Shit your professors say

[nilecroc]

Siince I've already started 2 threads stupid stuff my paych professor has said, I decided to make a thread to keep track of everything and share with you guys.  You can also contribute.

My psych prof said that the brain is isolated from the universe because it can only perceive certain energies.
He claimed that Einstein had a bigger brain which allowed hin to use more than 10% of his "brain capacity.

[Travis Retriever]

Way ahead of you.

I already started a whole mess of threads on this topic:
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=634 -- Economic Insanity
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=637 -- Sociological Insanity
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=1322 -- Ethical Insanity
Note that I had a psychology professor who was the same as my sociology professor.

Also, I made two posts on this very subject in fail quotes not too long ago:
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=315.msg19595#msg19595 (something a power systems prof said)
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=315.msg19596#msg19596 (something an optical design prof said)

And as it so happens my sociology/psychology prof also said we don't have instincts.  Specifically, he said the following verbatim:
"Humans do not have instincts because we are all born without knowledge and because we have freedom of choice.  Instincts are behaviors that are innate and born with.  They are by definition not a thought process, a reflex.
Necessary for something to be an instinct:
1.) It must be a complex behavior, not a reflex reaction or a biological function.
2.) Most important, it has to be unlearned.
3.) If it's instinct, the behavior must appear in all normal members of the species under normal circumstances."
He also noted that, "Fight, flight (or freeze--he added that) is not instinctual, otherwise we'd all do it under the same conditions and do the same one of them."

[Travis Retriever]

Another thing this same guy (Soc/Psy prof) said was that "because there cannot be enough controls, we cannot ever know what causes people to become homosexual."  Yeah...

[nilecroc]

Another thing this same guy (Soc/Psy prof) said was that "because there cannot be enough controls, we cannot ever know what causes people to become homosexual."  Yeah...

Wth?

[Travis Retriever]

Wth?

I shit you not.  That was in quotes for a reason.  same with what I posted above that--which the prof had us write down in our notes exactly as he said it.  Hence why I said that first bit was "verbatim".

[Travis Retriever]

I mean, Nile, I gotta be honest with you.  The guy also referenced things during Sociology that Karl Marx said as if they were scientific fact (e.g. status, etc).  That sent out a red flag to me that Sociology might as well be fucking Astrology.  I mean come on!  The guy whose namesake is so full of failed predictions and contradictions and we're supposed to take him seriously on the rest his thoughts on society, not just the economic ones??? Gimme a fucking break!

[nilecroc]

Way ahead of you.

I already started a whole mess of threads on this topic:
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=634 -- Economic Insanity
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=637 -- Sociological Insanity
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=1322 -- Ethical Insanity
Note that I had a psychology professor who was the same as my sociology professor.

Also, I made two posts on this very subject in fail quotes not too long ago:
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=315.msg19595#msg19595 (something a power systems prof said)
https://www.bogosity.tv/forum/index.php?topic=315.msg19596#msg19596 (something an optical design prof said)

And as it so happens my sociology/psychology prof also said we don't have instincts.  Specifically, he said the following verbatim:
"Humans do not have instincts because we are all born without knowledge and because we have freedom of choice.  Instincts are behaviors that are innate and born with.  They are by definition not a thought process, a reflex.
Necessary for something to be an instinct:
1.) It must be a complex behavior, not a reflex reaction or a biological function.
2.) Most important, it has to be unlearned.
3.) If it's instinct, the behavior must appear in all normal members of the species under normal circumstances."
He also noted that, "Fight, flight (or freeze--he added that) is not instinctual, otherwise we'd all do it under the same conditions and do the same one of them."

So would he say that fight or flight isn't an instinct and that women have no maternal instinct?
Also,instinct via Wikipedia:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct
Mine also claimed that humans
might evolve extra sensory organs like we're pokemon, completely misunderstanding natural selection. He talks about the brain as if it were a separate thing from the universe producing your reality, and not apart of the universe and perceiving reality.
He also claimed sound was produced by the brain, like sound and sound waves are two different things.

[nilecroc]

Btw, my psych prof was on the board of directors for my college in the 80s.

[Travis Retriever]

So would he say that fight or flight isn't an instinct and that women have no maternal instinct?

That's exactly what he said on both accounts.

[Travis Retriever]

He also claimed sound was produced by the brain, like sound and sound waves are two different things.

Wow.  He sounds like a total woo.

[nilecroc]

Wow.  He sounds like a total woo.

It's kind of depressing that he has a jib traching "science", even more so since he's teaching a class I'm.

[dallen68]

He also claimed sound was produced by the brain, like sound and sound waves are two different things

He might have meant that a big part of what we perceive as sound is supplied by the brain; much as much of what we "see" is supplied by the brain. As far as things go, our audio/video input organs are fairly sub-standard-and our processing unit/memory fills in the gaps.

[evensgrey]

He also claimed sound was produced by the brain, like sound and sound waves are two different things.

Wow.  He sounds like a total woo.

Actually, on that one he's sort of correct.

Sound is a perceptual phenomenon.  Definitionally, a sound is something that is heard.  If nothing hears a sound wave, then it was a sound wave, but never a sound.  In that sense, the sound wave and the perception of the sound wave are quite different things.

[nilecroc]

Wow.  He sounds like a total woo.


Actually, on that one he's sort of correct.

Sound is a perceptual phenomenon.  Definitionally, a sound is something that is heard.  If nothing hears a sound wave, then it was a sound wave, but never a sound.  In that sense, the sound wave and the perception of the sound wave are quite different things.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?rd=1&word=sound

It's a definition, but it's also defined as vibrations.

[evensgrey]

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/dict.aspx?rd=1&word=sound

It's a definition, but it's also defined as vibrations.

It's equivocating in a common way.  While commonly not distinguished, the sensation of sound (definitions 1c&d) and the vibrations of sound waves (definitions 1a&b) are clearly not the same thing.

This goes straight back to the resolution of the faux-Zen question "If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

The answer is clearly NO, because sound is a perceptual phenomenon and if there's no perceiver there can be no perception.