Four Sources of Truth
- Authority
- Reasoning
- Experience
- Scientific Method
Authority
Assumptions that those with gained experience and education are correct.
Reasoning
Belief developed by reasoning and reaching an agreement with who are convinced of the merits of the reasoned argument.
Experience
Using our own observations and experiences to find some truth or life.
(Empiricism - learning things through direct observation or experience)
Confirmation Bias
Tendency to seek and pay special attention to information that supports our beliefs while ignoring information that contradicts a belief.
Belief Perverance
Holding on to a belief even when evidence states otherwise convinving most people the belief is false. Or unwilling to consider any evidence that contracts a stongly held belief.
Availability Heuristic
Vivid or memorable events that lead people to overstimate the frequency of these events.
Illusory Correlation
Thinking that an observed association between events is either (a) does not exist, (b) exists but is not as strong as is believed, or (c) is the opposite of direction from what is believed.
Criteria for the Scientific Method
- Empirical
- Objectivity
- Systematic
- Controlled
Empirical
All information is based on observation.
Systematic
Observations are made in a step-by-step fashion.
Controlled
Potentially confusing factors are eliminated.
Attributes of Good Theories
- Productivity
- Falsification
- Parsimony
Productivity
Good theories produce a lot of research studies
Falsification
They have to be able to be proven wrong
Parsimony
They include the mininum number of constructs (ideas or concepts). It two competing theories equally explain an event, the simpler theory is preferred.
Deduction
Taking general statements together to predict a specific event.
“You start with a theory that you are testing and later confirm is with specific examples”
Theory–>Hypothesis–> Observation–> Confirmation
Induction
The logical process of reasoning from specific events (results of individual studies) to the general (the theory)
“You make an observation and then form a theory”
Observation–> Pattern–> Tentative Hypothesis –> Theory
