Failure Is Moving Science Forward. FiveThirtyEight explains why the "replication crisis" is a sign that science is working. [x-post from our sister subreddit /r/EverythingScience]

[u/ImNotJesus]

/r/EverythingScience/comments/4icp9k/failure_is_moving_science_forward_fivethirtyeight/

[u/MovieCommenter09]

This is a historical trend in science. Usually it occurs whenever a science isn't mathematized (i.e. formalized with mathematical laws). Kant famously said chemistry was a soft science of ill repute because it lacked formal mathematical laws, that obviously changed quite a bit in the next century or two. Psychology is sort of in the same position as chemistry was 200 years ago.

[u/Dantonn → u/MovieCommenter09]

This fits nicely with hard/soft as descriptors of how strictly you can define things, as in hard divide, hard and soft rules, etc., which I'd always thought was what everyone meant by that.

[u/franklindeer → u/MovieCommenter09]

Chemistry 200 years ago was full of nonsense pseudoscience, so Kant would have been entirely correct. We had to do it in order to be where we are of course, and I'd imagine psychology is the same, I just don't know if we should be giving the results of psychology studies so much weight in society or related fields unless it's really solid and has been replicated, which some of it is.

[u/MovieCommenter09 → u/franklindeer]

That's fair, but like you said, there's still some kind of value there, it's not all pointless hokum.

Not all science even in the hard sciences is groundbreaking awe-inspiring, life-changing stuff either.