What's Your New Year's Resolution?

[Ticklishchap]

Well, mine is less esoteric than others;
I just want to get this bloody MBA finished!!!

This will however require significantly greater discipline than I normally exhibit.
As an example, I have an essay due in a week, worth 30% of the subject total mark. I haven't yet started, but I'm here on the lounge.....
Psychology; What basis is there to claim that psychology is a science? In what ways does it fail to be one?

I'm in trouble.......

Very good luck. ...

 

[Ticklishchap]

Psychology; What basis is there to claim that psychology is a science? In what ways does it fail to be one?

I'm in trouble.......

As I go about my day-to-day business, I have found myself thinking a number of times about your psychology and science conundrum. One possibility is that it depends on how we define science. If we apply the prevailing restrictive and traditionalist (but basically C19th and C20th) definition, then we restrict it to everything that is directly measurable and quantifiable. This would tend to exclude psychology, because although it has measurable and quantifiable elements, a large part of it is based on the creative imagination, as well as empathy, intuition and speculation which have nothing to do with conventional scientific discourse. However, twenty-first century science (in some ways returning to Renaissance principles) increasingly includes factors such as empathy imagination and multiple possibilities. The cutting edge of physics, for example, very much combines intuition with reason rather than seeing the two as separate or opposed. Psychology certainly fits this broader - and, actually more literal, interpretation of science as a quest for knowledge.