The Social Sciences

The social sciences consist of several different subjects, all concerned with explaining human behaviour.

Political science: looks at politics, and measures how successful governments are. It also deals with patterns in voting and the way parties work.

Geography: studies why people live where they live, and looks for patterns in the environments where living things can be found.

Sociology: studies human relations, the structure of societies and organizations, customs, as well as individuals and groups.

Psychology: studies the mental process of human beings. They look for behavioural patterns that will aid in understanding and predicting reactions.

Economics: how people get their living, and sustain their basic needs and wants for food, drink, shelter, amusement or service. Looks at how goods are distributed. The aim is to understand it, so as to improve it.

Anthropology: looks at human beings, and their physical being, their evolutionary history, race, distribution, and cultural history.

The social sciences strive to use the scientific method. There are some problems however, since the social sciences deal with human beings.

The first step of the method is observation. Observing human beings can be difficult because of the Hawthorne Effect, where people change their behaviour because they know that they are being observed.

The second step is composing a hypothesis. This is possible, but verifying the hypothesis can be difficult since results can be subjective because the measurements are abstract (happiness, progress, patriotism). This is why there are theories that have never been tested.

The third step is the experiment, and this is extremely problematic. It is hard to do experiments with human beings. One possible way of doing it is through opinion polls, but even surveys present some problems. First of all, the way in which a question is asked might have an effect on the way people answer. Another problem is how should the answers be classified? People will generally try to give an honest answer, but also do not want to make themselves look bad. People’s answers depend on who they are, their ethnic, religious, economic, professional, educational background, their age and so forth. When conducting a survey it is important to know these things, but how do you know which one of the classifications to use?

When conducting experiments on human beings several ethic questions arise. There are two, almost infamous experiments that have pushed the limits of what is ethically acceptable. The first is the Milgram experiment. The experiment was advertised as research to see the effects of pain on learning. When the subject arrived, they were told that they are the “Teacher”. They were introduced to the “Leaner”, to whom the teacher was supposed to give some memory tests. Every time the learner answered wrong, the teacher was supposed to give an electric shock, which got stronger as the experiment continued. When the teacher hesitated in delivering the shock, the experimenter, a person in a white coat, told them to continue. About 60% of the people went on to deliver a fatal shock. In reality, the learner was an actor, and was not actually shocked, but the teacher did not know this. This says something about how people will obey authority figures, and hand over responsibilities for their actions to others.

Another infamous experiment is the Stanford Prison Experiment, where the cellar of a corridor at Stanford. Some of the subjects were prison guards, and others where prisoners. From the start the prisoners were humiliated, upon arrival they were deloused and given a poor quality uniform. The prisoners at first rebelled, and the guards became increasingly aggressive. Eventually the prisoners, tired of the aggressiveness and the humiliation became more passive. The experiment had to be stopped after six days, since the conditions got so chaotic. This experiment shows how in unfamiliar situations people will follow the group and do what the group does.

There is one final issue with the scientific method and the social sciences. It is hard to draw conclusions and distinguish between cause and correlation. There is also the question of determinism and free will. How far do people act of their own free will, and to what extent are circumstances predetermined?

There are two different predominant schools on conducting research in the natural sciences. The first is known as “Holism”, which is concerned with how the group as a whole acts.  You should not look so much at individuals, because individuals behaviour derives from the context that is created by the whole group. The Verstehen position is the opposite: look at the individuals, and get inside the group. This is the only way that you learn why people do things, and this is the point in the human sciences: to understand the motivation behind actions.

In this unit I found the discussion about the extreme experiments particularly interesting. Both the Milgram experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment reveal something about free will. The results of the Milgram Experiment seem shocking because most people would like to believe that they have a free will, and would not deliver the fatal shock just because someone who seemed to be in authority told them to do so. In reality over half of the people did. People are afraid to disobey orders from someone they have accepted as an authority, and perhaps it is because they feel that they are no longer responsible for their actions that they are ready to potentially kill someone on request. The Stanford Prison experiment shows that even though you have perfectly normal, stable people as prison guards, they get more and more violent, because that is what everyone else is doing. People follow other’s examples, because they don’t know what else they can do. So much for free will.

Even though I do not study any of the social sciences, I think that understanding the complexity of understanding human behaviour is important for anyone. It is hard to know why people act the way they do, but by understanding that it is a mix of the influence of the group, and the individual might help. Also, it is important to understand that any results that social scientists come up with are to be regarded with a little bit of scepticism. 

