PSYC02H3 Lecture Notes - Scientific Method, Empiricism, Falsifiability
Document Summary
Lecture 1: review and critique of the scientific method (may. Methods we use in the day to day world and in some other disciplines subject to numerous disciplines. Limitations of personal experience: confirmation bias: once you believe something to be true, you hunt down anything that supports it and ignore anything that refutes it. Influence of expectations self-fulfilling prophecy: overgeneralization, authority figure listen to the people who are in charge, over-reliance on intuition, pleasant truths we like to believe in good things, lack of baseline or control group. Conclusions about the nature of the world based on collection and evaluation of data that is evaluated in a systematic way: usually theory driven. Science: publicly verifiable: replication (replicated, criticized, extended, peer review: prior to being published, the manuscript has been reviewed and criticized. If empirical/testable (must be falsifiable): theory, prediction, test, theory modification. Ideas must be evaluated based on careful logic and results from scientific investigations.