Psychology, Science or BS?

call me crazy...

Have you ever read anything by Manly P. Hall? He formed the Philosophical Research Society and has written a few books that have made more sense than any other philosophical or "self-help" type books I've ever read. At the ripe old age of 21, he wrote a gigantic classic called "The Secret Teachings of All Ages" that showed the world what a wise and knowledgable person he was, but that was only the beginning of his career! more on his self-development books at http://www.prs.org/meditation.htm

A cursory glance at some of his book titles and the subject matter will convince some that they've got him "pegged" as a cultish weirdo bullshit artist, but would probably be pleasantly surprised if they happened to purchase one of his books. I am a bit of an authority on cultish weirdo bullshit artists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1&hp

Psychology was put on a relatively sound scientific basis by William James and his contemporaries and it remained so at least until 1950. It began to go downhill when more and more of its research was funded by governments and corporations whose major interest was in creating more effective propaganda. In the 1970s, the universities created about 10x more PhDs in psychology than the field could reasonably sustain, and bogus research started to flood out. It is a sadly diminished discipline today, but it isn't entirely bullshit.

http://ideas.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/24/just_how_tough_is_peer_review

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/science/many-social-science-findings-not-as-strong-as-claimed-study-says.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Psychology not the only field by any means that's going to turn up irreproducible results as this issue gains traction, there's a Reproducibility Project in preclinical biology as well that's undoubtedly going to fail to reproduce some effects.

yes it's all so exciting