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."