[cwkoss]

I majored in psychology in undergrad. A big part of why I didn't look for a psychology focused job is that the science is all so loose. I'd often learn about two different study-backed phenomena is two different classes that somewhat contradicted each other. Or I'd learn in a subsequent class that a previously taught study has been invalidated in one way or another. Almost everything is measured subjectively, so huge parts of our knowledge of psychology are a house of cards resting on assumptions that the diagnostic questionnaires used to measure are accurate and reliable. Many of the measured effects are small, and so it's hard to trust that randomization and controls are sufficient. Replication of results is a major issue.

It all just feels so 'loose' compared to the physical sciences.

[lupire]

The important problems are hard. Avoiding psychology because it's messy is like the metaphor of only searching for your lost keys under a lamppost.

[bingidingi]

Think about how loose medical science used to be (and for how long)! leeches, bloodletting, miasma, ridiculous enemas and all sorts of outright nonsense. We've got a lot more mistakes to make, but social sciences will improve too.

[ch4s3]

To be fair, no one was using statistics and the scientific method to support bloodletting, or miasma theory.

[Karrot_Kream]

No, but let's not forget that much of statistics was originally invented to provide a rigorous underpinning for eugenics. Pearson, who invented many of the most commonly used statistical results, was a prominent eugenicist and contributed greatly to its ideas.

[ch4s3]

That doesn't mean that statistics aren't a useful tool for checking the strength of evidence, or building a case for a hypothesis.

[Karrot_Kream]

Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that your findings will be as useful or useless as your premise. If you're trying to use statsitics to prove pseudoscience, well, it's still pseudoscience at the end of the day. (NB: I don't mean that psychological sciences are pseudoscience.)