2: The Science of Social Science

1) Social Science and Science

At their core, the social sciences apply the ‘scientific method’ to the analysis of people, societies, power, and social change. So in order to understand social science, it’s important to know both what “the scientific method” and “science” are, what they are not, and ways they should and should not be used.

Science

What is science? To some, science refers to high school or college courses such as physics, chemistry, and biology. To others, science is a craft practiced by scientists in white coats using specialized equipment in their laboratories.

A typical view of a “scientist” doing “science.” (Public domain)

To be more specific, however, science refers to a systematic and organized body of knowledge in any area of inquiry that is acquired using the scientific method (the scientific method is described further in the next section).

Science can be grouped into two broad categories: natural science and social science. Natural science is the science of naturally occurring objects or phenomena, such as light, objects, matter, earth, celestial bodies, or the human body. Natural sciences can be further classified into physical sciences, earth sciences, life sciences, and others. Physical sciences consist of disciplines such as physics (the science of physical objects), chemistry (the science of matter), and astronomy (the science of celestial objects). Earth sciences consist of disciplines such as geology (the science of the earth). Life sciences include disciplines such as biology (the science of human bodies) and botany (the science of plants).

In contrast, social science is the science of people or collections of people, such as groups, firms, societies, or economies, and their individual or collective behaviors. Social sciences can be classified into disciplines such as psychology (the science of human behaviors), sociology (the science of social groups), economics (the science of firms, markets, and economies), and others. A list of the various social sciences was given in the first chapter.

The natural sciences are different from the social sciences in several respects. The natural sciences are very precise, accurate, deterministic, and independent of the person making the scientific observations. For instance, a scientific experiment in physics, such as measuring the speed of sound through a certain media or the refractive index of water, should always yield the exact same results, regardless of the time or place of the experiment, or the person conducting the experiment. If two students conducting the same physics experiment obtain two different values of these physical properties, then it generally means that one or both of those students must be in error.

However, the same cannot be said for the social sciences, which tend to be less accurate, deterministic, or unambiguous. For instance, if you measure a person’s happiness using a hypothetical instrument, you may find that the same person is more happy or less happy (or sad) on different days and sometimes, at different times on the same day. One’s happiness may vary depending on the news that person received that day or on the events that transpired earlier during that day.

Furthermore, there is not a single instrument or metric that can accurately measure a person’s happiness. Hence, one instrument may calibrate a person as being “more happy” while a second instrument may find that the same person is “less happy” at the same instant in time. In other words, there is a high degree of measurement error in the social sciences and there is considerable uncertainty and little agreement on social science policy decisions.

For instance, you will not find many disagreements among natural scientists on the speed of light or the speed of the earth around the sun, but you will find numerous disagreements among social scientists on how to solve a social problem such as reducing global terrorism or rescuing an economy from a recession. Any student studying the social sciences must be comfortable with handling higher levels of ambiguity, uncertainty, and error that come with such sciences.

Five Key Properties of Science

In order for a conclusion about either the natural or the social world to be “scientific” it has to be arrived at in a certain way. Scientific research has five key properties:

• Science is empirical.
• Science is repeatable.
• Science is self-correcting.
• Science relies on rigorous observation.
• Science strives to be objective.
• Science Is Empirical

Empirical means “derived from experience.” Scientists “experience” the world and make observations from that actual experience, like touching a cactus and finding it’s sharp.

Another kind of observation is an inside-the-head one, observation of one’s own consciousness and thought processes. This second technique is known as introspection. This kind of observation is not empirical. For example, you can imagine lying on a beach and relaxing and then to report how that thought makes you feel. You might report it to be a very effective way of helping you to relax. But because you did not have to leave your own head, so to speak, your feeling is not an empirical observation - you can’t conclude from it that beaches are in fact relaxing, because you never experienced an actual beach. You’re only experiencing your own imagination of a beach.

It is probably fair to say that empirical observations are the most fundamental principle of science. These experience-based, public observations are what allow the remaining four characteristics of science to be achieved. Empirical observations are the fundamental basis of science.

Science Is Repeatable

After conducting a scientific research project, a scientist often publishes an article about their research in a scientific journal. One of the sections of that article would be called Methods and it would lay out in great detail how the scientist conducted their study. If future researchers wanted to repeat the study, all they would have to do is pick up the article and follow the methods like a recipe. This process, repeating a research study, is called replication.

