[Statistics for Sociology] Different Ways that We Can Know Something.

Non-Empirical Methods

(1)   Authority

Authority is probably the most common method people use for knowing.

Parents are the original “Authority” – Begin lives believing our parents know everything.

Next, we have Teachers, Books, Schools, Principles, and Pastors.

Then, we have Media, Governments, Universities, and Professors.

In our personal lives authority is necessary, but can be misleading.

-          Linus Pauling example.

(2)   Logic

Important way for people to know.

Examples:

-          Human beings are mortal.

Socrates was a human being

Therefore, Socrates was mortal.

-           The behavior of animals is subject to the laws of natural science.

Humans are animals

Therefore, humans are subject to the laws of natural science.

These statements are logical.  That is, if the first two are true, then 3rd follows logically.

Limitation:

Logic can tell you that a statement is FALSE when it draws an improper conclusion.

However, a statement can be logically valid and still not true because it makes erroneous assumption.

Suppose that the behavior of all animals is not, in fact, subject to the laws of natural science.

 - Then conclusion that human behavior is subject to laws of natural science would be false.

Logic is extremely important to science, but it cannot substitute for making empirical observations, there is no substitute for empirical science.

Empirical Methods

(1)   Intuition

Defined as; An implicit understanding of a phenomenon that a person develops in the absence of any formal training on the topic.

We all size people up within the first few seconds of meeting them.

We do this by “INTUITION”, a way of knowing based on spontaneous, “instinctive” processes rather than on logic or reasoning.

(1b) Common Sense is a kind of intuition.

Has additional characteristic of emphasizing the agreement of a person’s judgment with the share attitudes of a larger group of people.

Common sense as a way of knowing has TWO BASIC LIMITATIONS.

(a)    Standard of common sense differs from time to time and from place to place according to the attitudes and experiences of the culture.

(b)   The only criterion that common sense recognizes for judging the truth of a belief in practice is whether it works. 

No systematic attempt is made to test the theoretical explanation of a practice to see if it is true.

As long as a certain practice works, that practice is maintained and the theory behind it is assumed to be true.

Therefore, the absence of theory is one of the major limitations of common sense as a way of knowing.

Science, as we will discuss throughout the semester, aims at a theoretical explanation of phenomena.

However, common sense is useful at times, but it does not have a place in science as a way of knowing.

Example

Childrearing practice for thousands of years were based on commonsense notions.

Only in recent years have scientists advocated childrearing methods that were an improvement over folk practices.  However, following a practice simply because it works does not permit any basis for predicting when the practice will work and when it will not.

For example, common sense notions of child rearing do not help in dealing with children with autism.

Even more importantly, common sense cannot predict new knowledge because it has only practical success as its criterion of truthfulness.

SCIENTIFIC knowledge OFTEN CONTRAICTS COMMON SENSE knowledge.

-          We often speak of a scientific result as being COUNTERINTUITIVE (e.g. goes against our notions of common sense).

-          In fact, a scientific theory is most fruitful when it predicts something that we did not expect.

Counterintuitive Examples

Theory of Obesity.

A theory of obesity in humans says that overweight people are controlled more by external cues (e.g. time of day) and less by internal cues (e.g. hunger pangs) than other people.

This theory makes the counterintuitive prediction that there should be situations in which overweight people eat less than normal-weight people.

True to this prediction, research has found that:

-          Overweight people eat less than normal weight people when special effort to obtain food is required.

-          When plenty of food in front of them, overweight people will eat more than normal weight people.

Richard Nisbett (1968) conducted a study in which sandwiches were placed in front of the participants who were told to at all they wanted and to help themselves to more from the refrigerator if they desired.

Half of the participants had only one-sandwich in front of them, and the other half had three sandwiches in front of them.

Participants of average weight tended to eat about the same in either condition (get more from the refrigerator in the one-sandwich condition but leave food on the plate in the three-sandwich condition.

Participants who were overweight, however, tended to eat whatever was there, either the small amount or the large amount, and not go to the refrigerator.

Bystander Effect.

Intuitively it would seem that the more people who witness an emergency, the more likely a person would be to receive help.  However, research has found just the opposite, the probability that a person will help in an emergency situation decreases as the number of people who witness the event increases.

