PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Al-Biruni, Statistical Significance, Internal Validity
1 Jun 2017
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Document Summary
The nature of human nature outlines theories of intelligence. If we accept the premise that psychology is a science, then certain things follow. They"re based on empiricism, the idea that our knowledge is acquired not by reasoning but my observation of what"s going on in the world. So we need to move to whats called the scientific approach which makes the assumption that behaviour and all events are governed by some form of lawful order. So one of the basic premises of scientic approach is that we have some kind of determinism with scientific behaviour: empiricism. Premise that knowledge is acquired through observation: scientific approach. Assumes that events are governed by some form of lawful order. The goal of science is not to find truth because science is always evolving. We typically speak in probabilistic terms than strict absolutes/ 100% deterministic theories. Goals of scientific approach: description & measurement.
