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Ways of Knowing

Is Psychology Science?

Peter Rickman tells us why it isn’t.

I was slightly taken aback when I heard a speaker at a psychology lecture meeting claiming confidently that psychology was a science. Of course, if we define science broadly, as the systematic search for knowledge, psychology would qualify for that label. But it is not terminology that is at issue here, but a matter of substantial importance.

When we talk of science, we primarily think of physical science. If a mother said that her son was studying science at Cambridge, would psychology come first to the listener’s mind? The paradigm of the physical sciences is physics, because its elegant theories based on ample observation and experimentation provide clear explanations and reliable predictions.

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