ABSTRACT
According to Baker, McFall, and Shoham (2008), “The principal goals of clinical psychology are to generate knowledge based on scientifically valid evidence and to apply this knowledge to the optimal improvement of mental and behavioral health” (p. 68), a proclamation that, on the one hand, is so uncontroversially apparent that it should elicit universal agreement. On the other hand, this statement raises fundamental issues regarding the science of mental health services and the nature of evidence. No rational person argues against evidence as central to science. Isaac Asimov, when challenged to say what he believed in, replied:
I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
Carl Sagan, in discussing science and pseudoscience, remarked, “I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.”