilch to our understanding of
living control systems (though, I'm sure, Martin disagrees). But
there is no need to argue; {WITHOUT information theory, Bill Powers
has been able to build a simulation of a system that can produce
realistic complex behavior in a realistic environment; WITH
information theory the life sciences (with thousands of bright
researchers and decades of research) have been barely able build
simulations of systems doing unrealitic, simple behavior in
unrealistically simple environments.}
{{This dichotomy could easily be construed as an arrogant judgment of
the "failure" of non-PCT behavioral science SOLELY with respect to
YOUR goals.}}
[From Rick Marken (930304.1400)]
There are two kinds of psychologists who embrace Perceptual Control
Theory (PCT). {One kind (including myself) believes that we should
start psychology over from scratch based on the principles of PCT.}
{{This could be construed as an arrogant assertion that PCT
principles, and ONLY PCT principles, can (sometime?) suffice to meet
EVERYONE'S goals for psychology, which might include generating
population measures.}}
[From Rick Marken (930310.1400)]
{Well, IT [Information Theory] isn't much of a tool if it can't help
us predict things; looks like PCT WITH IT is no better off than
Isaac's brother Phil WITHOUT calculus.}
{{Really just a side issue: How important do you think prediction
should be in PCT? Isn't the current state-of-the art of PCT prediction
rather limited?}}
[From Rick Marken (930312.1300)]
I don't think Bill or I know what the heck you folks think IT
is good for. Feel free to use IT along with anything you like
to make a prediction. {All I want to see is how IT (calculus-like)
can improve what we do in PCT -- which is try to discover controlled
variables and model now they are controlled.}
{{Ditto on the side issue, as immediately above.}}
[From Rick Marken (930317.0800)]
Avery Andrews (930317.1514) --
People just don't care about the input-output model of behavior as
much as Rick thinks they do.
Multi-millions of dollars are spent in the US (and probably
Australia too) in support of behavioral science research (psych,
sociology, econ, poli sci, etc) where the data is collected
and analyzed in the context of the general linear model; multiple
regression, ANOVA, etc. I bet few of these people would consciously
say "I assume that the basic model underlying behavior is a
cause-effect model" but they sure ACT like this is what they
assume-- and big bucks are being spent in tacit support of this
assumption. I believe it is important to know that this is the
model that behaviooral scientists are "controlling for" -- consciously
or not -- because I am sure that it is the reason why PCT -- after,
what, 30 or so years on the scene -- has made virtually NO headway
in the behavioral sciences. {Its either that PCT is just a stupid
model and all the behavioral scientists have been smart enough to
notice that (but there are some other obviously stupid "models"
running around in the behavioral sciences and, nevertheless, they
get a lot of attention) or it is because of active resistence. I
think PCT has made no headway because there IS active resistence
and I think the underlying reason for this resistence is that PCT
is a disturbance to the assumption in the behavioral sciences of a
cause-effect model.}
{{Maybe not arrogant in content (but so in flavor, to me!), but just
mistaken. One of the first things one learns in statistics is that
correlation doesn't mean cause-effect. The "Grand Method" of population
description is DIFFERENT IN KIND from a generative model, and to claim
that all who work with statistical descriptions instead of generative
models THEREFORE are committed to a lineal generative model of
behavior is simply a nonsequitur.}}
Indeed, I suspect that one of the reasons
linguists don't spend much time in the psych lab is that the
input-ouput, IV-DV stuff just seems stupid and boring to them, w.r.t.
the things they are interested in, but that's the only thing that people
seem to know how to do in labs.
Well, I don't know if I would brag about not having any model
at all. {Just observing is very genteel and all -- but unless you
try to predict and explain what you see with a model, what have you
learned?}
{{Better ask Bill Powers, who recently said that prediction isn't the
point for PCT (though he earlier bragged about "one whole minute" of
accurate prediction of tracking movements).}}
I think that linguists do have implicit models -- cause
effect models. If they don't want to test them then that's there
problem. I don't care if they test them in labs or in the real world;
but I don't think you have much of a science unless you test models.
{If linguists don't know how to do anything other than IV-DV research
when they do it it's because their basic (unconscious model) is
cause-effect. If they don't go into the lab to do IV-DV research it
must be because they don't like the implications of their own models.
If their models were not cause-effect -- if, for example, they were
control of input models -- I'm sure these bright folks would have
noticed very quickly that there is an alternative to the IV-DV
approach to research and they would have very quickly understood
research based on testing for controlled variables.}
{{This raises the nonsequitur to Freudian heights!}}
[From Rick Marken (930319.1300)]
So, the reason this topic is controversial is because it seems to
me that what you are saying about the operation of a control system is
incorrect.
Why is this alarming? Because it seems to me that you are trying to
squeeze the beautiful concept of control of perception into the
Procrustean bed of conventional linear cause effect thinking. {PCT
demands that we start psychology all over again -- psychology beautifully
reborn.} But, if we keep trying to see control in linear cause effect
terms (instead of in terms of the circular causality that is actually
involved) this renaissance will be continually be delayed.
{{Here is arrogance if the "demand" assumes that "we" includes
everyone -- including those who don't have goals to which PCT is
appropriate.}
[From Rick Marken (930321.1200)]
I think we have different "enemies". You have problems with SR
theories of behavior. {I have problems with those ideas too -- but,
more importantly, I have problems with the whole conventional approach
to studying behavior -- both its goals (finding relationships
between IVs and DVs) and it's assumptions (that such relationship
reveal something about how behavior works).}
{{Do you have problems with users of statistical descriptions who
DON'T assume that such descriptions "reveal something about how
behavior works"? Are such folks not "studying behavior"? If you say
they aren't, I think they would have good reason to label you as
arrogant.}}
As ever,
Greg