scientific method lecture 1 wa uam 1ma/2 sem/2013
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Scientific Method 11 MA English Philology
Barbara KonatDepartment of Epistemology and Cognitive Sciences
Faculty of Social Sciences
2013
How do I get the credit for the course?
Participation – min. 80%. In groups, prepare and present your own research project on the poster session (last class:12.06.2013).
Where I can find the course presentations, syllabus and other information?
http://amu.academia.edu/BarbaraKonat/
www.slideshare.net/barbarakonat
Duty hours: Friday, contact me.
What if I have more questions?
Technical information:
Philosopher, PhD Dissertation in the Methodology of Linguistics (Cognitive vs. Generative linguistics).
Faculty of Social Sciences (Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology, Culture studies).
Institute of Philosophy. Department of Epistemology and Cognitive Sciences
I am also interested in: corpus linguistics, cognitive liguististics, logic.
About me
Module 1 - Introduction (classes 1-3)
scientific method, empirical science, empirical linguistics, research proccess, operationalization, ethics in research.
Module 2 – The structure of scientific article (classes 4-6)
reading an article in empirical linguistics, experiment and observation.
Module 3 – Research plan preparation (classes 7-11)
Final - Poster session and oral presentations of research plans.
(more in syllabus: http://amu.academia.edu/BarbaraKonat)
Course structure
You will know the difference:
- Between scientific method and intuition.
- Between experiment and observation.
You will be able to:- Read an scientific article and analyze it on the meta-level.- Prepare your own research plan.
At the end of this course…
Prepare 2 minutes presentation, answering the following questions:
1. Why do I study English Philology?
2. What do I want to learn in SciMet classes?
3. What is the subject of my MA thesis?
You have 5 minutes preparation time.
Remember to take notes for your presentation.
Exercise 1 – Nice to meet you
Image by lumaxart (EbonyG00052_LuMaxArt) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
KINDS OF KNOWLEDGE
Image by Smallbones (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
„Not so much what we know as how we know it.”(Babbie, 2010)
Knowledge
The world is round
Image from: http://onlyhdwallpapers.com Inspired by Terry Pratchett’s „Discworld” book series.
Dark side of the moon is cold
By Tomruen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
How do you know?
Have you been to the space and watched the Earth from the distance?
Have you been to the dark side of the moon lately?
Donald Henry Rumsfeld (born July 9, 1932) is an American politician and businessman. Rumsfeld served as the 13th Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and as the 21st Secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006 under President George W. Bush.
From: Wikipedia.
This image is a work of a U.S. military or Department of Defense employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.
Exercise 2: The art of knowing
“Now what is the message there? The message is that there are no "knowns." There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.
It sounds like a riddle. It isn't a riddle. It is a very serious, important matter.
There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist. And yet almost always, when we make our threat assessments, when we look at the world, we end up basing it on the first two pieces of that puzzle, rather than all three.”
Rumsfeld, NATO Headquartes, June 6, 2002 - from Wikiquotes.
Exercise 2: The art of knowing
Tenacity (tradition):
people will clinge to an idea simply because it seems to be common sense.
How do we know: tradition
1. We do well to trust the judgment of a certain person, who has the special training, expertise, and credentials in a given matter, especially in the face of controversy.
2. But what about the authority of experts speaking outside their field of expertise?
How do we know: authority
The Thinker and his Wife Cernavoda, Karanovo Culture 5000 BC.
SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
What sets science apart, is its dependence on intersubjective verification, the possibility that knowledge can be empirically tested by different researchers.
Keywords:
Intersubjective
Verification
Replicability
Scientific method
Exercise: Watch the movie. Take notes, compare their arguments, say what you think
Exercise 3: Is language science possible?
Patricia Smith Churchland is a Canadian-American philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mindFrom Wikipedia
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician,historian, political critic, and activist. From Wikipedia
Experiment, observation or native speaker intuition?
Psycholinguistic view:
Monica Gonzales-Marquez.
Language science - how do you collect the data?
A Lion’s Tale
Lion - Rostock Zoo Source Wikimedia AuthorEuro-t-guide.com
„ Clearly asking a lion how he communicates, would be fruitless. What would you need to do, is to arrange a controlled circumstances under which you could record his vocalizations in response to the situations you construct and whose meaning you do understand.”
Monica Gonzales-Marquez.
Language science - how do you collect the data?
ERRORS IN INQUIRY
Image by: By Arodichevski (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
What is the color of the doorknob, outside this room?
CONCIOUS/UNCONSIOUS observation
Measuremenst
Innacurate observation
Few similar events provide evidence of a general pattern.
Imagine you are a reporter covering an animal-rights demonstration. 3/3000?
Keywords: representativeness, sample
Overgeneralization
Photo by Andrew Selman (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 CC-BY-2.5 via Wikimedia Commons
We tend to focus on future events and situations that fit the pattern, and we tend to ignore those that do not.
Racial and ethnic prejudice!
Selective observation
The gambler’s fallacy
Illogical reasoning
Somewhere in science….interdisciplinary research
Picture from: http://researchinprogress.tumblr.com
Knowledge
Intersubjective
Verification
Replicability
Experiment
Observation
Intuition
Representativeness
Sample
Keywords to remember
How do I get the credit for the course?
In groups, prepare and present your own research project on the poster session (last class:12.06.2013).
Where I can find the course presentations, syllabus and other information?
http://amu.academia.edu/BarbaraKonat/
www.slideshare.com
Duty hours: Friday, contact me.
What if I have more questions?
[email protected], or today after classes (we finish 15 min earlier today).
Thank you!
This lecture is based on:
Babbie, E. R. (2011). The practice of social research / Earl R. Babbie. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Publishing Co.