So, are we any closer to understanding a) what science is, and b) if psychology is a science? Unlikely. There is no definitive philosophy of science, and no flawless scientific methodology.
When people use the term "Scientific" we all have a general schema of what they mean, but when we break it down in the way that we just have done, the picture is less certain. What is science? It depends on your philosophy. Is psychology a science? It depends on your definition.
So - why bother, and how do we conclude all this?
Slife and Williams (1995) have tried to answer these two questions:
- 1) We need to try at least to strive for scientific methods because we need a rigorous discipline. If we abandon our search for unified methods, we'll lose a sense of what psychology is (if we knew in the first place).
2) We need to keep trying to develop scientific methods that are suitable to studying human behavior - it may be that the methods adopted by the natural sciences are not appropriate for us.