Well, that sounds boring and useless, you might think. How do science and psychology progress if researchers spend their time repeating someone else’s study? First, replication is precisely what creates the third key property of science, the capacity for self-correction (see below).

Second, relatively few studies are simple repetitions of previous studies. Instead, the replication seeks to repeat some key aspects of an earlier study while introducing a new wrinkle. To give a simple example, a replication of a study done on learning in preschool children might examine the same phenomenon in children in the primary grades. It could show that the way that preschool children learn also applies to children of other ages as well.

Replication applies both to methods and the results of a study. If a study is repeated exactly in terms of method, it should yield the same results.

Science Is Self-Correcting

It was stated above that replication is what allows science to be self-correcting. Self-correcting means, roughly, that evidence based on good research tends to accumulate, while information based on bad research tends to fade away and be forgotten.

Here are two real-life examples of this scenario.

First, in 1989, a team of scientists claimed that they had achieved something called cold fusion, a nuclear reaction previously thought to be impossible. Observers noted that the results of these experiments, if verified, could be harnessed to solve the world’s energy supply problems (Energy Research Advisory Board, USDOE, 1989). Researchers across the world could not believe that this difficult problem, with such important potential for the human race, had finally been solved. Many tried to replicate these results in their own labs. The vast majority was unable to do so, and the original research was forgotten.

The second example is from biology. In 1997, a team of researchers again claimed that they had achieved what had previously been thought impossible. They were able to clone a higher mammal, a sheep; they named her Dolly. Doubting researchers across the world attempted to replicate these results, and this time, they were successful. Since the cloning of Dolly, there have been other sheep, cats, deer, dogs, horses, mules, oxen, rabbits, rats, and rhesus monkeys (NHGRI, 2017). It is now commonly accepted scientific knowledge that cloning of higher mammals is possible.

Of course, it can take many years for enough evidence to accumulate on one side of a controversy in order to draw a firm conclusion. This lengthy time frame makes it very frustrating to be a consumer of scientific information. We may learn through media reports, for example, that a study found a particular diet to be safe and effective. Soon after, another study is reported in which the first study is contradicted. What is happening is that we are hearing about the individual pieces that compose the scientific controversy while it is still in progress.

Science Relies on Rigorous Observation

Scientific evidence produced under tightly controlled conditions is what allows the scientist to draw valid conclusions. These conditions are defined by specific research methods. These methods are essentially the rules for making scientific observations. There are many different research methods depending on what type of science you are doing and what questions you are trying to investigate. There are entire courses that teach the details (that is, the rules) about various methods and explain why one method may be more appropriate in a given situation than another. The important point here is that scientists learn about phenomena by carefully controlling, recording, and analyzing their empirical observations.

Science Strives to Be Objective

Science strives to be objective in two ways. First, scientists strive to be personally objective; they try to not let their personal beliefs influence their research. Second, the observations that scientists make must be objective, meaning that different observers would observe the same thing. For example, if a research participant answers a question on a survey by choosing a number on a 5-point scale, different observers would be able to agree which number was chosen.

It can be very difficult to make objective observations. Imagine sending different observers out to watch a group of children and count how many aggressive acts they commit. As you might guess, the different observers might come back with very different reports. One source of difficulty can be the personal background and beliefs of the individual observers. Perhaps one observer believes that boys are more aggressive, so they watch boys more carefully than they watch girls.

Another source of difficulty when trying to make objective observations is a lack of clarity about precisely what is being observed. In order to make observations more objective, researchers use operational definitions. Operational definitions specify exactly how a concept will be measured in the research study.

For example, an operational definition for aggressiveness could be a checklist of behaviors that observers might see in the children they are watching: hitting, punching, kicking another child, using profanity toward another child, directing a threat toward another child, and so on. The goal is to come up with a list of behaviors that are a reasonable reflection of aggressiveness and that different observers can consistently recognize as aggressiveness. An operational definition like this gives observers a way to know what to count as an aggressive behavior so they can compare apples to apples.

The Role of Peer Review in Science

Scientific research uses a technique called peer review to help ensure that the features of good science are contained in any specific research project. Here is how it works. If someone wants to have their research study published in a scientific journal, it will be reviewed by a small group (often three) of experts in the research area. These experts, the peers, will evaluate the article, making comments about and suggestions to improve the scientific strength of the project and report. Publication decisions are based on the recommendations of the peer reviewers.

