Crisis in Psychology?

[brewer]

The video is confusing hard science with soft science. Hard science could easily tell which thermometers are inaccurate. Soft science (of which psychology is one, google soft science) can't easily make that distinction and it is more dependent on fluctuating societal norms than actual repeatable hard science.

Repeatable results in psychology are more nebulous than other scientific disciplines. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science

Publication bias exists in both hard and soft science. Eventually they both work it out or self correct.

I would say that replicability is equally important for the hard and soft sciences. Like, if it ain't replicable, it ain't science... period. True that a replication is a more nebulous thing in the soft sciences, but I would argue that replication is a key factor of all sciences. 

Even if publication bias "self-corrects" eventually, I still think it deserves our attention. It isn't just one result or one single fact that gets corrected. Researchers depend on scientific papers being accurate. One single erroneous result could impact dozens of studies because (for better or worse) researchers in psychology assume the results in publications are sound.

And that's the thesis of the video. They ought to be more reliable than they are. We could vastly improve on an 85% replicability rate (and it could even be lower than 85%). So I think addressing publication bias in a more immediate way is preferred over waiting for things to work themselves out eventually.

And how do you propose to get a better accuracy/reliability rate? Who should decide what is reliable and what is hogwash? What is reliable on one society/culture will not be reliable in another (consider various Chinese medicine practices). As far as I know review and replication of published studies is the best tool. It might be slow and clunky but I can't think of a better option.

Maybe the integrity of the publishers should be scrutinized closer. I typically limit my psych info to reliable sources but I'm not sure how that would happen with the general population and access to the internet. Posting crap does not usually hurt publisher financially (financial being the driving force in the past). How would anyone stop the woo woo that gets posted and then sent to other's that will buy into the woo woo?

Lets face it, there will always be a certain percent of any population that believes unfounded shit, no mater where it comes from. Do I really need to point at religion or snake oil salesmen as an example?