PSY 150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Naturalistic Observation, Dependent And Independent Variables, Confounding
Document Summary
Science - both science & common sense use deductions & induction. And - both are inherent in human brain architecture. Reasoning - both described by aristotle, more than 3000 years ago. Deduction - deriving truths inherent in other truths using logic based on set. Induction - extrapolating from current data to predict future data. Probabilistic: ~predicts outcomes and provides support for the predictions, but doesn"t prove things. What is - theories are explanations for data. Goodness of a theory judged only be. {quality of the data & whether it fits the data}--> using *scientific. Whether you like the theory or not is totally irrelevant. Theories are never just theories, because all theories have supporting data. You can only judge the quality of a theory once you have earned the theory itself & examined the data to see if it fits the theory. Thus, you can"t know if any theory is any good until you learn it.
