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It already is in a completely different category than mathematics; mathematics is a humanity while psychology is a science. Do the standards need to be improved
by bakuninsbart 3y ago
It already is in a completely different category than mathematics; mathematics is a humanity while psychology is a science. Do the standards need to be improved in psychology? Almost certainly, and this rings true for most quantitative social sciences. But research should be evaluated on its own, not by field. There is still a lot of good, solid knowledge being produced through the scientific methods in these fields. We just generally lack the unifying theories we know from eg. physics, because the subject matter is so much more complicated, and the field is much younger. And in a lot of ways, the way academia works is not conductive to producing high-quality, impactful research in these fields.
- whimsicalism 3y agoMathematics is not a humanities, it is a formal science, unless you are using some very idiosyncratic definition.
- beojan 3y agoMathematics isn't a humanity but it isn't a science either. It's purer than a science, demanding logical proof, not just evidence.
- xdavidliu 3y agoreminds me of a quote from Sipser's Theory of Computation textbook, towards the beginning. He says something like "in mathematics, not even evidence is enough."
- bee_rider 3y agoMost mathematics is built on pure reasoning, not experiments. Calling it a science is a bit of a downgrade.
- bakuninsbart 3y agoFair, I'd say it is better to be idosyncratic and consistent than conforming and incongruent. "Formal science" does not make any sense as a subcategory of science if the definition of science basically omits anything that makes mathematics and philosophy what it is. The "formal sciences" do not use the scientific method, and are basically completely distinct from the natural and social sciences in the ways they generate knowledge. In my language, it is generally linked to the humanities, but I'm not hard set on that.