3 ms·
Other fields have a fairly firm scientific foundation. Whereas it is routinely pointed out by psychologists and psychiatrists that psych has no such thing. The
by mrangle 3y ago
Other fields have a fairly firm scientific foundation. Whereas it is routinely pointed out by psychologists and psychiatrists that psych has no such thing. The field struggles to authoritatively explain the first thing about human thinking.
Adding to complication in the psych field is the widely observed phenomenon that it draws students with psych problems. Like those who would be willing to fabricate data, for example.
But hey, at least it isn't sociology.
There are resilient exceptions in academia in general, but soft science fields have led the way in the decay of academic standards.
- mike_hearn 3y agoPsychology really isn't the worst field out there. They do at least talk about their problems and claim to care about them, which is better than most fields. They actually do try to replicate each other's results sometimes and publish it when they fail. I used to believe psychology must be uniquely bad, these days I think it's just uniquely honest (!). There are dozens of well known fields that are built on epistemological quicksand yet which point-blank refuse to admit to or talk about their problems. Because they have a culture of deny deny deny, even when the evidence is overwhelming, they actually get less attention because why bother doing a nice writeup of fraud if you know the result will just be stonewalling? It's better to focus on fields where there might be some actual response, a chance of improvement, no matter how minor.