How Do "Ugly Science" and "Dirty Science" Affect the Practice of Clinical Science?

Abstract

Science involves the use of specialized epistemic practices that lead to an increased probability of solving certain kinds of intellectual and applied problems. Science has been extraordinarily successful at solving an enormous number of these problems. However, psychology, particularly clinical science, has not shared a similar outcome regarding the number and degree of such problem solutions-what famously called the "slow progress of soft psychology." Scholars have identified problematic conceptions of the scientific method, replication failures, publishing biases, questionable research practices, faked data, and political biases influencing the scientific literature and thus have questioned the quality of this literature. We analyze this general problem using two constructs: "ugly science" and "dirty science." The first denotes a problematic conception of science, and the second is a problematic instantiation of an image of science. The critical question is, how can clinical science function with the unknown prevalence of such problematic science?