… which is why it isn’t really a science.
From Tim Hartsfield at RealClearScience:
Statistics Shows Psychology Is Not Science
Alex [Berezow] and I have previously detailed what we believe are the requirements for calling a field of study science: clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled conditions, reproducibility, and finally, predictability and testability.
The failure of psychology (and indeed many other so-called social “sciences”) to meet these criteria often manifests as an obvious symptom: lousy statistics. Statistics is just a language. Like other languages it can be harnessed to express logical points in a consistent way, or it can demonstrate poorly reasoned ideas in a sloppy way.
Statistical studies in psychology limp off the runway wounded by poor quantifiability, take further damage from imprecise conditions and measurements, and finally crash and burn due to a breakdown of reproducibility. More.
It often goes beyond failure. Social scientists are overwhelmingly of a progressive mindset and choose to lose rather than broaden their base in order to be more representative.
All that said, one wonders if, under the influence of post-modernism, the hard science will end up going down the same path. Hartsfield says no, but then there is modern cosmology.
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See also: If peer review is working, why all the retractions?
and
Japanese U’s shedding liberal arts departments
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