psychology

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Research Methods: Chapter One, What is Science?

After the fall of the Roman Empire, during the Dark Ages, The Church gained tremendous

power in human affairs becoming the Authority on All Matters. While the Western World

languished, the Arab World pursued Rationalism and extended Natural Sciences. In 1120 AD,

Adelard, an Englishman from Bath, went to Spain to study the Arabian texts. He wrote, "From

the Arabs I have learned one thing: if you are led by authority, that means you are lead by a

halter." The Arabs apparently preferred Empiricism, knowledge gained from observation, to the

acceptance of the word of a church authority!

It wasn't long before the Western World discovered the lost works of Aristotle, which were

uncovered in Arab libraries during the Crusades. One especially important discovery was

Aristotle's "Argument by Syllogism." Syllogisms are a form of logic with three parts: major

premise, minor premise, and a conclusion. For example, People are mortal (major premise), I am

a person (minor premise), therefore I am mortal

(conclusion). Ideally, syllogisms take two known facts to

arrive at a third previously unknown fact. There are two

forms: Deduction (general premise to specific conclusion)

and Induction (specific premise to general conclusion). This

discovery and others led the Western World to develop a

rational means (ie., non-biblical) of investigating nature and

uncovering new facts. Adelard of Bath (an English Scholar

from the 1200's) applied syllogisms to 168 passages of the

Bible and uncovered illogic and inconsistency in every

passage! The Church got mighty upset about this and the

seeds of the Inquisition were planted. Adelard proposed

four basic rules for investigation. First, doubt and

question everything. Second, discriminate between

statements of rational proof and those of merely persuasion.

Third, be precise in the meanings of words and demand

precision of others. Fourth, be attentive to error, even in

Holy Scripture.

The battle between logic and the Church had begun. In March of

1255AD, Thomas Aquinas, a church leader published a book, Summa

Theologica, that became the basis for a truce. He established, or

acknowledged, that two truths existed! One truth relates to "revelation"

in the biblical sense and belongs to the church. The second truth relates

to the natural world and belongs to the "Logicians."

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Observation, Comparison, and Mathematics was added to natural science

by Bishop Grosseteste, of Lincoln, England, who taught logic at Oxford

University. In studying the nature of light, he read Christian and Muslim

texts on optics, lenses, reflection, refraction, and stuff like that and

concluded that understanding of natural phenomena required repeated

observation, comparison, and mathematical "proofs."

Roger Bacon, an Englishman living during the same time period, wrote

that we should reject the authority of the church, the knowledge of the past, "unless we are fools,

the works of the past should arouse us to do better." He was promptly imprisoned (1277 AD) for

publicly stating this opinion. The past is where all truth comes from, or so the Church and thus

the Law required.

Theodoric of Freiberg (a German Dominican) analyzed the rainbow in 1310 AD and showed that

the mathematics of angles and lines (i.e., geometry) could explain how white light is refracted

into the colored components. This is the first true experiment of the Western World, and changed

the world forever. Before, men said, "Credo ut intelligum," Understanding can come only

through belief. After, men said, "Intelligo ut credum," Belief can come only through

understanding.

About one hundred years later (1450 AD) the printing press was invented and Truth could now

appear in "black and white," knowledge could easily pass from elders to the youth, the youth

could easily communicate with one another, specialists could communicate with other

specialists, and all could evaluate other's ideas for accuracy, precision, and logical consistency.

Facts finally began to emerge and human minds came together in collective knowledge.

In 1543, Niccolo Tartaglia published a book showing how objects move, or behave, in various

media (like cannon balls flying through the air, bodies in bath water, stars and planets in space).

Benedetti read the book and empirically tested

some of its statements by placing objects in

the various media and pushing them about. He

observed and he measured. Galileo (1600's)

began his own empirical studies of moving

objects and extended the observations and

measurements to the moons of Jupiter.

In the 1600's Rene Descartes developed the graphic system, the Cartesian Coordinate System, for

linear algebra, demonstrating that all linear motion, changes in time, can be describe by one

algebraic equation: Y = bX + m. Sir Isaac Newton developed calculus, the mathematics of

curved motion, of changes in rates (differential calculus) and ratios of changes in rates (integral

calculus). Applying the new math to the planets, Newton discovered that "Every body attracts

every other with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely

proportional to the square of the distance between them."

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In the 1700's, Sir Francis Bacon, The Father of Science, proposed that Empirical Knowledge,

gained by repeated observation was the only true knowledge. Knowledge gained from ancient

texts and writings was false knowledge. As a member of Parliament, he succeeded in the passage

of a bill to provide scientists with government stipends to free them from work to pursue their

science.

In the 1800's, August Comte proposed that there were three stages

of belief that progressing societies follow. They can also be viewed

as three ways of knowing: Theological, Metaphysical, and

Positivism. Theological knowledge is religious. Metaphysical

knowledge is spritualism, and I suppose "new age." Positivism is

knowledge gained from the accepted methods of science. Science

had matured. It's methodology revealed the truth about natural

phenomenon. Science in the 1900's is defined by three major

characteristics: Empiricism, Materialsim, and Positivism.

Knowledge gained by systematic repeated observation

(Empiricism), Explanations stated in terms of known physical

matter and energy (Materialism), Truth found by employing

specifiable, reliable, and valid methods of planning, observing, and

measuring (Postivism).

In the 1900's, Karl Popper pointed out that anyone can

accumulate facts supporting any position or theory.

