Chapter 1: Introduction to Scientific Inquiry PDF

What is knowledge? - What do we know? - How do we know it? How does the world work? - Physical world - Psychological world How Do We know? - You've seen/experienced it (intuition) - **Intuition:** relying upon anecdote, experience, or judgment to make sense of the wor...

What is knowledge? - What do we know? - How do we know it? How does the world work? - Physical world - Psychological world How Do We know? - You've seen/experienced it (intuition) - **Intuition:** relying upon anecdote, experience, or judgment to make sense of the world, without adopting a critical or questioning mindset - Evaluating ourselves - Bias (e.g., illusory correlation) - Someone else has seen/experienced it - Evaluating other sources - Bias - **Authority:** Forms of authority; Domain specificity - When we place our trust in someone else who we thinking knows more than we do. - The Scientific Method relies on empiricism. - **Empiricism:** gaining knowledge through systematic observations of the world - Objective and systematic observation - Testable, falsifiable ideas - Conducted by (often biased) humans - **Scientific skepticism:** do not simply accept ideas as truths -- evaluate relevant evidence The following four norms should characterize scientific inquiry at its best. 1. Universalism: scientific observations are systematic and structured 2. Communality: methods and results are to be shared openly a. Replicate: to repeat a research study to determine whether the results can be duplicated 3. Disinterestedness: scientists should be making observations that will help them discover things that are true about the world (they are not motivated by fame, ego, or personal gain) 4. Organized skepticism: all new evidence and theories should be evaluated based on scientific merit, even those that challenge one's own work or prior beliefs. b. Peer review: the process of judging the scientific merit of research through review by peers of the researcher---other scientists with the expertise to evaluate the research Researchers are only interested in falsifiable ideas - Falsifiable ideas: those that can be shown to be false or are capable of being refuted. - Empirical question: a question that can be answered through empiricism, or systematic observation Pseudoscience: uses scientific terms to make claims look compelling and scientific, but actually falls short of using proper scientific methods The principles of science - Determinism - Things have causes - Temporal precedence - Discoverability - We can uncover these causes with some degree of confidence - Prediction Goals of scientific research 1. Describe behaviour. 2. Predict behaviour. 3. Determine cause of behaviour. covariation of cause and effect temporal precedence rule out alternative explanations 4. Understand or explain behaviour To make a causal claim, three criteria must be met: 1. When the cause is present, the effect occurs, when the cause is not present, the effect does not occur. a. **Covariation of cause and effect**: observing that a change in one variable is accompanied by a change in the other variable. 2. The cause must precede the effect in time b. **Temporal precedence**: the cause comes before the effect in time 3. Nothing other than the causal variable can be responsible for the observed effect c. **Ruling out alternative explanations**: ensuring that there are no other explanations for what might have caused an outcome Qualities of a scientist - Curiosity - Humility, tolerance for ambiguity/uncertainty - Nullius in Verba - Freedom from ideology - Objective, Sources of Ideology - Transparency and honesty - Ethics, Public knowledge - Verifiable, Replicable Science = truth? - Tentative truths - No hard conclusions, constant revision based on accumulating evidence - What good is science? - Can't learn hard truths. Can't answer all our questions. Why bother? - Pursuit of truth - Reductionism - Balancing control with generalizability Where do research ideas come from? 1. Common assumptions 2. Observation of the world around us 3. Practical problems 4. Past research 5. Scientific theories Theory: an organized system of logical ideas proposed to explain a particular phenomenon and its relationship to other phenomena. - Grounded in, and helps explain, actual data from research. - Can predict possible future observations. - Parsimony Hypothesis: a scientific term for a statement that may or may not be true and is related to a theory. - Hypothesis needs to be formulated as a specific prediction. - Theory is supported or falsified based on the testing of hypotheses. You can conduct research in a controlled environment like a laboratory (lab research), or you might collect your data out in the real world (field research) For quantitative research, there are two broad approaches. When simply observing phenomena and examining possible associations between them, you are doing correlational research. In contrast, if you are manipulating some behaviour and then observing the effects of this manipulation on an outcome, you are conducting an experiment. There are difference in the extent to which research can be easily applied to everyday context. The terms basic and applied research are often used o denote the ends of this continuum. Types of Research Basic research: - Fundamental questions about behaviour - Develop and test theories about phenomena, no focus on application. Applied research: - Address practical problems in the real world to propose potential solutions.