Human Inquiry and Science

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Chapter 1

• Human Inquiry and Science

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How do you know what you know?

• Experiential reality things you know as a
  function of your direct experience in the
  world.  
• Agreement reality things you consider to be real
  because youve been told they are real.

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What kinds of evidence are adequate to
demonstrate the existence of things not directly
experienced?

• Logical (theory)
• Empirical (reality)

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What is reality?

• Premodern view  we see things as they really are
  
• Modern view  people with different points of
  view see reality differently ("beauty is in the
  eye of the beholder")
• Postmodern view  reality does not exist
  independently of our points of view about it.
  There is no such thing as objective reality.

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Scientific (and social scientific) methodology

• Epistemology the science of knowing
• How do you know what you think you know?
• What is reality?
• Methodology the science of finding out
• Systematic
• Developed by a scientific community
• Detailed steps in process
• Quality control
• Peer review (intersubjectivity)
• Replication

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Is social science really scientific?

• Some objections to social science as real
  science A hypothetical conversation

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Social scientific logic and theory - searching
for regularities in social life

• Probabilistic
• Social regularities involve aggregate actions and
  situations of social groups
• Elements of social scientific theory are not
  people, but variables.

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Variables

• Vary across units of analysis
• Examples
• Individuals gender, age, level of formal
  education, type of occupation, attitude toward
  abortion
• Small groups level of cohesion, frequency of
  interaction, ethnocentrism
• Societies GNP, type of political structure,
  population size

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Attributes

• Characteristics or qualities that describe a unit
  of analysis
• Examples
• Individuals male, female, 22 years old, high
  school graduate, plumber, favors abortion
• Social groups low cohesion, meets once a week,
  hostile toward outsiders
• Societies high GNP, communist government, 75
  million people
• Variables are logical groupings of attributes

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Two major types of variables in social scientific
theory, methods, and data analysis

• Independent variable variable that is presumed
  or found to influence/affect/cause another
  variable
• Dependent variable variable that is presumed or
  found to be influenced/affected/caused by an
  independent variable

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Relationship between two variables
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Same relationship displayed in a table
Percentages Summed to 100 Down Columns

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No relationship between variables
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No relationship - 1
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No relationship - 2
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General Social Survey

• Omnibus survey many topics
• Data collected from a national probability sample
  of American adults
• Face-to-face interview
• Data collected every year or two since 1972
• Codebook on GSS website

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Approaches to social research

• Idiographic and nomothetic explanation
• Inductive and deductive theory
• Quantitative and qualitative data
• Pure and applied research