We must remember this not only when it produces papers we disagree with, but - perhaps more importantly - when it flatters our preconceptions. Agreement is not immunity from bias.
The field remains trapped in a reproducibility crisis. This result, like those before it, stands to be unreproducible, if scrutiny even comes. Until then, the weight we should assign it should be zero.
As someone with a psychology degree, I completely agree. It's as much of a hard science as nutrition. Most of the research is done through surveys and data aggregation out of necessity because conducting a real research is hard (and sometimes ethically impossible).
That said, it's not devoid of value. The issue comes when we treat it like a hard science. If instead we approached it more like sociology and anthropology, things would make a bit more sense.
We must remember this not only when it produces papers we disagree with, but - perhaps more importantly - when it flatters our preconceptions. Agreement is not immunity from bias.
The field remains trapped in a reproducibility crisis. This result, like those before it, stands to be unreproducible, if scrutiny even comes. Until then, the weight we should assign it should be zero.
Down votes = confirmation bias