TLIK – So you are saying that the percentage of people who believe in free will in the “mental health community” is approximately the same as in the general population? How about in the frum community? The psych courses I took were replete with ideas that minimize, seek to minimize, or outright deny the abilities of people to determine their own choices. CBT is not the most flagrant offender in this regard but these attitudes and mentalities are the overwhelming consensus.
The idea that people can determine their own choices is part of the 13 principles (schar v’onesh) and is the reason the world exists.
CharlieHall: “Measurements of behavior are often as reliable as any other in medicine . . .” Behavior? Sure. Psychological causation of a particular behavior? Not as much. Especially if often the thing causing the behavior (or the underlying condition) is the exercise of an unpredictable undeterminable free will.
Also, the word “often” isn’t all that persuasive. As a statistician, are you suggesting no significant deviation? I’d find that hard to believe.
Moreover, as a jew I believe there is a body and a soul. I believe that the soul is far more directly involved in the brain’s function than it is in say the bowel’s function. I’d also say that psychologists are not – as a group – particularly well studied on the functions and disorders of the soul. Do you disagree?
Bottom line: Only a fool would completely discount the observations of social scientists and only a fool thinks that socials scientists have all the answers.