The Natural Sciences

The natural sciences consist of biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, geology and earth science as a whole. They are often considered to be one of the most objective and reliable areas of knowledge. This is not necessarily true however, and one only has to look at the scientific method to see why.

            The scientific method:

·      Observation: At this stage, scientists observe, and collect information, looking for patterns. This is a stage where subjectivity will have a role, since as human beings, we do not observe everything, we only observe those elements that seem important, and so we could miss something. Also, by the very act of observing, we invariably disturb the natural state of things. Also, this means that you are suing induction, which could lead to generalizations.

·      Hypothesis: This is a prediction about what will happen. It must be stated so that it is falsifiable. This does of course lead to the scientists having expectations about what will happen, so they might be less likely to accept results that go against this.

·      Experiment: An experiment is designed, that must be controllable, with only one factor changed at a time, measurable, it must have appropriate variables, and repeatable by other people.

·      Law: The results of the experiment, especially if they agree with the hypothesis, reveal a new scientific law. Here too inductive reasoning is employed since scientists draw conclusions about “all” from a limited number of samples and trials.

·      Theory: This unifies several laws, to come up with a principle, which needs more research and investigation. Here the chaos theory reminds us that when we make predictions, we are limited to our current knowledge.

The scientific method depends on falsification. Karl Popper first presented this idea in 1934. According to the principle of “falsification” scientific laws should be shown to be true by attempts at proving them wrong, rather than by verification. This is looking at science as something that tries to describe some parts of reality, solve the inaccuracies of any previous laws and to explain why some things act the way they do. Induction plays a role here, since, until proven wrong, we must assume that the laws work. Therefore, they are true in terms of pragmatic truth. The longer a theory has not been found to be false, the more certain we are that it is true. Einstein put it this way: “Truth is what stands the test of time.” The issue is how do you know what when an observation goes against the hypothesis, and when it is an experimental error. My results for my Biology labs often goes against my hypothesis, and the theory that we have been taught, and almost every time I consider the fault to be in the experiment.

Science evolves in paradigm shifts according to Thomas Kuhn, challenging Popper’s ideas about falsification. He believes that over time as a paradigm starts to seem increasingly false to scientists, as they bring up problems with it, but before that revolution, scientists pretty much accept the current paradigm, this is moment of normal science, which problems with the paradigm are being solved. When the paradigm has been put into question, and then eventually replaced there is a paradigm shift, a revolution.

What I found interesting is realizing how the scientific method is flawed, and how susceptible it is to human errors and assumptions. Science is generally considered as “reliable”, and the laws are accepted as truth, but the fact of the matter is that they could not be. They are only true until shown to be false. In the past people have believed things that we considered to be true, but have turned out not to be true at all. The most classic example is the earth being flat, which we now know to be false, it is round.

This is useful to consider in science, when doing experiments for example. If the results are not what are expected, do no discard them immediately, but use imagination to see if there is another explanations than that the results are faulty. Also, it is important not to consider all of the laws as absolute truth, because there is not such thing. While believing in the laws, it is good to remain open minded if something contradicts them.

“What role does imagination play in the sciences?”

Imagination plays a vital role. Scientists are always wondering why something happens, coming up with topics for experimentation. It takes imagination to begin to question why flower petals have colour. Then it takes imagination to devise an experiment to test this that is fair, only manipulating one variable. Then finally it takes imagination to make sense of the data, and to understand it in a broader perspective, to understand its implications. In this sense imagination is the driving force of science, it is what develops the laws and theories, as it is crucial in testing, as well as making sense of the observations.

As an example, in biology we are going to test how heat loss works and design an experiment to test hoe a certain factor affects it. Obviously we cannot have a live organism in the lab, so firstly we needed to come up with a substitute that would behave similarly. This requires imagination. The teacher suggested that we simply fill up test tubes with 37c^o water. Next comes the problem of what variable to manipulate, and how to do it, which also requires imagination. You could for instance test how surface area affects heat loss by having different sized test tubes, though the problem is that since you need several different variables, there are not enough different test tube sizes. You could also tests the effect of wind, which is easier, you can take a fan and place it at different distances away from the test tube. This shows that there is a lot of imagination involved in science even at a high school level. Imagine how much imagination Einstein or Newton needed.

The Art of Reasoning

“All humans are mortal

I am a human

Therefore I am mortal”

In the above example, it can be seen how logic and reasoning can be used to obtain knowledge. I do not have evidence that I am mortal, I have not died, but since I know that I am a human, and know that humans are mortal, I can reasonably assume that I am mortal. The example uses a syllogism, a certain pattern of reasoning, which goes:

“All A is B

C is A

C is B.”

