SOC101Y1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 20: Karl Popper, Erving Goffman, Spurious Relationship
Document Summary
Used by sociologists to gather evidence and test theories about recurring patterns of human activity. Underlying these techniques is a variety of assumptions about the nature of facts, objectivity, and truth. In comparison with the evidence available to natural scientists, an added complexity confronts social scientists: human assign meaning to their actions, and interpreting meaningful action is complicated. Observer bias (making unconscious mistakes in classifying or selecting observations) Reduce bias: public scrutiny + skeptical reasoning. Expectations and values are in tension within the scientific enterprise. Objectivity: stresses that observations should be free of the distorting effects of a person"s values and expectations. Subjectivity is essential to change and innovation. Theory (explanations of how the world works) Methods (ways of assessing the veracity of explanation) No matter how many observations you make, you cannot infer your next observation. Values underlie both, and both guard against distortion. Sociologists study meaningful action- activities that are meaningful to ppl involved.
