> There are plenty of theories. They are typically considered theories on motivation and behavior rather than behavior itself.

Those aren't theories as science defines the term. Among other things, they aren't falsifiable and they don't make predictions about unobserved phenomena, both hallmarks of scientific theories.

> You seem to think psychology is all observation with no attempt at explanation ...

Wait -- that's not my idea. That's the reason the NIMH gave for abandoning the DSM -- it's all symptoms (descriptions) and no search for causes (explanations/theories):

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...

Quote: "While DSM has been described as a “Bible” for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each. The strength of each of the editions of DSM has been “reliability” – each edition has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."

"Unlike our definitions of ischemic heart disease, lymphoma, or AIDS, the DSM diagnoses are based on a consensus about clusters of clinical symptoms, not any objective laboratory measure. In the rest of medicine, this would be equivalent to creating diagnostic systems based on the nature of chest pain or the quality of fever. Indeed, symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment. Patients with mental disorders deserve better."

> Much work has gone into proposing, testing, and refining many theories on motivation and behavior ...

You aren't using the scientific meaning of theory -- a formalization of observations using empirical evidence, that generalizes specific observations, that predicts things not yet observed, and that is falsifiable.

> Yet it's hardly just observing the stars and making claims, and it's certainly shown utility in helping design systems to influence behavior.

There are many ideas that meet this description, but they aren't scientific theories as that term is defined.

Prove me wrong. Point to a theory in the class you describe that has been used to conclusively falsify someone else's theory in the same field, a case in which the defender of the falsified theory acknowledges that his theory can been proven false and has no further utility. I say it this way because it happens all the time in science, and it never happens in psychology.

Consider the example of Asperger Syndrome. It was thrown out over a year ago by the editors of DSM-5, described as an unscientific and meaningless term, but I am still getting emails from parents whose children are being assigned the diagnosis.

Consider recovered memory therapy. Many people have been accused of imaginary crimes based on it, and many studies prove the unreliability of this therapy, but it's still offered to anyone foolish enough to ask for it.

Falsifiability is a big issue with respect to psychological theories, for the reason that it doesn't exist.

> But there, I've said my piece. I've usually got the discipline to stay out this pet topic for the HN crowd.

This isn't a contentless, rambling argument in which people say their piece -- at least, I hope not. It should be a discussion of ground truth, with the possibility of a conclusive outcome, like in science, in which someone says, "My position has been falsified". The fact that this never happens within psychology doesn't mean it can't happen here -- in principle.

I hope you see the degree of self-reference that's present here.