Even though science frequently contradicts common sense, science ultimately resets on common sense.

Theories that are finally accepted by the scientific community must satisfy the common sense of the scientific community.

An important point is that the common sense of an expert in a particular field is different from the common sense of a lay person.

(2)   Science

Characteristics of Science

(A)  Science is Empirical and Objective

Science is Empirical and Objective. Meaning that science relies on objective observations – more than any other way of knowing, for example; authority, common sense, or logic. 

We will discuss more about the different ways of knowing later.

In fact, Objective observations are the single most important characteristic that tends to set science apart from what is not science.

-          Objective observations – are those observations made in such a way that any person having normal perception and being in the same place at the same time would arrive at the same observations.

(B)  Science is Self Corrective

Because science is an empirical enterprise, it naturally follows that new evidence is constantly being discovered that contradicts previous knowledge.

SCIENCE IS CHARACTERIZED BY A WILLINGNESS TO LET NEW EVIDENCE CORRECT PREVIOUS BELIEFS.

Science is characterized by a commitment to change based upon empirical evidence.

 

(C) Science is Progressive

Other areas of human activity change, however, it is difficult to argue that they progress.

Literature, art, music, fashion change, but whether they are better is a matter of taste, not a matter that could be settled by any empirical test.

(D) Science is Tentative

Science never claims to have the whole truth on any question because new information may make current knowledge obsolete at any time.

Because of the progressive nature of science, we can be reasonably confident that we are increasingly approaching the truth, rather than simply changing our ideas according to fashion or whim.

(E)  Science is Parsimonious

Science seeks to use the simplest explanation possible to account for a given phenomenon.

Example

If we want to explain why a mother cat licks and cleans her kittens.  Of the fluids and membranes that cover them when they are born:

(1)   We could say that she “knows” that she must clean them up or they will become cold and will not survive (which may appeal to us as animal lovers), or

(2)   We could say that she does so because it tastes good to her (simpler, probably comes closer to the truth).

Concept of parsimony in science was advocated by William of Ockham, a philosopher during the 14^th century, - often called “Ockham’s Razor”.

(F)  Science is Concerned with Theory

Major concerns of science is the development of a theory about how something works.

Relationship Between Science and Non-Science

What makes scientists different than most “authorities” is their willingness to change their beliefs based on objectively obtained empirical evidence derived from the scientific method.

Working Assumptions of Science

(i)        Reality of the World

Fundamental assumption of science is the “Reality of the World”.

The notion that the objects of scientific study in the world exist apart from their being perceived by people.

Philosophers call this assumption the “Doctrine of Realism”.

This has been a contention among philosophers since the time of the Greeks.

However, in general, scientists have little interest in philosophical debates about the reality of the world.

-          Scientists assume the world is real and they go about studying it as best they can.

(ii)      Rationality of the World

World is understandable by way of “logical thinking”.

If the world were irrational, if it could not be understood by using principles of logic, there would be no point in trying to understand it by any means.

(iii)    Regularity of the World

Assume the World follows the same laws - at all times - in all places.

Without REGULARITY, the REALITY, and RATIONALITY of the world would NOT be much use to science.

Science assumes that nothing about human behavior falls outside the laws of nature, wherever or whenever the behavior occurs.

-          Although the causes may be complex and we may never have all of the information necessary to explain a particular behavior.

(iv)    Discoverability of the World

Possible to discover how the world works.

A basic tenet of science is that every event has a cause.

Universe is orderly – all events have meaningful, systematic causes.

Science assumes that events do not just happen by themselves or for no reason – there are causes that can potentially be discovered.

Along with this is the assumption of “TESTABILITY” – scientific theories about the world should be testable using currently available research techniques.

(v)      Causality

To do science, it is necessary to assume that events do not just happen by themselves or for no reason.

A basic tenet of science is that every vent has a cause.

Determinism – Belief that all events are caused.

Should be noted that some events may be considered causes of other events even if the relationship between them is less than perfect.

-     Classic example – Smoking causes lung cancer, even though not every person who smokes contracts lung cancer.

-     Similarly, poverty is a probabilistic cause of crime, even though not every person who is poor commits a crime and not all criminals are poor.

Statistical association between smoking and lung cancer and poverty and crime.

