POLI 210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Operationalization, Polity Data Series, Foraminifera

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 210
• Professor: Dietlind Stolle

Document Summary

We try to observe the world and there could be a lot of observed, the thing is not about what we observe but what interpretation we are doing of this observation. We must define the conditions in which our theory takes place. Social science is much more complicated to make reliable and generable theories. Science is more also the weight get to the knowledge. The rules defines how and not what we know. Ga(cid:396)(cid:455) cutti(cid:374)g suggests (cid:862)(cid:449)he(cid:374) it (cid:272)o(cid:373)es to generating reliable scientific knowledge, there is nothing more important than frequent and detailed predictions of futu(cid:396)e e(cid:448)e(cid:374)ts(cid:863). By studying the past, we can make more accurate predictions of the future. Ho(cid:449)e(cid:448)e(cid:396), if the p(cid:396)edi(cid:272)tio(cid:374) is (cid:449)(cid:396)o(cid:374)g it"s (cid:374)ot i(cid:373)po(cid:396)ta(cid:374)t (cid:271)ut (cid:455)ou (cid:374)eed to fi(cid:374)d out (cid:449)he(cid:396)e it (cid:449)e(cid:374)t wrong. We deal with humans and not variables, so it is not possible to predicate as well as it is possible for variable.