> psychology (like engineering and medicine) is a profession.
Throwing engineering in there with psychology and medicine is not a very good grouping of disciplines. At least not if "engineering" means the kind of engineering that professionals in the field have legal liability for (like the engineering that goes into designing bridges and buildings).
Engineering does have "best practices", but those practices have to operate within limits that are very well understood based on underlying physical science that has been thoroughly tested and for which we have mathematical models with excellent predictive capability. The "best practices" in psychology and medicine have nothing like that kind of support.
> the process seems to work allright
Engineering, at least the kind that designs bridges and buildings, seems to work all right, yes. I'm not sure I would say the same for psychology and medicine.
If you actually talk to engineers who have to follow regulation and building code, they will tell you how often the rules are nonsense and don't make technical sense, they have to click checkboxes to say that something is fulfilled that doesn't even make sense in the given context etc.
I certainly agree that many local regulations and building codes are not there for engineering reasons, they're there for political and economic reasons that have nothing to do with good engineering.
But it's also true that any of those engineers who say that a particular regulation doesn't make technical sense, will be able to explain to you in detail why it doesn't make technical sense, based on the kind of theoretical and practical knowledge I described, the kind that is backed by well-tested models with excellent predictive capacity.
Throwing engineering in there with psychology and medicine is not a very good grouping of disciplines. At least not if "engineering" means the kind of engineering that professionals in the field have legal liability for (like the engineering that goes into designing bridges and buildings).
Engineering does have "best practices", but those practices have to operate within limits that are very well understood based on underlying physical science that has been thoroughly tested and for which we have mathematical models with excellent predictive capability. The "best practices" in psychology and medicine have nothing like that kind of support.
> the process seems to work allright
Engineering, at least the kind that designs bridges and buildings, seems to work all right, yes. I'm not sure I would say the same for psychology and medicine.