Psychology's Raison D’Être

What are the goals of science?  We have several options:

1)      The goal is to explain the world so that we can predict and control it

2)      Goal 1 becomes Goal 2 of philanthropy

3)      Fun

4)      Exploration of the world as it exists (or doesn’t)

I feel like psychological science is having a bit of an existential crisis.  At least, I am having an existential crisis for it. 

How come all of the really cool research seems to have been done 50 years ago?  How is it that thousands of studies have been published on the relationship between depression and heart disease and we still don’t know what we’re doing? 

Is the field of Psychology really passé? I can’t believe it!  (Seriously.  I can’t.  I’m getting a degree in this here-now field.  How depressing would that be?)

But it seems clear that psychology without solid empirical and methodological anchors is doomed to failure as a science (though it can still make good philosophy, and in some cases, maybe even good therapy).  My only fear is that psychology with solid empirical and methodological anchors is doomed to failure as well.

Let me explain.

One of the most important freedoms of good science is the Right to be Wrong.  I always love it when I read posts about how important it is to allow oneself to be wrong.  There was a blogging trend along these lines on awhile back and I thought it was fabulous.  People were talking about the importance of accepting being wrong during training in medicine – a field where being wrong can be accompanied by disastrous consequences.

But this speaks to the difference between research and the clinic.  In research, and in innovation, it is not only OK to be wrong, it is frankly necessary.

To use a hackneyed example, Edison is reputed to have been “wrong” 10,000 times before he came up with the right model for a light bulb.  How often do students of science allow themselves to be wrong these days?

I noticed this when TAing over the past year.  Graduate students in Medical Psychology, both clinical students and research students, were very uncomfortable being wrong.  Students were very uncomfortable getting a grade under an A, and would often staunchly argue that they were right… even when they weren’t… or when they could have been, but they also could have been wrong.  That’s research.

I think that when I start teaching in earnest I am going to start each class with the following quotation, from my ever-brilliant mom: “The quickest way to be right is to admit it when you’re wrong.”

After all, I like being right too.  You don’t become an over-achieving grad student if you don’t like to be right, and have everybody around you acknowledge it.

But here’s the problem: you don’t become a good scientist unless you are sometimes (often?) wrong.  And know it.   

That’s the whole point of a hypothesis.  Come up with a hypothesis, test it, go forward if it is correct – and change it if it is not!  Follow where the data lead!