PSYC 201W Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Scientific Method, Falsifiability
Document Summary
Common methods of acquiring knowledge: tenacity, authority not skepical, because the authority (doctors). If however, i ind a 4 year old not afraid, then this whole system is dispelled: science systemaic empiricsim. Scieniic ways of knowing: determinism, strict determinism: if you know enough, you can predict, staisical determinism: look at trends to predict, objecivity: unbias, replicaion: if results can be replicable, data driven. Aitudes of scienist: uncertainty, open mindedness c, skepicism. Goals of psychological research: describe a behaviour, explain behaviour. Casual inferences: x has a casual efect on y. Casual inferences are possible when three condiions have been met: covariaion, as x changes y changes, temporal order: change in x occurs before change in y, the plausible alternaive explanaions are ruled out: predicing behaviour, control behaviour. The scieniic method assumes truth is discoverable, evens are not random but are regular or with patern, these paterns have underlying causes. Needs to be concise, deine big for example.