As a result of peer-review, a great many articles are rejected, and nearly all others are required to make significant revisions before they can be published. Peer review, then, is the basic mechanism that used for quality control throughout the scientific disciplines. Peer review is not perfect however. Low quality studies can slip through, and high quality studies may occasionally be rejected by a powerful but biased reviewer. It is, however, the best procedure available to maintain scientific rigor in published research.

The Scientific Method

The preceding sections defined science as knowledge acquired through a scientific method. So what exactly is the scientific method? The scientific method refers to a standardized set of techniques for building scientific knowledge, such as how to make valid observations, how to interpret results, and how to generalize those results.

The scientific method must satisfy four key characteristics:

Replicability: Others should be able to independently replicate or repeat a scientific study and obtain similar, if not identical, results.

Precision: Theoretical concepts, which are often hard to measure, must be defined with such precision that others can use those definitions to measure those concepts and test that theory.

Falsifiability: A theory must be stated in such a way that it can be disproven. Theories that cannot be tested or falsified are not scientific theories and any such knowledge is not scientific knowledge. A theory that is specified in imprecise terms or whose concepts are not accurately measurable cannot be tested, and is therefore not scientific. Sigmund Freud’s ideas on psychoanalysis fall into this category and are therefore not considered a “theory,” even though psychoanalysis may have practical utility in treating certain types of ailments.

Parsimony: When there are multiple different explanations of a phenomenon, scientists must always accept the simplest or logically most economical explanation. This concept is called parsimony or “Occam’s razor.” Parsimony prevents scientists from pursuing overly complex or outlandish theories with an endless number of concepts and relationships that may explain a little bit of everything but nothing in particular.

Any branch of inquiry that does not allow the scientific method to test its basic laws or theories cannot be called science. For instance, theology (the study of religion) is not science because theological ideas—such as the presence of God—cannot be tested by independent observers using a logical, confirmable, repeatable, and scrutinizable. Similarly, arts, music, literature, humanities, and law are also not considered science, even though they are creative and worthwhile endeavors in their own right.

The scientific method, as applied to social sciences, includes a variety of research approaches, tools, and techniques for collecting and analyzing qualitative or quantitative data. These methods include laboratory experiments, field surveys, case research, ethnographic research, action research, and so forth.

The basic cycle of the scientific method (Public domain)

2) What Science (and Social Science) is NOT

Science is one way to ask about, learn about, and describe the world. All other ways to so this are non-science. Areas such as religion, ethics, philosophy, and art are all non-science. They don’t follow the scientific method. That doesn’t mean they are somehow “less good” or “less important” than science, they are simply something different that also is of value to us and the world.

Pseudoscience

Pseudoscience refers to activities and beliefs that are claimed to be scientific by their proponents—and may appear to be scientific at first glance—but are not.

Consider, for instance, the champions of intelligent design, who essentially present their argument for the existence of God as a properly scientific theory which is purportedly based on scientific studies in fields such as molecular biology and evolutionary biology but incorporates both blatant and subtle misconceptions about evolutionary biology. Not only is the theory of intelligent design unscientific, but it is pseudoscientific, as it camouflages and presents itself as a legitimate science. In short, while not all non-science is pseudoscience, all pseudoscience is definitely non-science.

How science, pseudoscience, and non-science intersect

So how can we tell if something is science or pseudoscience?

A set of beliefs or activities can be said to be pseudoscientific if (a) its adherents claim or imply that it is scientific but (b) it lacks one or more of the characteristics of science. For instance, it might lack systematic empiricism. Either there is no relevant scientific research or, as in the case of biorhythms, there is relevant scientific research but it is ignored. People who promote the beliefs or activities might claim to have conducted scientific research but never publish that research in a way that allows others to evaluate it.

A set of beliefs and activities might also be pseudoscientific because it is not falsifiable. As an example of an unfalsifiable claim, consider that many people who believe in extrasensory perception (ESP) and other psychic powers claim that such powers can disappear when they are observed too closely. This makes it so that no possible observation would count as evidence against ESP. If a careful test of a self-proclaimed psychic showed that she predicted the future at better-than-chance levels, this would be consistent with the claim that she had psychic powers. But if she failed to predict the future at better-than-chance levels, this would also be consistent with the claim because her powers can supposedly disappear when they are observed too closely.

