Integrating Scholarship into Practice and Policy

The last topic of the course was “Integrating developmental scholarship into practice and policy” and I learned firstly, another meaning of scholarship in this lesson. I knew this term as help of institutions to students in order to continue their education. The scholarship is similar to research but it is broader than research. It is written in the article that if the facts are based on data, then that type of scholarship is called science. Then, the article cites McCall’s saying that “The purpose of scholarship is to improve life.” This sentence makes me think that what are the purposes of science? I do not agree with McCall and I think that science has three purposes: to explain, to control, and to predict. For example, if a new type of illness emerges, science will firstly try to explain it, then investigate methods to be able to control it with respect to its aim, and then based on these methods, predict the illness’ future, effects etc. but science has not a purpose of improving life. By explaining, controlling, and predicting, science enables people to improve their life. However, it does not make scholarship (research) for the sake of helping people. On the other hand, most people in the society think that science is a tool to make their life easy.
Secondly, one of the most important arguments in the article is related with the value of basic scholarship and applied scholarship. Although the author mentions about why applied scholarship is necessary and more valuable than basic scholarship, then according to many psychologists basic scholarship has more value than applied scholarship. It seems to me that the reason for psychologists’ valuing basic scholarship more than applied one is their struggle for making psychology a science. The author also talks about their struggle by saying that “Psychologists wanted to create a truly scientific discipline of psychology by invoking the basic sciences of physics and chemistry as its model.” However, in psychology, I think that there is a demarcation problem which is the problem of drawing a line between the statements of the empirical sciences and all other statements- whether they are of a religious or of a metaphysical character, or simply pseudoscientific (Popper, 2003). In other words, demarcation problem is the problem of distinguishing science from non-science. I think that psychology’s status whether it is scientific or not is not certain. Therefore, psychologists always try to make psychology scientific with their studies. Otherwise, they would not be interested in making laboratory experiments and search findings. By doing experiments, they think that psychology will be scientific. As parallel to psychologists’ views, similar debate occurs between evolution and intelligent design theorists. Demarcation problem uses also evolution and intelligent design theories. Intelligent design is the idea that various forms of life began abruptly through some supernatural agency, with their distinctive features already intact. For example, the very first fish would already have had fins and scales, the very first birds would have had feathers, beaks, and wings etc. (Radder, 2006). On the other hand, evolution theory consists of the following premises: evolution- change over time, natural selection, modification with descent (common ancestry), multiplication of species, and gradualism (Mayr (1991), as cited in Scharmann (2005).
At first view, it is not easy to separate these theories with respect to scientific perspective, as in the case of psychology. Therefore, many science researchers agree that NOS should be used to be able to demarcate science from non-science. Although subjectivity aspect of NOS contribute the solution of demarcation problem, there must be other aspects which NOS has not possessed yet such as being evidence-based, testability, and falsifiability. In conclusion, by using the criteria of NOS, we can decide whether psychology is a science or not. In this case, psychologists do not need to make psychology a science.