SOAN 3070 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Scientific Method, Inductive Reasoning, Deductive Reasoning

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SOAN 3070
• Professor: Anna Borisenkova

Document Summary

Perceptions: interpreting sounds, smells, what you see etc, we interpret by using previous life experiences, are meaningless by themselves, abstract level of experience occurs in the mind, composed of concepts (abstract terms for organizing sense experience, ex. Laptop is concept: propositions emerge when your mind connects concerts in a meaningful way, ex. Education and income there is some connection/relationship: if they cannot be tested then the proposition will be rejected. Outsiders surveys: want to test proportions in order to explain human behaviour, to accomplish that goal, they conduct experiments (infrequently) and often conduct. ---ways of thinking---: try to remain objective (they are studying from a distance, abstract observations. Deductive reasoning: begins with a general idea and tests whether the idea is credible, the original propositions used in deduction come from theoretical reasons that occurs at the abstract level (abstract to concrete)