To express oneself honestly--not lying to oneself--now that, my friend, is very hard to do.... All knowledge is self-knowledge. --Bruce Lee

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. --Pablo Picasso

1. Psychology is part of biology, zoology, and primatology.
2. We are primates. (We are not like primates. We are not related to primates.)
3. Human behavior is complex and complicated. (The truth about it is often hard to know.)
4. We lie to ourselves. (Are we rational and irrational?)
5. Human behavior is at least somewhat predictable.
6. Science is a brutal competition of ideas.
7. A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. (Max Planck, 1949)
8. Science is a series of judgments, revised without ceasing. (Pierre Emile Duclaux).
9. Science is a toolbox of skills designed to prevent us from fooling ourselves. (Scott O. Lilienfeld, Steven Jay Lynn, Laura L. Namy, Nancy J. Woolf, 2009)
10. Science is amoral. (Science will never tell us what is good and evil.)
11. Nature includes trees, flowers, loneliness, love, hate, depression, George W. Bush, LSD, atomic bombs, and everything else.
12. Being abnormal is not necessarily bad.
13. A theory which cannot be mortally endangered cannot be alive. (W.A.H. Rushton, 1964)
14. Every mental process has an underlying biological process. (Eric Kandel, 2004)
15. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. (Paul Meehl, 1954)
16. Brain plasticity is incessant and lifelong.
17. Psychology is the study of ABC: Affect (emotions), Behavior, Cognitions. (Jane Ellington, 1989)
18. The DNA from any cell in your body has the blueprint for your entire body and brain (which contains your perception and memory of everything in your universe).
19. Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are ultimately determined by DNA and the environment, and proximately determined by neuronal activity. (Is there any scientific evidence for phenomena such as free will or miracles?)
20. Psychology assumes that the individual exists and can be defined.
21. It is difficult, or impossible, to precisely and accurately identify the boundary between the individual human being and its environment. (How should we define the individual human being? Where are the boundaries between the human organism and the environment? When/where does the person begin and end? Ship of Theseus)
22. Power and money often play an important role in the research and practice of psychology. (E.g., Which research is funded? Who is diagnosed with and treated for mental disorders? Who has health insurance?)
23. The human brain didn't evolve to understand itself. (Jacob Bronowski, 1966. A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. Likewise, it is often similarly difficult for a psychologist to practice science on himself. Objectivity is important and possibly impossible. A human being is teaching the class. Most of what you learn about psychology will be communicated to you by another human being who is irrational and makes mistakes. Psychology is a humbling endeavor.)
24. Be wary of scientific dualisms. Sometimes the "opposing forces" (e.g., mind vs. body, emotion vs. reason, nature vs. nurture) are merely two names for the same thing. (Nancy Etcoff, 2004)
25. Oftentimes, "I don't know" is a very good answer.