Why should we concern ourselves with pseudoscience? To appreciate the practical importance of this question, let’s imagine what would happen if there was no way of telling science from non-science. Let’s consider some of these practical implications in turn.

Suppose a certain community argues that we are facing a potential environmental disaster: say, an upcoming massive earthquake, an approaching asteroid, or slow but steady global warming. How seriously should we take such a claim? Naturally our reaction would depend on how trustworthy we think the position of this community is. We would probably not be very concerned, if this was a claim championed exclusively by a pseudoscientific community. However, if the claim about looming disaster was accepted by a scientific community, it would likely have serious effect on our environmental policy and our decisions going forward. But this means that we need to have a way of telling what’s science and what’s not.

The ability to tell science from non-science and pseudoscience is equally important in courts, which customarily rely on the testimony of experts from different fields of science. Since litigating sides have a vested interest in the outcome of the litigation, they might be inclined towards using any available “evidence” in their favor, including “evidence” that has no scientific foundation whatsoever. Thus, knowing what’s science and what’s not is very important for the proper function of courts. Consider, for example, the ability to distinguish between claimed evidence obtained by psychic channeling, and evidence obtained by the analysis of DNA found in blood at the scene of the crime.

The difference between science and pseudoscience is also crucial for healthcare. The promise of an easy profit often attracts those who are quick to offer “treatments” whose therapeutic efficacy hasn’t been properly established. Biorhythms, crystals, astrology, homeopathy, and many other pseudoscientific beliefs are promoted on the Internet, on television, and in books and magazines. Far from being harmless, the promotion of these beliefs often results in great personal toll as believers in these types of pseudoscience opt to pursue them for serious medical conditions instead of empirically-supported treatments. Such “treatments” can have health- and even life-threatening effects.

Thus, any proper health care system should use only those treatments whose therapeutic efficacies have been scientifically established. But this assumes a clear understanding as to what’s science and what merely masks itself as such. Learning what makes them pseudoscientific can help us to identify and evaluate such beliefs and practices when we encounter them so that we can make the best healthcare decisions we can.

A solid educational system is one of the hallmarks of a contemporary civilized society. It is commonly understood that we shouldn’t teach our children any pseudoscience but should build our curricula around knowledge accepted by our scientific community. For that reason, we don’t think astrology, divination, or creation science have any place in school or university curricula. Of course, sometimes we discuss these subjects in history and philosophy of science courses, where they are studied as examples of non-science or as examples of what was once considered scientific but is currently deemed unscientific. Importantly, however, we don’t present them as accepted science. Therefore, as teachers, we must be able to tell pseudoscience from science proper.

In recent years, there have been organized campaigns to portray pseudoscientific theories as bearing the same level of authority as the theories accepted by proper science. Social media makes these kinds of campaigns increasingly easy to orchestrate. Consider, for instance, the deniers of climate change or deniers of the efficacy of vaccination who have managed – through orchestrated journalism – to portray their claims as a legitimate stance in a scientific debate. Journalists should be properly educated to know the difference between science and pseudoscience, for otherwise they risk hampering public opinion and dangerously influencing policy-makers. Once again, this requires a philosophical understanding on how to tell science from non-science and pseudoscience.

In brief, the philosophical problem of demarcation between science and non-science is of great practical importance for a contemporary civilized society and its solution is a task of utmost urgency.

One source for information on pseudoscience is The Skeptic’s Dictionary (The Skeptic's Dictionary [www.skepdic.com]). Among the pseudoscientific beliefs and practices you can learn about are the following:

• Cryptozoology. The study of “hidden” creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and the chupacabra.
• Pseudoscientific psychotherapies. Past-life regression, rebirthing therapy, and bioscream therapy, among others.
• Homeopathy. The treatment of medical conditions using natural substances that have been diluted sometimes to the point of no longer being present.
• Pyramidology. Odd theories about the origin and function of the Egyptian pyramids (e.g., that they were built by extraterrestrials) and the idea that pyramids, in general, have healing and other special powers.

Another online resource is Neurobonkers (Neurobonkers [neurobonkers.com]), which regularly posts articles that investigate claims that pertain specifically to psychological science.

Science and Common Sense

Some people wonder whether the scientific approach to behavior is necessary. Can we not reach the same conclusions based on common sense or intuition? Certainly we all have intuitive beliefs about behavior—and these beliefs are collectively referred to as folk psychology. Although much of our folk psychology is probably reasonably accurate, it is clear that much of it is not.

