What Is Remarkable in Psychology?

Abstract

In psychology—as well as in any other scientific or nonscientific context—the remarkability of a sentence, S, is a direct function of the degree to which members of the language community in question, L, would be inclined to interpret S in the direction of a proposition, P, with which a maximal amount of L-members would most assuredly disagree; whereas the P-proponents, to everyone else’s stupefaction, were actually able to demonstrate convincingly that P (as formulated by S) should indeed be considered tenable in view of (now) available but hitherto astoundingly unexpected evidence, or through some scintillating piece of profound, ingenious ratiocination. The prototypal example of a remarkable proposition is Einstein’s conjecture that a ray of light coming from a star and passing near the sun would be deflected through an angle of about 1.75 seconds of arc, which would in fact render such stars visible as are actually (seen from the Earth) located “behind” the sun. The conjecture was tested during the solar eclipse of May, 1919, and the results appeared in good accord with Einstein’s prediction.

When an exploded philosophy dies it goes to psychology where it is resurrected and presented as the latest of insights.¹

With apologies to C. D. Broad

The universe is not in accord with common sense ideas.²

Carl Sagan