I was recently confronted with an opinion that all those who study psychology are confronted with sooner or later...

A call for interest was made regarding citizen science, and I was among the first to volunteer my writings (should they fit the format).

Two points were made regarding my involving, the focus here is the second:

'Science is sometimes considered a science'

I understand that clinical psychology falls short of many of the benchmarks of science, but you'll notice I care little for clinical. My posts invariable explore experimental psychology. Thus, if we remove clinical from the list of psychological disciplines I argue that Psychology is a science.

I will, however, withhold my full arguments until some more opinions have been expressed.

What are your thoughts? Is psychology a science? Why/why not?

I dated a chick with issues who was on lithium, psychology is a science brother.

Becca is telling the fucking truth about the stats and fuck that dude's rag of a newspaper.  I probably wouldn't even wipe the sweat from my taint with that drivel if it was the last absorbant material on earth.  I like the concept but not the douche running it.

Ok seriously guys, chill, this doesn’t sound like you. This bullshit I’m hearing is more typical for the likes of scienceblogs. Dude said one word you didn’t like, he’s been trying to rephrase so you get his point. He’s not trying to offend anyone. How about we hear him out?

I get told often that engineering isn’t science. And we have plenty of Latin letters and equations. It’s annoying, but there’s no need to rip whoever said that to shreds.

My point is, rather than getting all in a huff when someone says something you disagree with, how about you impart your knowledge upon them. They may be willing to join your team. Given you don’t attack them straight off the bat.

In fact I'm surprised mr. psych over here hadn’t considered this approach..

Typically it’s assumed engineering simply goes by well known equations that were developed by physicists. In general it is looked at as a rigid stagnant thing that never gets developed, and lacks creativity.
There are plenty of in the box engineers who only follow the lines.
But there are also plenty of others like myself who lean more toward the sciencey creative side.
As far as anyone with a good argument, I haven’t heard any.

Unlikely, as most everyone here actually likes those folks a lot. And my comment certainly does not represent the feeling of the LabSpaces website as a whole.

And Jason, I’m sure you read all the blogs and all the comments over there. So you know what I’m referring to. I wouldn’t want LabSpaces to turn into that. Not that I’m worried.

I’m all for constructive criticism. That does not include brute attacks.

@Belle - Yup, that's exactly right. So, why is that what's going on here w this citizen dude? I don't know him, he could be douche, or he could be awesome. But why get all mean from one line.

About me comparing it to the scienceblogs site, it really was just an easy comparison to draw. I'm not trying to call out anyone in particular, I'm trying to have a nicer tone here, in comparison to the one that often develops over there.

"@Belle - Yup, that's exactly right. So, why is that what's going on here w this citizen dude? I don't know him, he could be douche, or he could be awesome. But why get all mean from one line."

Yes, one line was misinterpreted. That's the thing about humans--we interpret things on the basis of previous experience. This is often amplified in comments and forums, because tone and inflection is lost. If there has been no previous interaction with someone, then it is easy for verbal irony to lose its intended effect (as King learned--sorry, King). The start of this thread and the responses in the other thread were, IMO, pretty reasonable and restrained. GR's response was more colorful, but honestly, don't we expect colorful hyperbole from him? But as far as Rift's responses--and even Jason's responses--go, I wouldn't classify them as an 'attack'. They waited for King to clarify his stance, which seems to have happened now.

"About me comparing it to the scienceblogs site, it really was just an easy comparison to draw. I'm not trying to call out anyone in particular, I'm trying to have a nicer tone here, in comparison to the one that often develops over there."

You keep using Scienceblogs as a 'comparison' in a very negative context. I don't always agree with the content, context, or tone of bloggers as Scienceblogs, but the same is true here and everywhere else in the blogosphere. But as I said, we shouldn't cast broad aspersions on an entire niche of the community based on the behavior of a few. Tone is set more by the blogger than by the site. The more vigorous debates, the more critical blogs, often get the lion's share of attention in the blogosphere, because we comment on the things that get us riled up. Not all the blogs on Scienceblogs develop the negative tone that you dislike. In fact, I suspect there's a fairly small fraction of the blogs there that do. I say 'suspect' because there are so many blogs there that there's no way for me to keep up with all of them, and I imagine the same is true for you and everyone else out there--except maybe Bora who seems to filter the entire science blogosphere through his brain. My point is, there are (past and present) Sciblings who keep an even keel. And for those that do take a more adversarial tone, it's often not the tone they adopt for all (or even most) of their posts and comments. So why continue smearing the entire site as 'an easy comparison'?