Or

“All A is B 

C is not B

C is not A.”

These statements can be valid or invalid, otherwise known as a fallacy. In a valid statement, the logic is right, and follows the rules above. A fallacy breaks these rules, and the conclusion is made on wrong logic. However, these two do not affect whether the premises and the conclusions are true. Funnily enough, even if the logic is right, the statement might be false, and if the logic is wrong, the statement might still be true. In a sound argument, the premises and the conclusion are true, and the logic is valid. This is really the only fool proof sort of argument.

People commit fallacies often, and of different kinds. There is the Ad misericordiam, saying that you have worked hard on something to justify it, hasty generalisations, Ad hominem, saying that somebody else’s statement is not true because of who they are, appealing to ignorance, ad populum, meaning appealing to the majority, appealing to authority, unpalatable consequences, contradictions in terms, using circular arguments, or identifying a false cause for something (post hoc ergo propter hoc).

Another common fault that people do, when trying to reason is induction. In induction, you start from the specific and go to the general. Essentially, you take a situation, and then try to device premises to support it, instead of coming up with the conclusion from premises. This is used to support your own prejudices. 

I found it interesting to see how, through reasoning you can conclude something that is not explicitly obvious, something that there is no concrete evidence for. For instance I can conclude that all ice in the in the spring time is weak, and so if it is spring, and I am standing in front of a body of ice, then I can conclude that the ice is weak. Therefore, I would know that I would fall into the water if I went on it, without ever trying to do it. Also, it is fascinating how, sometimes, even if the logic is not valid, the conclusion can be true, and how even if the logic is valid, the conclusion is false. It shows that logic is far from always being right.

Being able to reason correctly is immensely valuable in real life. For instance, while trying to prove a point, you conclusion seems a lot truer if you can back it up with valid premises, and sound logic. It is also useful to know the kind of fallacies that people utter, so as to recognize them, and not take the conclusion that people make based on them for granted (here a significant example would be claims that politicians make).

How important is consistency in moral reasoning?

On an individual basis, consistency in moral reasoning is to be expected, because otherwise you would be compromising your morals. If at one point, you reason that torture is wrong, but later claim that there are people who have committed so hideous crimes that they deserve to be hurt, it would be considered hypocrisy. However, in society, moral reasoning is never consistent, there are people who think in different ways. Also moral standards in society can seem slightly paradoxical. For instance, in countries with capital punishment, for killing someone, there seems to be inconsistency in the reasoning. However, is this important? It is merely the product of different lines of logic. For instance people who support capital punishment, reason that murders have committed a horrible crime, taking someone else’s life, so therefore they deserve the harshest punishment possible, and in equal measure. Those who go against it say that by killing someone as a form of punishment, you are doing the same to the persona s they did to someone else. It does not mean that either side is right, but it comes to show that there is inconsistency in moral reasoning. In fact this can be considered a good thing, because it will allow for people to think about different solution and problems form different perspectives if working as a group, allowing for the best possible solution to be chosen. However, it does cause controversy, and means that morals are the same everywhere. Still, on the whole, it can be concluded that as far as society is concerned, more important that consistency in moral thinking is sound moral thinking. 

Advertisements and logic and assumptions

SOLEIL-88. "Health Food Advertisment." DeviantART. Web. 17 Jan. 2012.

<http://le-soleil-88.deviantart.com/art/Health-Food-Advertisment-93026812>.

In this advertisement, the creator has used several different lines of logical all of which are valid.  However, sometimes the advertisement exaggerates a premise, so it is not always true. 

All healthy food is good for you

Bananas are healthy

Therefore they are good for you.

This is valid and true.

All junk food kills you

Healthy food does not kill you

Therefore, healthy food is not junk food

It is valid, but not entirely true. It exaggerates how bad junk food is, it in it self does not kill.

All junk food kills you

Bananas are not kill you

Therefore, bananas are not junk food

It is valid, but not really true. Again, junk food does not directly kill you.

The advertisement assumes, firstly that bananas are healthy, and good for you. It assumes that the viewer does not eat healthy food, and eat junk food. The major assumption it makes, where the premises becomes slightly exaggerated, is that junk food “kills you”, meaning that it is detrimental to your health, and that healthy food (especially bananas) is not.

 "Surprising Apple Nutrient Facts." Fast Fit Tips. Web. 2012.

   <http://www.fatburningfurnace.com/blog/surprising-apple-nutrition-facts-–-health- benefits-of-apples>.

 This advertisement uses the usual assumption that most people hold, is that apples are healthy and good for you, and that we should eat it in order to remain healthy.