Midterm practice

• Observational studies

  • Researchers observe subjects without interfering

  • They do not control variables or assign treatments

  • Used to find associations between factors, but cannot prove cause and effect

• Experimental studies

  • Researches control variables and apply treatments to test cause- and - effect relationships

  • Participants are usually divided into groups

  • Used in scientific experiments where researchers want to prove an effect

Chp11

Inquiry:

•  The process of seeking truth, knowledge or understanding through questioning.

  • Scientific inquiry:

    •  using empirical methods to test hypotheses

  • Historical inquiry:

    • investigating past events through sources and interpretations

  • Social inquiry:

    •  studying societal structures, behaviours and movements critically 

Fallacious reasoning:

• Means making mistakes in thinking that lead to false or misleading conclusions.

Different ways our thinking can get stuck and stop us from learning or understanding different perspectives

• Ideological fixity

  • Being so committed to a belief that you refuse to seriously consider other perspective, even if you know they exist

• Myside bias

  • Only seeing evidence that supports your beliefs whole ignoring or being unaware of anything that challenges them

• The need to be right

  • Refusing to listen to other viewpoints because you don't want to admit you could be wrong

• The desire for certainty

  • Wanting absolute answers and not accepting that knowledge is often uncertain evolving

• Identification with our beliefs

  • Seeing our beliefs as part of our identity, so changing them feels like losing part of who we are

• Defensiveness

  • Feeling attacked when someone criticizes your ideas, even if the criticism is about the idea, not you

• Rushing to response

  • Reacting too quickly without fully thinking through the other persons argument

These are different ways our thinking can be influenced by social pressure, making us less open to new ideas.

• Social biases (how groups influence our thinking)

• Groupthink

  • When people go along with the group instead of questioning ideas because they don't want to stand out or cause disagreement

    •  "In a meeting, everyone agrees with a bad idea because they don't want to challenge the boss"

• Inside-the-box-bias

  • Accepting traditional beliefs without questioning them, just because they’ve always been accepted in our culture

    • "we've always done it this way, so it must be the right way"

• Cognitive biases (mistakes in how we think)

  • Representative bias

    • Assuming that one experience (yours or someone else's applies to everything)

      • "my uncle smoked his whole life and never got sick, so smoking must not be that dangerous"

• Availability bias

  • Thinking something happens more often than it actually does just because its easy to remember

    • "Being afraid of plane crashes because they're all over the news, even through car crashes are much more common"

• Vividness bias

  • Giving more importance to things that are dramatic or emotional even if they're rare

    • "Sharks attacks must be common because I saw a scary news story about one"

• Overconfidence

  • Being too sure that you're right, even when you're not

    • "I don't need to study I already know everything for the test (fails)"

• Confirmation bias

  • Only looking for information that supports what you already believe and ignoring anything that challenges it

    • "I only watch news channels that agree with my opinions"

Chp 12

The nature of scientific inquiry

• Scientific inquiry is about questions and finding answers based on facts. Scientists carefully observe the world, gather data and use logical reasoning to explain what they see. To make sure their explanations are strong they test their ideas and compare different possible explanations to find the best one

Hutton and scientific inquiry 

• James Hutton a geologist followed these principles in his work:

  • He based his ideas on observations of the natural world, rather than religious texts

  • He proposed the best possible explanation for the evidence he found at the time

  • His ideas led to further discoveries and new ways of thinking

  • He shared his work with other experts so they could examine and challenge his conclusions, ensuring his theory was solid

Characteristics of scientific inquiry

• Causal explanations

  • Reductionism: science often explains big things by breaking them down into smaller parts

• Testability

  • Scientists test their ideas through experiments by checking whether their predictions come true, and by comparing results with other known facts

• Fruitfulness

  • A good scientific theory should explain things well and lead to more discoveries

  • Fruitfulness helps evaluate broad theories but not necessarily smaller individual claims

• Peer Review

  • Scientists share their work with other experts to check if their evidence is strong

  • This helps determine whether a claim is well-supported

• Probability and selection

  • Evolution happens through random genetic changes, but natural selection choses which changes survives. Its not just randomness selection plays a key role

• Burden of proof

  • If someone wants to reject a well-established theory, like evolutions they must provide strong new evidence and a better alternative explanation

• Unexplained phenomena

  • Just because something isn’t explained yet doesn't mean a theory is wrong

  • Science is always working on new problems and some mysteries take time to solve

• Snow and statistics

  • Having a clear cause-and-effect explanation makes a theory more convincing

Criteria for evaluating casual claims

• Cause happens before the effect

  • The cause must come before the effect

• Ruling out other explanations

  • Scientists check if something else could have caused the effect

• Choosing the simplest explanation

  • The best explanation is the one that makes sense without adding unnecessary details

Chp 13

Special challenges in studying humans

• Limited experiments

  • Scientists cant always do experiments on humans because of ethical concerns (it wouldn't  be right to harm people) and practical issues (some studies take years to complete)

• People change behaviors when observed

  • If people know they are being studied they might act differently, making it harder to get natural results

Assessing a claim I

• Does it fit with existing knowledge?

