Association for Psychological Science announces a new journal

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The Association for Psychological Science, the leading organization of research psychologists, announced a long-awaited new journal, Speculations on Psychological Science. From the official APS press release:

Speculations on Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science, will publish cutting-edge research articles, short reports, and research reports spanning the entire spectrum of the science of psychology. We anticipate that Speculations on Psychological Science will be the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. We recognize that many of the most noteworthy published claims in psychology and related fields are not well supported by data, hence the need for a journal for the publication of such exciting speculations without misleading claims of certainty.

– Sigmund Watson, Prof. (Ret.) Miskatonic University, and editor-in-chief, Speculations on Psychological Science

I applaud this development. Indeed, I’ve been talking about such a new journal for awhile now.

21 thoughts on “Association for Psychological Science announces a new journal

  1. haha, I almost fell for it.

    hint: category ‘zombies’, date 1st april, link is not working, besides apa already has PsychScience which fills the description

  2. seriously? aps needs to grow up first. they have to find out what the distinction between solid research and sloppy science means. then they can start to differentiate between various kinds of research – confirmatory, exploratory research, review, theorizing, opinion…

    I would say that research blogs are optimal platform for speculation since they better facilitate discussion than the traditional journals…

    also, you should have made arina bones the chief editor :)

    • Shame on you Paul. Steve is one of the most honorable and careful researchers I know. His work in cognitive science is of the highest caliber. I can only assume your slander (because that is what it is) is motivated by your personal opinion about climate change. I know nothing about that topic, but that is not the point. The point is that Steve has always published important, top-notch papers, in which exemplary data collection is combined with mathematical modeling.

      Andrew, now this is something that warrants attention: Frontiers caved under pressure and retracted an article:
      https://theconversation.com/the-journal-that-gave-in-to-climate-deniers-intimidation-25085

      So, I’ll say it again, because it deserves some emphasis: shame on you Paul. Your only excuse is ignorance.

      E.J. Wagenmakers

      • Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit has identified many errors in Lewandowsky’s work. For example, some of his claims are based on cell sizes of one or two. See here: http://climateaudit.org/2013/11/13/another-absurd-lewandowsky-correlation/ If this is “cognitive science … of the highest caliber”, problems in psychological research are even worse than commonly thought.

        BTW, I have no personal opinions about climate change, and have not really followed the debate.

        • P,

          I do not know Steve’s work on climate science. But I do know his work on cognitive psychology. It is first-rate, without a doubt, and by any academic standard. Ask any expert in my field (mathematical psychology) and you will get the same answer. If all psychologists (indeed, all scientists!) had Steve’s level of thoroughness then this whole “crisis of confidence” would not have happened.

          E.J.

  3. I really wish this were their April Fools joke and not yours. I love it when people can laugh at themselves. It’s still pretty funny coming from you, though, even though as a sometime APS member it’s an ouchy kind of funny.

  4. The journal Medical Hypotheses actually does exist, and has similar goals for medical research. Until recently, it wasn’t even peer-reviewed. From http://www.journals.elsevier.com/medical-hypotheses/

    “Medical Hypotheses will publish papers which describe theories, ideas which have a great deal of observational support and some hypotheses where experimental support is yet fragmentary'”

    I’ve found it a useful source of fun articles for intro stats courses.

    Robin

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  6. Seriously, this sounds like an excellent idea, although a website would be better than paper. For example, my brother-in-law can generate hypotheses at a remarkable rate, but he’s not terribly good at following up on checking them. Other people are less creative but more diligent at testing other people’s ideas. An edited website of the most interesting speculations in psychology could be highly useful in connecting people with ideas with people with the means of testing the ideas.

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  8. I laughed, and, of course, cringed. I’d be laughing harder if you hadn’t taken the cover of MY journal (Perspectives on Psychological Science — home to many articles about the current problems in the field) to turn into the SPECULATIONS cover.

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