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Paul Meehl is responsible for what is probably the most apt explanation for why some areas of science have made more progress than others over the last 70 years or so. Amazingly, he pointed this out in 1967 and it had seemingly no effect on standard practices:
Because physical theories typically predict numerical values, an improvement in ex-perimental precision reduces the tolerance range and hence increases corroborability. In most psychological research, improved power of a statistical design leads to a prior probability approaching ½ of finding a significant difference in the theoretically predicted direction. Hence the corroboration yielded by "success" is very weak, and becomes weaker with increased precision. "Statistical significance" plays a logical role in psychology precisely the reverse of its role in physics. This problem is worsened by certain unhealthy tendencies prevalent among psychologists, such as a premium placed on experimental "cuteness" and a free reliance upon ad hoc explanations to avoid refuation.
Meehl, Paul E. (1967). "Theory-Testing in Psychology and Physics: A Methodological Paradox" (PDF). Philosophy of Science 34 (2): 103–115.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1086%2F288135 . Free here: http://cerco.ups-tlse.fr/pdf0609/Meehl_1967.pdf
There are many science articles posted to this site that fall foul of his critique probably because researchers are not aware of it. In short, this (putatively fatally flawed) research attempts to disprove a null hypothesis rather than a research hypothesis. Videos of some of his lectures are available online:
http://www.psych.umn.edu/meehlvideos.php
Session 7 starting at ~1hr is especially good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @02:20AM
Also, if you can explain what was confusing as precisely as possible it would be very appreciated. I have found that no one complains about that regarding my speech or writing except when discussing this issue, so I suspect I am assuming some prior knowledge. It may be something else though. I really would appreciate it if you could help pinpoint the cause.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @02:35AM
What is "this site"? SN? What is "this (putatively fatally flawed) research?" And who says it is "fatally flawed?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @03:04AM
Thanks. I'm not sure that what you have pointed out was the cause of confusion, but agree ambiguity should be avoided for clear communication. (I replaced multple "its/thats" in this post)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 23 2016, @03:50AM
The quoted passage in the summary is a forehead smacker, but the accompanying text, which should provide context and/or explain its meaning, added to confusion. Well, that's how it came across to me.