[kybernetikos]

There are a number of people through the ages who have greatly advanced science by providing accurate observations. In fact, many scientists specialize in working out how to test the explanations of others.

It seems somewhat odd to say that Tycho Brahe was not doing science when he compiled unprecedentedly accurate astronomical tables that were the foundation for revolutions in the way we understand the universe, or to say that Arthur Eddington was not doing science when he measured the deflection of light during a solar eclipse.

The first (and many subsequent) Nobel prize in physics was given for a discovery, not an explanation.

Rutherford famously said "All science is either physics or stamp collecting", and I'm sure he meant to denigrate the stamp collecting aspect, but the fact is that it's absolutely key to science.

[lutusp]

> There are a number of people through the ages who have greatly advanced science by providing accurate observations.

We need to distinguish between scientific observations and scientific theories. A scientific theory, in particular the sort that ends up defining scientific fields, must be in the form of a tested, falsifiable explanation of observations, preferably one that predicts new observations yet to be made.

Psychology's problems don't result from an absence of scientists -- there are plenty. But until those scientists start crafting falsifiable theories about their observations, psychology will remain a pseudoscience.

The peculiar thing is that psychologists don't realize this. It has something to do with how they're trained. At some point, they're told that, with respect to the mind, looking for causes is a fool's errand, and they assume they can create science without proposing and testing explanations for what they observe.

But they can't -- science doesn't work that way. As a result, psychology has produced any number of dried-gourd cures over the years.