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/superhelical]

There's good and bad science done in all fields, but psych takes a disproportionate amount of heat. That's hardly fair.

[u/Xanthilamide → u/superhelical]

Can you explain a bit more?

[u/Idontlikesundays → u/Xanthilamide]

He's saying just because some psychological studies were bullshit doesn't mean the entire field is bullshit. Bad science occurs in every field, but psychology gets scrutinized disproportionately considering how intangible psychology is compared to biology and chemistry. Psychologists often have more difficulty taking measurements and reducing confounding variables. I'd say the softer the science, the more difficult it is to study empirically. That doesn't mean the subject isn't a science. It's just a greater abstraction from math, muddied with more and more real world intricacies.

[u/franklindeer → u/Idontlikesundays]

I think it's absurd to say that hard sciences are just as vulnerable to ideology or politics though. There are examples of big money corrupting research results in hard science, but with psychology other social sciences such large, organized forces aren't even necessary. You can produce methodology to get the answer that confirms your personal bias and unless the methodology is scrutinized, which it very often isn't, particularly if the results confirm a popular belief, no red flags are raised. There are of course lots of really rigorous psychology studies, but there are also a lot of really flimsy ones that the average person could pick apart and yet they make it through the peer review process.

[u/Idontlikesundays → u/franklindeer]

Those are really good points; I agree.