The assumption is, of course, inherently fallacious. While it may work for what Weaver has referred to as ‘two variable problems of simplicity’, the chances for success are minimal when the technique is practised on complex systems with many variables. The components of such a system cannot be separated out by doing experiments on them one by one

Immature science is characterized by the unrestrained collection of a welter of facts without a consistent theoretical framework for them to fit in. Before a science can become mature, it must develop at least one coherent, comprehensive theory that attracts a following. Unless and until such a paradigm is formulated, (don't try to tell me that Psychoanalysis fits this bill)the practitioners of the science are doomed to wander, like psychology today, aimlessly in the wilderness. By the way, I define psychology as the study of what goes on in the noetic function in a single brain - otherwise it is is sociology or anthropology).

The field of sleep studies, for example, is dominated by experimentalists. What theoreticians there are seem to be working on a different wavelength from their experimentalist brethren. No theory yet proposed seems willing or able to take into account the experimental findings on the stages of the stages of sleep and the observed patterns into which these stages seen to fall.

One of the most deleterious effects of the lack of a theory has been the contradictory nature of some of the experimental results. It has long been suspected, for example, that there seems to be a connection between memory and sleep. Yet, for every experiment that seems to verify this connection, one can find a contradictory report.

My impression is that there is a reasonable amount of variation between psychology departments as to the balance. That said, psychology is still very touchy about the whole 'science' thing and so I expect most departments still place a great emphasis on quantitative methodologies.

Some hope can be seen in the rise of qualitative methods which concentrate on meaning rather than causation. It seems that it's not even considered that ridiculous to mix qualitative and quantitative methods. Still, there's perhaps less hope that academic psychologists are going to completely abandon the worship of methodology that has brought them this far.

Apologies if all this talk of methodologies is making your skin creep!

Psychology as a discipline was trying to justify its existence (and its funding I suspect), by highlighting its respectability and lack of 'fluffy' terms like 'spirit', 'art', or even 'feelings'.

I do hope the situation in modern psychology departments has changed, and undergraduates are at least encouraged to embrace what essentially makes us human, as opposed to just animals.