To put it simply, yes we can. If I ask you to remember a list of objects, you and every other person on the planet (barring brain damage) will remember more of the words at the beginning and end of the list than at the beginning. That is the primacy and recency effect of the serial position curve. Every human being follows it unless they have suffered trauma to their memory system.

If I damage wernicke’s area in your brain, you will begin to speak uncontrollably. You will not understand the words I say to you, and you will think you are speaking clearly, but you will actually speak nothing but gibberish. Lots of gibberish, but gibberish, but gibberish all the same. This is called Wermicke’s aphasia, and it was found, researched and documented by psychologists.

That does not mean that all people are the same or behave in the same way; you can not find a single reputable psychologist who claims this.
Seriously. Not a single one. I actually dare you to try. There is not anyone who claims that based on data.

Let me explain something; real psychologists do not claim to be able to predict the way a human behave. This is exactly the same as a physicist saying he can not predict the movements of an atomic particle; we simply do not have the means to do so. It is possible, but just because it is outside of current technological ability to predict with perfect accuracy does not mean thateuther physics or psychology is a psuedoscience.

I want you to approach this like a scientist. I want you to give me your definition of pseudo-science, I want you to tell me why psychology does not fit with that diefinition, and I want you to tell me exactly what data would be needed to falsify your hypothesis. After all, if it is impossible to falsify your belief, then you don’t have scientific knowledge, you have beliefs, and your beliefs say nothing about whether or not psychology is a pseudo science.

Medical patent argument will resume tonight.

If people were taking and copying Kodaks’ work without permission or compensation, Kodak would be suing, too, regardless of the format or the media. You conveniently avoid the real-world issues of licensing, property, ownership and international agreements that acknowledge and enforce legal rights. You take any credibility out of your voice when you pretend you live in another world and other people, artists and corporations don’t have rights, too. They do. That’s why the debate is going the way it is going. That’s why Kim is in real trouble now, as he should be.

So as long as you keep spinning this as new tech that justifies digital file theft and not property ownership with very real rights attached, you’ll be on the losing side of the law, the debate, the “reason” and the future. Don’t believe me? Keep watching. lol

I think you are smart enough to know and small-mindedly selfish enough not to care.

Psychology is a pseudo science? Really? How so? It follows systematic empiricism, it gets repeatable results, it relies on experimentation and manipulation, so how is ot a pseudo science? Does the study of brain-mind relations not exist because you say it doesn’t? did the cognitive revolution in the 1950s not happen? Have we not found the modal memory system, the effects of hormones on behavior, the serial position curve, the laws of graded perception?

You have a valid opinion on medical patents, and I will answer those, but you are provably wrong about psychology, and it is clear you know nothing about what you are talking about. Pick up a research psychology journal and educate thyself. I recommend “professional psychology: research and practice”. They publish articles about the science and statistics underpinning psychology. It has been around since the 1970s. First issue is probably online somewhere, if you care to google it.

Seriously, just admit you do not know what you were talking about. Belike a scientist, and admit that you made up an answer because you did not know the real one. If i know that you will just make up answers, then that undermines any confidence I have that your complaints against medical patents are based on what happens in the real world. Man up.

As for repression… lol.. you would pick a pseudo-science wouldn’t you? Look, the point of science is not to be never wrong, that’s an absolute, the point is to come up with the best possible explanation of an observed phenomena. Take Newton, while his explanation for gravity wasn’t an exactly accurate description of the nature of gravity, it was, and still is sufficiently accurate for traversing the solar system, to the degree that NASA engineers will still use Newton’s equations over Einstein’s General Relativity where applicable. Why? Because Newtonian gravity is easier to work with. That’s the power of science, when new evidence or better arguments are presented, the scientific community accepts it, and our understanding of the universe improves, and that may or may not be incorporated into a product, but it can form the basis for new research which will turn into important new products. Falsifying evidence isn’t the only thing which will ruin a scientist’s career, ignoring evidence will have the same effect, ignoring other explanations which better fit the evidence because of personal bias, financial gain, and so on, will do it, too. And while scientists may be humans and have emotions, they don’t see the world the same as every other person, and they’re not motivated by the same things. And while the desire to ‘be right’ is there, intellectual honesty is far far far more commonplace among scientists than the rest of us (again, not dealing in absolutes like all scientists are 100% intellectually honest 100% of the time).

As for drug patents, my problem with them is thus, 1) they’re anti-competitive, 2) the cost to the tax payer, 3) they undermine the scientific method, 4) corporate ethics are an oxymoron, 5) are only truly useful for the top drug corps., 6) clueless management interference, 7) parallel research can often take place, resulting in a waste of effort and resources (in academia, scientists working on the same problem regularly combines their efforts to solve it in a fraction of the time), 8) governments are compelled to introduce ever more draconian laws in an effort to quell ‘drug piracy’, like say, a shipment of generics from India en-route to Africa being seized by customs officials in relay ports which are not even the destination, 9) they’re not necessary, public research can do the job faster (cooperation vs competition), with proper checks, and have the freedom to take research where the evidence leads and finish it to it’s conclusion, irrespective of whether it’ll turn a profit, contrary to what investors demand. And 10) money not squandered on government-granted monopoly controls is money that can be put into open public research.

Pretty much all the same core reasons why copyright is bad is the same as why patents (in general, as well as drugs) are bad. And irrespective of what you think your crystal ball tells you about how less drugs will be made available if the drug patent system is scrapped, the truth is you don’t know what public research will turn up when infused with ample cash and personnel. For all you know, they could come up with self-replicating medical nanobots which repairs all health problems.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Golan_v._Holder