Alchemy
Right now I'm working on the second part of my crazy project. I use the evolutionary theory of behavior as a guide to reinterpret and reconnect the available data from the worlds of neuroscience and psychiatry.
Everything looks promising so far. Various facts are being attached to the central model of the theory without any conflicts. But it's a long run. The model still can be wrong. And I worry, that even if everything works as expected, we will hit the wall at some moment. The available data is not unending. It's too soon to say anything.
Meanwhile, I got a question in my head. Is this science? The project itself. Or it's more like an alchemy of sorts. Playing dice with the devil, looking for the ancient wisdom lying in the plain sight, with a goal to find the cure to all diseases?
On the one hand, I make observations, use the information from the scientific journals, make hypothesis, test them, set up experiments, use all sorts of data analysis techniques, and get other professionals to review things. At the current second stage the project looks more and more like a "proper science".
On the other hand, it's like a house of cards. The basement of it, the theory of behavior itself, is essentially derived from the highly subjective observations from the mental patients and priests from various religions. Of course, it's not only that, but still. A lot of things in the very core of it cannot be properly measured at this moment. We need them to construct the mechanical model that connects the patterns of behavior and diseases, and it kind of works, but we have to assume some things without any solid proof. This makes the whole thing not 100% scientific. Or, better to say, 0% scientific. It's quite an interesting situation.