Ways of Knowing

The lecture will cover various forms of knowledge and how they differ from scientific knowledge.
Psychology is considered a science, but not all aspects of it are equally scientific.
The ability to make accurate predictions is crucial for a discipline to be considered a science.

Innate Knowledge: Knowledge that is believed to be inherent.
Cultural Knowledge: Knowledge passed down through generations.
Empirical Knowledge: Knowledge based on observation and evidence.
- Not all empirical knowledge is scientific.
Knowledge Through Experience: Accumulation of direct experiences.
Knowledge Via Testimony: Knowledge gained from being told or reading.
- Children rely heavily on testimony but monitor the reliability of the source.

Accepting knowledge based on the credibility of the source.
Historically, authority figures included those in positions in the church or holders of cultural knowledge.
Argument from authority: Just because someone is authoritative, it doesn't mean they are correct.
Example: A psychotherapist effective with juvenile offenders, despite not using scientifically endorsed methodologies, holds valuable practical knowledge.
Example: Surviving in the Northern Territory requires cultural knowledge finely tuned to survival.

Continuing to believe what one already believes.
Seeking only evidence that agrees with existing beliefs, which leads to confirmation bias.
Avoiding or discounting conflicting evidence.
Cognitive Dissonance: Dismissing information that conflicts with strongly held beliefs or changing the world to conform to those beliefs.
- Example: Leon Festinger and the cult that predicted the world would end. When the world didn't end, the devotees said their observances had freed the world.

Deductive arguments draw conclusions based on premises.
Example: All humans are mortal, Socrates is a human, therefore Socrates is mortal.
A deductive argument is valid if the premises are true.
A valid deductive argument can be untrue if the premises are false.
- Example: All humans are blue, Socrates is a human, therefore Socrates is blue.

A sense of what is reasonable based on experience. Common sense is an important way of knowing but has flaws.
A Priori Knowledge: Knowledge established independently of experience, through logic or reason.

Privileging personal experience can be misleading, as demonstrated by illusions.
Example: The Shepherd table illusion, where two tables appear different in shape but are identical.
Perception is not always objective; measurement is a tool to make perception more objective.
Psychology may have poor measurement tools compared to other sciences.

Explanations of social scenarios illustrate different ways of gaining information and making assumptions.
- Example: Explaining why someone acted a certain way, i.e., "because she's a bitch" versus "because she wasn't invited to the party."

Intuitive understanding of physical phenomena can be incorrect.
- How does putting ice in a drink make it cooler?
  - The intuitive assumption is that the ice cools down the water, but really the water warms up the ice.
- Swinging a ball around one's head and letting go produces different intuitions about its trajectory.
Folk physics leads to incorrect ways of thinking.
- Example: A bullet shot from a gun hits the ground at the same time as a bullet dropped from the hand.
- Example: Dropping a bomb from a plane requires accounting for the plane's motion.
People misattribute properties to objects based on motion.
Brains are capable of complex motion prediction, such as catching a ball.

Folk psychology is our common-sense way of explaining psychological phenomena.
Example: Attributing personality traits or abilities to specific groups.
Example: Astrology and palmistry.
The Kruger-Dunning effect shows that people often overestimate their abilities.
- People tend to rate themselves above average in various domains.
Psychologists need to be modest about their measurements because measurement simplifies the world.
Folk psychology generates contradictory views of the world.

Desire for certainty leads us to privilege clarity over truth.
Preference for simplicity.
Confirmation bias.
- Example: Children's emotion understanding; if someone is sad on their birthday, it violates the script and invites questions.
Testimony is persuasive but unreliable.
Bertrand Russell: People learn nothing from experience except confirmation of their prejudice. Genuinely learning from experience requires open-mindedness.

Daniel Kahneman and Tversky described two systems for thinking:
- System One: Automatic, effortless, draws on memory, enforces causation, and creates consistency but perpetuates biases.
- System Two: Slow, effortful, and lazy; involves thinking through difficult things.
Cognitive miserliness: The tendency to be lazy in using System Two.
Override failure: The failure to change one's thinking based on evidence.

Difficult to define but easier to describe what it is not.
An approach to knowledge about what is acceptable and how it is obtained.
Not just the application of logic and reason but the testing of premises and inferences.
The philosophy of science explores the creation of science.
Knowledge in science and technology is cumulative and self-correcting, unlike knowledge in politics and ethics.
Science is particularly drawn to the inductive method, emphasizing the examination of premises before making inferences.
A toolkit for science includes intellectual traditions and practices.
Science uses logic, rationalism, empiricism, evidence, and testable hypotheses.