Four Canons of Science

Other researchers speak of the “FOUR CANNONS OF SCIENCE”.

-          A canon is a fundamental assumption that is accepted on faith.

At the very heart of science are the four canons of science.  A canon is a fundamental principle generally accepted by individuals within a particular paradigm or discipline.  Although a specific canon is accepted by the individuals within the particular paradigm or discipline, it may not be universally accepted by all individuals.  In science, there are four canons, determinism, empiricism, testability, and parsimony. 

Determinism is the principle that everything in the world (including human behavior) is orderly and that all events (including human behavior) have meaningful, systematic causes.  In psychology, the principle of determinism asserts that although people behave and think in different ways, there are universal laws that underlie all human thinking and behavior.  One of the goals of psychology is discovering the discovery of these universal laws. 

Empiricism is the principle that knowledge is best obtained through the experience of the five senses, as opposed to appealing to authority or logic.  An interesting parable, often attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, concerns a group of philosophers debating the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth.  The wise old philosophers were using logic to try to deduce the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth when one young philosopher replied; “why don’t we go over to a horse, open its mouth, and count the number of teeth”.  This parable illustrates the scientific principle that empirical evidence (e.g. directly counting the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth) is a better way of obtaining knowledge than logic (e.g. attempting to logically deduce the number of teeth in a horse’s mouth).  Interestingly, today the phrase “straight from the horse’s mouth” generally implies an appeal to authority as a way of obtaining knowledge. 

Testability is the principle that a theory is only useful if it makes a definitive prediction that can be empirically observed in order to confirm or disconfirm the prediction.  A major problem with most of Freud’s theories is that they are not testable.  For example; it not possible to test Freud’s theory that the Id is an unconscious part of the brain that drives a person to seek instant gratification.  An important component of testability is falsifiability.  Falsifiability is the principle that a theory not only must be testable in order to be useful, it must be possible to confirm or disconfirm the theory.  This means that it is possible to set up an experiment in which one set of results would confirm the theory and another set of results would disconfirm the theory.  For example, the theory of operant conditioning holds that the rate of a behavior that is followed by a pleasant consequence will increase and the rate of a behavior that is followed by an unpleasant consequence will decrease.  This is a testable theory.  It is possible to test the hypothesis that the rate of a particular behavior followed will increase when followed by a pleasant consequence and decrease when followed by an unconscious consequence.  If this result is obtained for a particular behavior, the result supports the theory, if this result is not obtained for a particular behavior, the result does support for the theory.  As more and more specific hypotheses are tested concerning different specific behaviors and under different conditions, the results will either add additional support for the theory or add additional support against the theory. 

Parsimony is the principle that, all other things being equal, the simplest explanation or theory is preferred over a more complex explanation or theory.  For example, we could explain why animals lick their wounds by stating that animals “know” that their saliva will help to clean and heal the wound.  However, then you must develop an explanation has to how the animal could come to know this.  A much simpler explanation, that requires no further explanations, is that animals lick their wounds because it feels good (or possibly tastes good).  Another example involves predicting a given phenomenon from other information using multiple regression analysis; a statistical technique we will discuss later in the semester.  For example, we might want to predict College GPA.  One model might be able to account for 60 percent of the variation in College GPA using 20 predictor variables such as High School GPA, SAT scores, Number of Extracurricular Activities, Letters of Recommendation, Statement of Purpose, Type of High School, Socioeconomic Status, Age, Study Skills, Time Management, Motivation, Prior Academic Achievements, Life Experiences, and various Psychological Factors.  Another model might be able to account for 55 percent of the variation in College GPA using three predictor variables, say, High School GPA, SAT scores, and Motivation.  The model that accounts for 55 percent of the variation in College GPA using three predictor variables would be preferred over the model that accounts for 60 percent of the variation in College GPA using 20 predictor variables because it is more parsimonious.

In summary, science is based on the cannons of determinism, empiricism, testability, and parsimony.  Science develops theories to account for particular phenomena of interest.  These theories are based upon objective, empirical observations and should be testable, falsifiable, and parsimonious.  Science involves deriving predictions from the theories, empirically testing these predictions, and modifying the theories based upon the results of the testing.  An important part of science involves the research designs used to empirically test the predictions derived from theories.