Many times on this board, people claim that human behavior is the domain of science. Yet this is done without qualification. Human behavior is certainly much less predictable than the motion of a ball or a well-controlled chemical reaction.
The question is, is experimental psychology science? If it is, how do the available methodoliges compare to those in other "hard" sciences? What are the benefits? What are the pitfalls? And what does it all mean in developing a science of how humans work?
This topic was approached in another thread. To summarize on MY terms,
Robinrohan calls psychology "pseudo-science."
Nwr believes psychology is "soft science", where
some genuine science is done, but somehow different than "hard science." This has something to do with the predictability of human behavior, he suggests.
Schraf takes umbrage with robinrohan's claim, and proposes a specific article to discuss. Schraf makes no explict claim as to the "type" of science that experimental psychology is, only challenging robinrohan to show that it's pseudoscience.
As for myself... it's a lot of material to cover at once. I'd ask the admins to promote this to "Is it Science" and allow me to address the points individually.
Ben