For example, most people believe that anger can be relieved by “letting it out”—perhaps by punching something or screaming loudly. Scientific research, however, has shown that this approach tends to leave people feeling more angry, not less (Bushman, 2002)1. Likewise, most people believe that no one would confess to a crime that they had not committed unless perhaps that person was being physically tortured. But again, extensive empirical research has shown that false confessions are surprisingly common and occur for a variety of reasons (Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004)2.

In 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology, psychological scientist Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues discuss several widely held commonsense beliefs about human behavior that scientific research has shown to be incorrect (Lilienfeld, Lynn, Ruscio, & Beyerstein, 2010)3.

Here is a short list:

• “People use only 10% of their brain power.”
• “Most people experience a midlife crisis in their 40s or 50s.”
• “Students learn best when teaching styles are matched to their learning styles.”
• “Low self-esteem is a major cause of psychological problems.”
• “Psychiatric admissions and crimes increase during full moons.”

How can so many of our intuitive beliefs about behavior be so wrong? Notice that this is an empirical question, and it just so happens that behavioral scientists have conducted scientific research on it and identified many contributing factors (Gilovich, 1991)4.

One factor is that forming detailed and accurate beliefs requires powers of observation, memory, and analysis to an extent that we do not naturally possess. For example, it would be nearly impossible to count the number of words spoken by the women and men we happen to encounter, estimate the number of words they spoke per day, average these numbers for both groups, and compare them—all in our heads – to determine whether men or women talk more.

Because we can’t do that, we tend to rely on mental shortcuts in forming and maintaining our beliefs. One of these shortcuts is if a belief is widely shared, especially by people who call themselves experts or influencers, and it makes intuitive sense, we tend to assume it’s true. To make matters worse, once we decide something is true, even without actual scientific evidence, we then tend to focus on cases that confirm our beliefs and not on cases that contradict them. This is called confirmation bias. For example, once we begin to believe that women are more talkative than men, we tend to notice and remember talkative women and silent men but ignore or forget silent women and talkative men.

We also hold incorrect beliefs in part because it would be nice if they were true. For example, many people believe that calorie-reducing diets are an effective long-term treatment for obesity, yet a thorough review of the scientific evidence has shown that they are not (Mann et al., 2007)5. People may continue to believe in the effectiveness of dieting in part because it gives them hope for losing weight if they are obese or makes them feel good about their own “self-control” if they are not.

Scientists—especially behavioral scientists—understand that they are just as susceptible as anyone else to intuitive but incorrect beliefs. This is why they cultivate an attitude of skepticism. Skepticism does not mean being cynical or distrustful, nor does it mean questioning every belief or claim one comes across (which would be impossible anyway). Instead, it means pausing to consider alternatives and to search for evidence—especially systematically collected empirical evidence—when there is enough at stake to justify doing so.

For example, imagine that you read a magazine article that claims that giving children a weekly allowance is a good way to help them develop financial responsibility. This is an interesting and potentially important claim (especially if you have children of your own). Taking an attitude of skepticism, however, would mean pausing to ask whether it might be instead that receiving an allowance merely teaches children to spend money—perhaps even to be more materialistic. Taking an attitude of skepticism would also mean asking what evidence supports the original claim. Is the author a scientific researcher? Is any scientific evidence cited?

If the issue was important enough, it might also mean turning to the research literature to see if anyone else had studied it. Because there is often not enough evidence to fully evaluate a belief or claim, scientists also cultivate a tolerance for uncertainty. They accept that there are many things that they simply do not know. For example, it turns out that there is no scientific evidence that receiving an allowance causes children to be more financially responsible, nor is there any scientific evidence that it causes them to be materialistic.

Although this kind of uncertainty can be problematic from a practical perspective—for example, making it difficult to decide what to do when our children ask for an allowance—it is exciting from a scientific perspective. If we do not know the answer to an interesting and empirically testable question, science, and perhaps even you as a researcher, may be able to provide the answer.

Some Things to Avoid in Scientific Research

Sources

Social Science Research: Principles, Methods and Practices (Revised edition)

Social Science Research: Principles, Methods and Practices [usq.pressbooks.pub]

Introduction to Psychology1st Ed.

Introduction to Psychology1st Ed. [cod.pressbooks.pub]

Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science

Introduction to History and Philosophy of Science [ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub]

Introduction to Anthropology

Introduction to Anthropology