Remember how we talked about separating truth from falsehood with claims of
truth? There are many ways that we could
try to find out how the world works. Why
do people act the way that they do? Now,
we could appeal to authority and ask
somebody who's really smart, like
Aristotle, and then we have a scholastic
system, built on revealed truth. Or we
could ask a celebrity. Don't laugh, that
stuff sells big-time. Now, some people
claim to have a magic book that unveils
mysterious truths about the world and
the future. But the most reliable and
verifiable way to understand the world
around us is the method of science. We
call it the "scientific method", and its
beauty is that anyone can do it, everyone
can understand it, and properly done, what we learn from the scientific method
teaches us something important about
reality. Scientific research is done in a
variety of settings, and with a variety
of techniques. In its purest form,
scientific research uses laboratory
experiments, such as with biological
specimens, tissue samples, their slides or
using laboratory rats. The stereotypical
"lab rats." Scientists also use
computational research, in which they
create computer models. This is the realm of big data and data science. It uses
algorithms to make predictions based
upon massive data sets. When you watch
the weather forecast, and learn that it
will rain at ten a.m. tomorrow morning,
you are watching computational science
at work. Other researchers use
qualitative approaches to understanding
the world. They talk to people in focus
groups, or conduct interviews. They study
written documents, audio and video
archives, or internet social media
transcripts. Qualitative researchers use
open-ended surveys in which they gather rich data about the
lived experience of human beings. Other
researchers, like me and now you, do
quantitative study. We use numeric files,
validated surveys, to quantify and better
understand human behavior. The validated surveys allow us to use comparable
measurements across multiple studies.
Sometimes we use archival data that have
been previously collected, and we
re-examine those numbers using more
complex statistical research models. Each of these are ways of studying reality,
and they all contribute to our overall
understanding of the world. I mentioned
research models as part of quantitative
scientific research. Following the
observation of Kurt Levine, the founding
father of social psychology, that there's
nothing so practical as a good theory. We
create models of reality in science, and
then collect data to test our models. We
continue to refine those models in
response to what we learned from reality,
and there's nothing so real as a good
model. This is something that I learned
from Dr. Todd Little at Stats Camp, you
know, it's true there really is a super
nerdy summer camp called "stats camp"
where statisticians go to learn about
stats. Been there twice myself already.
Anyway, Todd little said that good
research models depict reality, and
depict was an acronym. Using the
scientific method to model reality
allows us to DESCRIBE behavior
transparently, and systematically so that
we are clear about what we study. EXPLAIN the forces that give rise to behaviors
so that we can PREDICT when and under
what conditions behaviors will occur in
the future, IMPROVE quality of life by
the use of knowledge, because the more
that you eat from that tree of knowledge
the better.
CHANGE behavior, perhaps change unwanted behaviors or maybe reinforce wanted
behaviors, and finally TEST all of the
above. We could begin by looking at the
scientific method in practice. In this
section, you can find a link to the
roadkill experiment, in which researcher
Mark Rober tested whether cars were more
likely to hit turtles or snakes. He used
a rubber turtle, a rubber snake, a rubber
tarantula, and a leaf in his experiment.
The video is both entertaining and a
little bit disturbing to know that there
are a small number of sociopaths on our
roadways, who will go out of their way to
run over turtles...even if they are rubber.
As you watch the video, try to identify
the independent variables, the dependent
variable, experimental group, and control
group. The purpose of research is to draw
conclusions about a larger group of
individuals based on what we've learned
from a smaller group of individuals. When
we compare our conclusions to those of
other researchers investigating similar
problems, we learn about the world around
us. We apply our creativity with
scientific rigor in order to make sense
of reality. So I want to leave you with a
poem by Rudyard Kipling, that makes this
point very clearly. It is from the story
"Elephant's Child" in the book "Just So
Stories." "I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew); Their names
are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who."
