Thought question concerning the intersection of science, scientific method and social psychology: Fact: You cannot touch the mind or self, nor can you see them, smell them or drop them on your foot. Fact: Science depends upon the observable phenomena and therefore that which is verifiable by observation.
QUESTION: How can you say the self or the mind might be an object of scientific inquiry? [Ask yourself if you can touch or see a "black hole"?]
A. The mind or self have observable and typical consequences on behaviors.
B. At birth the mind and self do not exist (their typical consequences are not observable) and their development can be observed in the predictably changing behaviors of individuals
C. Trauma, injury and toxins and alter or remove (e.g., amnesia) the pattern of actions and reactions that would otherwise demonstrate mind and self.
D. All of the above.