> But to call psychology a pseudoscience confuses either the definition of science or of psychology.
It certainly doesn't call into question the definition of science -- that's well-established by a consensus among scientists. The consensus is secure enough that science is now written into law, for example laws meant to prevent Creationism from being taught as science in science classrooms. Here is an excerpt from one such law now on the books (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html) (there are many):
1. It is guided by natural law;
2. It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;
3. It is testable against the empirical world;
4. Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and
5. It is falsifiable.
Because psychology's topic is the mind, and because the mind is not a physical entity, psychology cannot produce empirical, falsifiable evidence ("testable against the empirical world") to supports its claims. Therefore, based on society's accepted definition of science, psychology is not a science.
This isn't remotely controversial, in fact society is moving away from psychology toward neuroscience as we speak. The director of the NIMH recently ruled that the DSM (psychology's "bible") can no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has no scientific content. In his explanation (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...) the director said:
"While DSM has been described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."
"Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment. Patients with mental disorders deserve better." [emphasis added]
> In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman spends the majority of each chapter outlining scientific studies in detail, many that he personally carried out, making the text a 500 page atlas of counter-examples.
Yes, but these are descriptions, not testable, falsifiable explanations. Science requires explanations, explanations that can be empirically tested and possibly falsified. But because this is a discussion of science, let's prove this point with a thought experiment -- let's say I'm a doctor and I've created a revolutionary cure for the common cold. My cure is to shake a dried gourd over the cold sufferer until he gets better. The cure might take a week, but it always works. My method is repeatable and perfectly reliable, and I've published my cure in a refereed scientific journal (there are now any number of phony refereed scientific journals). And, because (in this thought experiment) science can get along without defining theories, I'm under no obligation to try to explain my cure, or consider alternative explanations for my breakthrough — I only have to describe it, just like a psychologist.
Because I've cured the common cold, and because I've met all the requirements that psychology recognizes for science, I deserve a Nobel Prize. Yes or no?