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.