PSYC 101 Lecture Notes - Scientific Method, Knowledge Engineering, Pseudoscience
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PSYC 101 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Goals of psychology describe, predict, explain, and change behaviour. Science and theories science can never be proven, don"t have to be scientific, don"t have to be true to be useful. Must make predictions that can be tested. The ongoing nature of science ideas build on each other, slow incremental increase in knowledge. Specific truths are deduced from general truths. (i. e. grass is green, it"s warm outside) General truths are induced from specific truths. (i. e. it must be summer, etc. ) A deduction is proven if the general premise is true and the logic is valid. An induction goes beyond the known data, and thus can never be proven. Science, then does not prove things, because all information about the outside observable world is inductive. Hypothesis a possible way things could be, a tentative cause and effect relation. Theory an explanation for the way things are, usually supported by a lot of data which provides testable hypotheses.
