Psychology's findings are inconclusive

The argument

The objection here is that psychology cannot meet the evidential standard a science requires, because the thing it studies does not submit to measurement. A science proceeds by quantifying its subject matter, and there is no quantifiable way to measure the mind accurately. What psychology works with instead are proxies — reports, observed behaviour, responses to constructed tasks — none of which gives direct access to the mental state they are taken to indicate. The difficulty is compounded by the variability of the subject. Human behaviour is inconsistent not only between one person and another, which a science could accommodate through averages, but within a single individual, who may respond differently to the same situation on different occasions. That second kind of variation undermines the idea of a stable quantity to be measured at all. Its practical consequence is the one that matters most: it is difficult to replicate the same results between experiments, and replication is the mechanism by which a finding is confirmed rather than merely recorded. A body of knowledge that cannot reliably reproduce its own results is, on this argument, a body of inconclusive findings. The second charge concerns the discipline rather than its method. Psychology lacks a generally agreed-upon definition and terminology. Some call it an art and others a science of the mind, and the disagreement is not a matter of emphasis but of what kind of enterprise it is. It also divides into many branches — clinical, cognitive, developmental, evolutionary and others — with no consensus on which of them is the defining one. A field uncertain both about how to measure its object and about what it is doing cannot, on this argument, be a real science.

Premises

Counter-arguments

There may be inconsistencies in the terminology, methods, and results of psychological experiments, but it is not the only field of science in which this happens. Chemistry and drug discovery, for example, lack a definition as to what a "druglike" molecule is. In any field of science one will find debates and inconsistencies. No science is perfect.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] For psychology's purposes, there are valid measures in place for studying the mind. [Rejecting P2] Replications don't always work out, but when they don't, it indicates a poor effect of the experiment, which is a valid result. [Rejecting P3] Psychology is defined by Merriam-Webster as "the science of mind and behavior." [Rejecting P4] There are many sciences in which the findings are inconclusive. This does not invalidate psychology's status as a science.