Science or Art?

I was having my ongoing internal debate about whether psychology really belongs in the arts or the sciences this morning. (I've noticed that this debate arises most often on the days where I have particularly onerous statistical analyses to perform.)



It makes me ask questions like why, for example, does the progress of psychology depend so much on the discipline of statistics whereas statistics seems to progress very well without input from psychologists. You don't see statisticians suffering through courses on neuropsychology and brain function (though a little insight into how the brain processes mathematical constructs would surely do their discipline no harm).

It also strikes me that the public face of psychology is associated more with the arts than the sciences. For example, why is it that the media persists in portraying psychologists as analysts of the mind rather than analysts of behavioural data?

As it happens, most of the psychologists I know (a biased sample I'm sure) are not natural scientists and do not rate research design and statistical analysis as the highpoint of their jobs. Perhaps this explains the growth of qualitative methods in psychology - although in my opinion, these have more in common with scientific method (in terms of their systematic rigour) than they do with the Arts. If it is true that many psychologists are not natural adherents to scientific method, then how has psychology managed to remain in the domain of science for so long?

what do you think? do you think psychology is more based around the arts or sciences?


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