Research Methods in Social Sciences: The scientific method and hypotheses · Ways of Knowing and Falsifiability
How science differs from other ways of knowing, and why testable, falsifiable claims are at its core.
Try 3 questions
1. The philosopher Charles Peirce named 'tenacity' as a way of knowing. What does it mean?
- Believing whatever a trusted expert says
- Believing something because it was always believed
- Believing what logic alone can deduce
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Answer: Believing something because it was always believed
Tenacity is holding a belief simply because it is familiar and long held, even when evidence contradicts it.
2. Someone accepts a health claim because a famous doctor said it on television. Which way of knowing is this?
- Rationalism
- The method of authority
- Empiricism
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Answer: The method of authority
Relying on the status of the source rather than on evidence is the method of authority; experts can be wrong, especially outside their field.
3. What is the core difference between empiricism and rationalism?
- Empiricism relies on observation, rationalism on reason
- Empiricism relies on reason, rationalism on observation
- Empiricism relies on tradition, rationalism on experts
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Answer: Empiricism relies on observation, rationalism on reason
Empiricists hold that knowledge comes from sensory experience and observation; rationalists hold that reason and logic are the main source.
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