Biologism - The Consequence of an Illusion

Biologism desribes the idea that the science of biology supplies the means to exhaustively explain psychological processes. It has become vastly popular in recent decades. Manfred Velden shows that this idea is illusory on fundamental grounds. Several fields of inquiry are described in which the biological project has demonstrably failed, such as, for example, heritability estimates for mental traits like intelligence. It is argued as well that biologism is just a further instance of...
More Description

Biologism desribes the idea that the science of biology supplies the means to exhaustively explain psychological processes. It has become vastly popular in recent decades. Manfred Velden shows that this idea is illusory on fundamental grounds. Several fields of inquiry are described in which the biological project has demonstrably failed, such as, for example, heritability estimates for mental traits like intelligence. It is argued as well that biologism is just a further instance of an older, more comprehensive and equally illusory concept: psychology as a natural science (a science that produces generally accepted basic facts, for example the creation of a psychological risk factor for coronary disease). It is shown that psychology, masquerading as a natural science, as it largely does, may create serious societal problems like such as its misuse for racist purposes. The peculiar use of methodology in psychology is also documented.