CHAPTER 6: SCIENCE AND ITS PRETENDERS
Types of ESP
1. Telepathy: Perception of another's thoughts without the use of the senses. 2. Clairvoyance: Perception of distant objects without the use of the senses. 3. Precognition: Perception of future events without the use of the senses.
Goals of scientific research
3 goals: 1. Description 2. Prediction 3. Understanding
How many types of research methods?
3: 1. Descriptive designs 2. Correlational designs 3. Experimental designs
Steps of the Scientific Method
4 steps: 1. Observe 2. Induce general hypotheses or possible explanations for what we have observed. 3. Deduce specific things that must also be true if our hypothesis is true 4. Test the hypothesis by checking out the deduced implications.
Define case studies
A case study is an in-depth study of the behavior of one person or a small group. Often used in clinical research. Used when large numbers of participants are not available. Drawbacks include: small sample size, susceptibility to researcher bias, problem of an atypical case.
What is a control group?
A comparison group that does not receive the treatment. Without a control group, there is no way to tell if a treatment really worked.
What is fruitfulness?
A hypothesis successfully predict new phenomena and thus open up new lines of research.
What is testability?
A hypothesis that can be tested means it has testability.
What is an ad hoc hypothesis?
A hypothesis that can't be verified independently of the phenomenon it's supposed to explain.
What is extrasensory perception?
A perception that is not mediated by an organism's recognized sensory organs.
What is a placebo?
A substance or treatment with no therapeutic effect. Placebos are given because people improve even when they are given a worthless treatment (Placebo effect).
What is blind/double blind study?
Blind: Participants are unaware of the group they are allocated to. Double blind: Researchers are also unaware of the group participants are allocated to.
What is the falsifiability?
Can the study prove the hypothesis/ theory false?
Describe descriptive designs
Concerned with describing behaviour. 2 types of descriptive designs: 1. Case studies 2. Naturalistic observation
Define experimental designs
Concerned with estahlishing the causes of behaviour.
Define correlational designs
Concerned with predicting behaviour.
What is scientific creationism?
It holds that the universe, energy, and life were created from nothing relatively recently. Living things coul not have developed from a singel organism through mutation and natural selection. There is very little variation among members of the same species.
What is scientific method?
It is the most powerful tool we have for acquiring knowledge.
What does 'the world is publicly understandable' mean?
It means at least 3 things: 1. The world has a determinate structure 2. We can know that structure 3. This knowledge is available to everyone.
Define naturalistic observation
Naturalistic observation refers to the in-depth study of a phenomenon in its natural setting Study of primate behavior in the wild Advantage: Good generalizability Disadvantages: Observation per se can alter behavior, cannot establish the cause of behavior
What is autoganzfeld?
Partially automated the collection of data.
What is random assignment?
Randomly allocate participants to different groups, reducing preexisting differences between groups. Any difference at the end of the experiment is probably due to the treatment.
What is scientism?
Scientism is committed to the view of the world is a great machine, composed of minuscule particles of matter that interact with each other like tint billiard balls.
What is the replication?
Several studies yielding the same results can render a hypothesis more probable than would a single study.
What is simplicity?
Th simpler a theory is, the more it unifies and systematizes our knowledge and the less likely it is to be false because there are fewer ways for it to go wrong.
What is psychokinesis?
The ability to affect physical objects without the use of the body, that is, by simply thinking about them.
What is scope?
The amount of diverse phenomena explained and predicted by a hypothesis.
What is ganzfeld?
The ganzfeld is produced by having the subjects close their eyes an placing headphones over their ears.
What is conservatism?
The more conservative a hypothesis is (that is, the fewer well-established beliefs it conflicts with), the more plausible it is.
What is parapsychology?
The study of extrasensory perception (ESP) and psychokinesis..