Science is properly done when it tells us what CAN NOT

Happen. A theory, if correct, will logically tell us what is

and what cannot be. If light has mass, it must bend when

passing near large bodies like planets and suns. If we

ever, even once, observe light not bending, then the

theory is wrong. Science requires this Principle of

Falsification. When is theory right AND when is theory

wrong. It takes both parts, or it's not Science.

Modern science has also adopted four basic attitudes:

Parsimony, Determinism, Empiricism, and Scientific Manipulation. Parsimony is defined as

stingy. Scientists are stingy with their explanations, they keep them simple (well, as simple as the

facts allow, and no more complicated that absolutely necessary to explain all the facts).

Determinism is defined as certainity, or predictableness. Scientists see the world as consistent;

there are truths to be discovered, all phenomenon can be explained rationally and logically.

Empiricism is defined, as always, as observation. Scientists observe, they observe repeatedly,

and they measure each observation as objectively as they and their machines can manage.

Scientific Manipulation is defined as control. Scientists control all facets of possible causes,

while manipulating one and only one facet: the believed cause. They make it bigger or smaller

and compare how the manipulations change the effect, if any.

Modern science is Postivistic, Materialistic, and Empirical, following the Principle of

Falsification and based on Parsimony, Determinism, Empiricism, and Scientific Manipulation.

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Today, and throughout time, people acquire beliefs and values, rightly or wrongly, by one or

more of these five methods: Tenacity, Authority, Reason, Common Sense, and Science.

Tenacity. This is the tendency to "hang onto things." As a way of

knowing or believing, it means that we believe things because "they've

always been that way." Naturally, this is not a good way to accept things

as true or false. The belief can easily be false and is rarely evaluated to

determine whether it is true or false. Most of our cliches and stereotypes

fall into this category of knowing. For example, many people believe that

women are more "emotional" than men. Indeed, many men and women

believe that women are "too emotional" for certain jobs in politics, the

military, top secret research, and in management of corporations. This

belief is a result of tenacity. We (society at large) have always believed it

and always will. It's just how it is. Reflect for a moment on some of your

beliefs; if you detect tenacity at work you may want to reconsider!

Authority. As we grow from children to adults the authorities in our lives

change from our parents (who tell us what is right or wrong) to our teachers,

to our bosses. All these so-called authorities are ready and willing to tell us

what to believe! But where did the authority get its idea of right and wrong?

From Tenacity? Investigate authorities before you blindly accept their ideas.

Parents, ministers, teachers, newscasters, and even a big brother or sister,

might be wrong!

Reason. Also called logic, reason is based on assumptions, which

when correct, can often lead to correct decisions. But if the original

assumptions are wrong, well then, it's all wrong. You can make up a

wonderful theory of human traits and personality if you just assume

that the bumps and dents in one's head correspond to amounts of

various traits (so a bump means more and a dent means less).

Usually a careful examination of the sources of your original

assumpitons will lead you to the falacy of this method. Assumptions

based on authority or tenacity most likely will be wrong and you can now question your starting

assumptions.

Common Sense. Your own personal experiences can also lead

you to your beliefs and values. This is the advantage of common

sense over the previous ways of knowing. You have seen it or

experienced it for yourself, so it must be true. Well, not

necessarily. The problem is that one persons' experience is not

always the same as someone else's. Does that mean there are

now two different "truths?" There are just too many unique

experiences for any one person's experience to be accepted as

true for all. The personal case is not always a general truth. My

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wife claims her daughter is "messy" because she "gets it from her dad," who is also messy. My

wife further reasons that messy behavior is genetic and that means there is no way to change the

behavior! Now there are several problems with this line of reasoning (all of them have been

listed above), but it should be clear that you cannot come to see the truth if you base your

assessment on the experience of only one person even if that person is you!

Science. The scientific method take common sense one step further. Instead of being based on

one persons experience, it is based on the common experiences and agreement of all of us. When

one scientist observes (empiricism), the exact method by which the observing occured must be

described so other scientists can observe exactly the same way. In addition, Reason itself is

questioned and subjected to observations to determine if the assumptions are accurate. And one

more thing: Science is constantly "looking back" at it's own previous statements of truth to

question and requestion them as new and more accurate observational methods become

available. Thus science alone of all the ways of knowing is automatically self-correcting. No

other method has any means of correcting itself. Science is always doubting itself and subjecting

itself to reanalysis.

Science Applied to Humans. Psychology has been defined as the science of human behavior,

the science of the nature of the human mind, the study of who we are and how we come to be

that way, and various other things. All definitions of Psychology include something regarding

mental abilities or attributes and behavior. Many definitions and descriptions point out that a

Science of Psychology is unlike any other sciences because the subject is ourselves, rather than

the physical matter of all the other stuff. Because it is a science of ourselves, it involves the

hidden world of thought and emotion. However, the sciences as applied to any discipline

has struggled with the hidden world. Physicists are constantly struggling with the invisible

forces of gravity and time. Chemists are continuously surprised when tiny particles are further

resolved into even tinier particles that were once invisible. These physical sciences once stated

that physical objects and particles possessed feelings! Rocks fell to earth when tossed into the air

because it made them more "jubliant" to be closer to larger versions of themselves! This sounds

absurd today, but was once believed just as strongly as most of us today believe that alcoholism

has a genetic basis. If science has taught us anything, I hope it is that your personal beliefs are

false and will be ridiculed by your grandchildren. The most important thing in all of Science,

especially as the methods of science are applied to humans and the other animals, is that you

always remember that you are wrong. Be aware that you cannot be right. The answer, the truth,

is out there, but it is not here with us now. BE SKEPTICAL above all else. Question everything,

accept nothing. Trust no one.