Soc 2206B FW24 Lecture Slides - Jan 14 2025 PDF

Last day we saw that a main theme for this course: How the scientific method can be used to investigate social phenomena –The scientific method is way of knowing, a method to learn about the world  We also saw that science is not the only way of learning about the social world There is als...

Last day we saw that a main theme for this course: How the scientific method can be used to investigate social phenomena –The scientific method is way of knowing, a method to learn about the world  We also saw that science is not the only way of learning about the social world There is also what one could call "ordinary human inquiry" or "ordinary knowing“ This is the type of knowing that most of us use in our daily lives  One type of ordinary knowing we talked about was speculation and logical analysis A second form of ordinary knowing is learning from an authority  Other ways of knowing 2) Authority: sometimes referred to as the “argument from authority” When we learn through authority, we accept something as true because the source of the knowledge is an authority Another way to put this is that when we learn from authority, we rely on “experts” for knowledge  For example, young children often rely on their parents for knowledge For young children, parents are authorities or experts on almost everything Does anyone have young children? Are you an “authority” to them?  Another example of learning from authority is following the advice of a medical doctor We may take certain drugs or even undergo surgery because this authority told us to do so We usually have very little understanding of what the physician is talking about, yet we obey them because physicians are authorities on health matters  Can anyone think of another example of learning from authority? – professional psychologists – electricians – mechanics  Social scientists sometimes rely on authority too: "Marx tell us that..." "Weber holds that.." "Dorothy Smith revealed that..." These statements imply that the points these people are making are true because the people making them are authorities in their field  Learning from authority does have its uses A great deal of good can come from listening to our physician or electrician, or the great social thinkers But there can be problems with learning from authority Can anyone think of any problems with relying on authorities for knowledge?  Authorities can be wrong Just because an authority says something, that doesn't mean it is true Can anyone think of an example of an authority being wrong? Thalidomide  Key point: SOCIOLOGICAL authorities can be wrong too We shouldn’t accept something as true simply because a sociological authority claims it is true One of the goals of this course is to allow you to rely less on SOCIOLOGICAL authorities, and more on your own judgment In other words, we should develop our critical thinking skills  Other ways of knowing 3) Tradition Tradition is really a special kind of authority, the authority of those who came before us The logic of learning from tradition: People have believed this or done this for a long time; there must be something to it We accept something as true or useful because others have accepted it for a long period of time  Like other ways of knowing, tradition can be a useful way to learn For example: It may be a family tradition to spend Thanksgiving or some other special occasion together We may have learned that this is a good way to have an enjoyable time and unite the family We also learn many of our morals through tradition  What's another example of learning from tradition? There are also various sociological traditions: the Marxian tradition, the Weberian tradition, the feminist tradition, etc. We can learn a lot from these  But tradition, like other ways of knowing, has drawbacks What could possibly go wrong if we rely on tradition for our knowledge? We can all think of past traditions which we now see as ridiculous or cruel What are some examples? Only men attended university Slavery Child labour  We have to be very careful when relying on tradition Sometimes it's useful, sometimes it's not so useful That includes SOCIOLOGICAL traditions  We have to be careful when we rely on tradition to explain social phenomena As social scientists, we can't accept something as true simply because it's based on a tradition of some kind We can’t say, “Oh people have always believed that. It must be true.” There are other criteria we have to satisfy, as we'll see  Other ways of knowing 4) Consensus Can anyone say what learning by consensus entails? We gain knowledge by finding out what most people think about the matter What are some examples of that?  There may be a consensus on certain issues in the social sciences: E.g., there may be a consensus that Canada is a class divided society  Any problems with consensus? Just because a lot of people believe something doesn't mean it’s true There once was consensus that the world is flat!  Other ways of knowing 5) Casual observation Here we observe whatever we are interested in, but we don't do it in a careful, systematic way For example, let's say we want to know what causes divorce, an issue we discussed earlier We could observe some friends or family members having marital problems, and see what they have in common  One might think: All the people I’ve known who divorced had poor communication skills We might then conclude that poor communication skills cause divorce  Problem: we have to be very careful in making our observations In everyday life, our observations tend to be rather sloppy Maybe people who don't get divorced also have poor communications skills Maybe the people we observed were not typical (a sampling issue) Perhaps we only considered cases that fit our theory, but ignored other important information that was available (confirmation bias)  How does science differ from ordinary knowing? To answer that question, we have to consider what science is  What is science? "Science" really refers to two things: 1) A body of knowledge  This is what you get in your other courses (facts, theories, interpretations, etc.) 2) A method of gaining knowledge  How you come to know something: the “scientific method” That’s what we’ll focus on for this course  Science as a method of knowing We can determine whether a study is scientific by looking at how the research was conducted It doesn't matter what the topic of the research is at all  How is scientific research conducted? 1) Scientific research produces explanations that are falsifiable (testable) This idea comes from Karl Popper (1902-1994)  Falsifiability: for an explanation to be considered scientific, we must be able to go out into the world and gather evidence to determine whether the idea is false If we can't do that, the explanation is not scientific  Let's say I have a theory that states that crime is caused by poverty People commit crimes--rob banks, break into houses, and so on--because they are poor and need the proceeds to support themselves poverty--->crime Is this theory falsifiable? (By the way, that’s not the same thing as asking, Is this theory false?)  How so? How could we gather evidence to determine if it is false? Compare crime rate: Poor people People who are not poor  Let's say our theory is that crime is caused by subconscious urges subconscious urges--->crime Is this theory falsifiable?  Consider a theory on a different topic “If you don’t lose your hair, you won’t go bald” Falsifiable? No: true by definition = tautology People who don’t lose their hair, by definition, don’t go bald  Let’s break up into groups Each group has to come up with three more statements that are NOT falsifiable They do not have to be tautologies We’ll put each group’s statements up on the board and the rest of the class will discuss whether the statements really are non- falsifiable