how we know what we know direct experience and observation what happens when it is challenged? how...

How We Know What We Know• Direct Experience and Observation

What happens when it is challenged?

How do we observe?

Looking for Reality

Two Criteria• Logical support - must make sense• Empirical support - must not

contradict actual observation

Ordinary Human Inquiry• Humans recognize that future

circumstances are caused by present ones.

• Humans learn that patterns of cause and effect are probabilistic in nature. Causality and Probability Science seeks to be more precise with

these concepts

Sources of Secondhand Knowledge• Both provide a starting point for

inquiry, but can lead us to start at the wrong point and push us in the wrong direction.

1. Tradition – My crazy Uncle Ezio2. Authority – Someone in a suit

Inquiry: Errors and Solutions

1. Inaccurate observations• Measurement devices add

precision.2. Overgeneralization• Repeat a study to make sure

the same results are produced each time.

Inquiry: Errors and Solutions

3. Selective observation• Make an effort to find cases that

do not fit the general pattern.4. Illogical Reasoning

• Use systems of logic explicitly.

Views of Reality• Premodern - Things are as they

seem to be.• Modern - Acknowledgment of

human subjectivity.• Postmodern -There is no objective

reality to be observed.

Foundations of Social Science• Theory - logic• Data collection - observation• Data Analysis - the comparison of

what is logically expected with what is actually observed.

Aggregates• The collective actions and situations

of many individuals.• Focus of social science is to explain

why aggregated patterns of behavior are regular even when individuals change over time.

Education and Racial Prejudice

Level of Education % saying Black-

Americans have less ability to learn

Less than high school graduate

27%

High school graduate 13%

Junior college 9%

Bachelor’s degree 5%

Graduate degree 2%

Variables• Dependent Variable: Its value is

explained by other variables Party ID, Vote Choice

• Independent Variable: Its values explain the value and direction of other variable Race, Religion, Income

Approaches to Social Research• Idiographic -Seeks to fully

understand the causes of what happened in a single instance.

• Nomothetic—Seeks to explain a class of situations or events rather than a single one.

Approaches to Social Research• Induction – From specific

observations to the discovery of a pattern among all the given events.

• Deduction - From a pattern that might be logically expected to observations that test whether the pattern occurs.

Approaches to Social Research• Qualitative Data – Nonnumerical

data.• Quantitative Data -Numerical

data. Makes observations more explicit and makes it easier to aggregate, compare, and summarize data.

Approaches to Social Research• Pure Research - Sometimes

justified in terms of gaining “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.”

• Applied Research – Putting research into practice.