Research Methods Final Review

UNIT 1: EPISTEMOLOGY

Epistemology Lecture

“How do we know what we know and what is the quality of the information?”

The nature and grounds of knowledge especially with references to its limits and validity.

• Knowledge sometimes turn to be not true. Limits to how much we know and how we know it.

Knowledge is always evolving.

• Something we thought was true, wasn’t true.

False Information (Fraud)- Purposely misleading you.

Methods of Epistemology

How do we know? Ways people get their knowledge:

• Tenacity- Believing things even in the face of facts and common sense.
• “Barnum Effect”- Fool people easily
• People cling to things despite of lack of supporting evidence.
• Ex: Superstitions
• Intuition- Something feels right; common sense; self-evident
• Many self-evident truths are found to be fake.
• Ex: The earth is flat—No Evidence
• Empirical Method- Using your experiences, senses.
• 3 FLAWS:
• Attention Illusion- Brain has to shift back and forth. You think you’re multi-tasking but you are not.
• Memory Illusion- All watch the exact thing, but all have a different memory.
• Illusion of Confidence- We become more confident the more we see something happen the way we expect.
• Authority- Someone in authority told you it’s true, therefore you believe it. OR do we need to check facts?
• Rationalistic Method- Simple LOGIC—Essential but has a faulty premise and it can fall apart.
• Premise + Premise = Conclusion
• Ex: All basketball players are tall (Major Premise), Tom is a basketball player (Minor Premise), therefore Tom is tall (Conclusion).