3.

Merton

1) Universalism

  • Research should be judged on the basis of its scientific merit, not who did it or where it was done

    • Only how you did it matters.

  • Science should be universal → only how you did it should be sound

In everyday life…

  • I cant stand that person → I don’t accept what they say

OR

  • I like that person → I tend to believe what they say

In science

  • We cannot rule out a statement because we don’t like a researcher

2) Organized Skepticism

  • Formal reasons to be skeptical → methodological reasons

    • A scientists job is to challenge peoples findings and methods

3) Disinterestedness

  • The ultimate goal of science should be to pursue truth, NOT wealth or other forms of personal aggrandizement

    • If the goal is fame or money, the truth will suffer and not come

    • Focus shifts from truth, goes more towards headline

      • e.g. Advertising drug → if the drug isn’t effective, you advertise it works well for the money and personal gain

      • Conflict of interest with those who have investments in studies

        • Authors are required to state their conflict of interest

  • Disinterestedness also means the scientist should not become emotionally attached to an idea

    • In collected evidence indicates an idea is wrong, it must be abandoned

    • This rule is harder than you might think, “The truth hurts”

  • Some peoples careers or reputations are based off certain ideas

    • Sometimes ideas make the believer feel good

e.g. → Behaviourist psychology

  • Emphasized observable behaviour rather than internal states such as thoughts, feelings, and motives

    • Maintains our behaviours is learned through rewards and punishments

  • More recently, behaviourism has been legitimately challenged

4) Communalism “og communism”

  • To be accepted as science, all methods, data and findings must be open to public scrutiny

    • You have to spell out your methods and findings for all to ssee and share your data

    • You have to be communal, share the data we used"

  • Now called open science

    • “Share your data”

    • Academic journals require authors to give access to their data as a condition of publication

    • If they dont share, its not scientific

Why would we be interested in asking questions about data, methods, findings?

  • Replicate

    • To see that proper procedures were followed

5) Honesty

  • Quickest way to destroy scientific reputation is by being dishonest

  • doubt or rejection can be faced for past and future studies from dishonesty

    • According to Merton, in science there isn’t a lot of fraud or gross dishonesty

    • Why?

      • Scientists know their work will be checked by other scientists

      • They know they have to be careful: communalism and organized skepticism

      • When we know we are going to be watched we are more careful

One way in which scientists may be less honest is discussing only the findings that support their theories

  • Often some findings don’t support the theory, yet these are skipped over and not reported

Some challenges in Social Science

one way in which values can come into play is by

1) the role of values in research

  • Every scientist has a set personal value, political values that influences their research

  • Same data but can have different conclusions based on our values

When you read social scientific research, the authors values should be considered.

2) The presence of the observer

  • Reactivity or reactive effect

  • Social sciences, things being studied (usually people) may react to the presence of the observer

    • people act differently when they know others are watching or observing them

  • Lets say i’m a researcher interested in the recreational habits of UWO students

    • I knock on your door on a Friday afternoon and say:

    • Id like to follow you around for the weekend and watch what you do

    • Would you behave as you normally do?

  • Social desirability bias

    • Nobody wants to be labelled, we want to be socially popular and accepted

    • Racism example.

3 approaches to science in sociology

  • How sociologists use science to understand social phenomena

    • Positivist, interpretive (or interactionist), and critical (or conflict) positions

      • These 3 approaches are paradigms

      • Paradigm → set of assumptions and beliefs that affect how we understand things

      • Involve unstated assumptions, things that the researcher takes for granted

Positivist

  • Most famous, Foundations in the work of Auguste Comte, and others

  • Coined sociology and altruism

  • Also Durkheim

Many sociologists are positivists 

  • they use experiments, surveys, and statistics 

  • “Quantitative” approach → Numerical data 

  • Positivism: To understand society we must use the same methods used in the natural sciences 

    • Physics, chemistry, biology and so on 

    • Positivists assume all sciences including the social sciences share common principles and logic 

    • Subject matter is different, but theres a certain logic that extends 

  • To understand positivism, look at 7 questions → Socratic method (asking questions) 

Q1: Why should one conduct social scientific research? 

  • This is an existential question. 

    • Positivist answer: we want to explain social phenomena 

    • the aim of science should be to acquire knowledge 

    • believe acquiring knowledge is an end in itself 

  • Basic research → to explain things 

  • Vs applied research → used to solve a particular problem 

If our goal is to acquire knowledge and explain things, how is this done? 

  • Positivists are interested in scientific laws or general principles 

  • Discover Natural laws 

    • Gravity, physics 

  • These principles are general in that they can be applied to large numbers of people 

General principle that might explain why DV occurs 

  • Testosterone levels (biology) → DV