  • If a claim contradicts well -established science, there is a higher burden of proof - stronger evidence is needed

• Has it been peer-reviewed?

  • Peer review mean other experts have checked the research to make sure its valid and follows scientific methods

Assessing a claim II

• Repetition and agreement

  • Have other scientists studied the same claim?

  • Do their results agree with the original study?

• What kind of studies support the claim?

  • Experimental studies:

    • Scientists control variables to test cause-and-effect

  • Observational studies;

    • Scientists watch and collect data without changing anything (studying, smoking habits over time)

  • Case-controlled studies:

    • Look at past data to find patterns

  • Cohort

    • Follow a group over time to see what happens

Types of studies

• There are two main types of scientific studies: observational and experimental

  • Observational studies

    • Scientists observe people but do not interfere or control variables

    • These studies help find patterns and possible causes of diseases or behaviors

    • They can e retrospective (looking at the pasta) or prospective (following people into the future)

• Retrospective studies (looking back)

  • Scientists compare a group of people who have a disease or behaviour with a similar group that does not

  • They look at past records to find differences that might explain why one group got sick or developed certain behaviours

• Prospective studies (Looking forward)

  • Scientists track a group of people over time to see what happens to them

  • They look for connections between behaviours or conditions and future outcomes

• Experimental studies

  • Scientists control the conditions of the study to test cause and effect

  • They often divide people into groups, change something for one group and compare results

Cofounding factors

• In non-experimental studies there's always a risk that something other than the studied factor is actually causing the effect

• Researches must identify and control for these outside influences before making a strong casual claim

Key concepts for casual claims in social sciences

1. Sampling (choosing participants)

   • Random sampling

     • Choosing people randomly from a population to avoid bias

   • Convivence sampling:

     •  choosing people who are easiest to reach  (less reliable)

   • Random assignment:

     • In an experiment people are randomly placed into groups (one gets treatment the other does not) This helps ensure fairness

2. Types of study

   • Observational

     • (watching without interference) vs. Experimental (actively testing by controlling condition)

     • The type of study affects how strong a casual claim can be

3. Correlation vs. Causality

   • Correlation

     • Two things happen together, but one might not cause the other

   • Causality:

     • One thing directly causes another

1. Convergence (agreement across studies)

   • If multiple studies find the same result, the claim becomes more trustworthy

1. Effect size

   • A statistical measure of how much impact a cause has

Chp 14

Types of judgements in the Arts:

• Interpretive judgements:

  • These deal with the meaning or significance of an artwork

  • This is the central question for interpretive judgements. It explores what the artwork is conveying or symbolizing

  • Multiple valid interpretations:

    • There can be many ways to interpret an artwork but not all are equally valid

  • Supporting evidence:

    • A good interpretation should reference relevant criteria, such as the artworks features, context and historical background and be supported by evidence or reasoning

• Criteria for judging the validity of an interpretation:

  • Correspondence:

    • This criterion asks if the interpretation aligns with the actual features of the artwork and its context.

• Aesthetic (Evaluative) judgement:

  • This type of judgement  is concerned with assessing the quality of the artwork

Chp 15

• Ethics (right and wrong)

  • How should we act? What makes something right or wrong?

• Metaphysics (what exists?)

  • What is real? What kinds of things exist?

• Epistemology (knowledge and truth)

  • How do we know things? What counts as true knowledge

• Political Philosophy (society and justice)

  • How should we organize society? What makes a fair and just system

• Aesthetics (art and beauty)

  • What is art? What makes something beautiful or meaningful?

Ethical relativism

• Ethical relativism is the idea that what "right" or "wrong" depends on culture not on universal moral truths

• Ethical/ Cultural relativism

  • This means that what is considered morally right in one culture may be considered wrong in another

• Meta - Ethics:

  • This is the study of what morality itself is. It asks, "where do moral values come from?"

• Normative ethics:

  • This looks at what moral rules we should follow it asks, "what is the right thing to do?"

Tolerance and relativism

• Tolerance and relativism are not the same thing. In fact they contradict each other

  • Relativism says " each culture decides its own moral rules"

  • Tolerance says " we should respect other cultures"

Ethical justification

• Moral judgements should be based on shared reasons not just personal feelings

Moral vs. Custom

• Even th

  

  ough cultures have different customs (traditions and ways of life) there are some basic moral ideas that all humans share.

The generalizability principle

• If you think something is right or wrong, you should be okay with it being applied to everyone in the same situation including yourself