Science and Society

Class 5

Human Limitations and the Need for Explanatory Systems

-4 -3 -2 -1 NOW +1 +2 +3 +4

Fovea -- tiny area responsible for focused vision

Duration of consciousness: 5 secs +/- 2

Fears and Drives: Mortality fears, need to belong, need to control, sexual, territorial, and acquisitive drives.

Biases and Errors: Egocentric biases, social biases, reasoning fallacies and limits.

Need for Meaning: Dissonance reduction, Zeigarnik effect.

Limits and Needs Lead to Explanatory Systems

Science: A Revolutionary Explanatory System

Acknowledges biases: Science is objective, scientists are not.

Methods and approach designed to overcome biases

Democratic rather than authoritarian

Evolutionary rather than canonical

Incident of a Fingerpost – The “Charming” ChemistMurder investigation: is sludge at base of wine bottle poison?

a. Compares sludge to known poison (arsenic)

b. Conducts multiple tests (heat, weight, reaction to other substances, affects on organisms (cats)).

c. Identical results -- sludge and arsenic behave the same

d. a.___ The substance is arsenic

b.___ The substance might be arsenic

c.___ The substance is not arsenic

X

Chemist described as highly odious person: Filthy, smelly, rotted teeth, rude, self-important, arrogant, lewd. Why?

Hint: Does chemist’s character affect his findings?

Acts of Selfless (?) Heroism

The “fifth man” in Air Florida crash

Polish Concentration Camp Guard

Question: What motivates this behavior?

Why Do People Help Others?

Altruistic explanation – Empathy + Opportunity helpingPeople help because they care.

Egoistic explanations

Negative state relief: Stop personal discomfort

Avoid social/self punishments: Shame, guilt

Seek social/self rewards: Honor, pride

Batson Test of Empathy Theory

Empathy: People will help others in need IF they feel empathy

VERSUS

Avoid social punishments: People help only to avoid social censure.

Prediction People will help if they feel empathy, EVEN IF they can escape from helping

Empathy vs. Social Censure Factorial Design

Difficult Escape Easy Escape

Low Empathy Helps Doesn’t

Help

High Empathy Helps ???

Performance on Test to Switch Places with Elayne

Justification for not helping

Low Empathy Condition

High Empathy Condition

“Social Censure” Predictions

Weak Justif. High Score High Score

Strong Justif. Low Score Low Score

Justification for not helping

Low Empathy Condition

High Empathy Condition

“Empathy and Altruism” Predictions

Weak Justif. High Score High Score

Strong Justif. Low Score High Score

Effort Made to Help "Elayne" as a Function of Felt Empathy and Opportunity for Face-Saving Out

Batson et al., 1988

NOTE: Outcome is number of correct responses on qualifying test.

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

Low Empathy High Empathy

Cor

rect

Ans

wer

s

Easy Test (difficult escape)Hard Test (easy escape)

The Attributes of ScienceConcerned with discovery, and new ways of seeing

Explores questions empirically—strives for reliability

Assumes objective reality Accurate measures

Controlled designs Replicable

Falsifiable

Investigates relations between variables

Is A related to B? Does A cause B?

Is relation between A and B determined by C?

Attributes of Science, continued

Self-correcting

Open to public scrutinySubject to peer review

Recursive

(theory hyps observations theory) Amoral Moves by small steps and by huge leaps

(Kuhn : generative crises)

Steps in Scientific Method

Identify Problem

Construct Problem Statement

Form Hypothesis

Deductive and Inductive Reasoning

Steps in the Scientific Method

1. Identifying problems “There is a troubled, perplexed, trying situation, where the difficulty is, as it were, spread throughout the entire situation, infecting it as a whole”. EXAMPLE: Some people believe that the way to cope with bad events is to act in a positive manner, and your feelings will follow. Others say you should express your negative feelings in order to get over them.

Problem: How can both explanations be true?

Problem identification is therefore an emotional event.

A short funny story with a punch line.

A fizzy soft drink, rival of Pepsi

Blue/gray vapors emitted by fire

Mighty tree that shed acorns

The white part of an egg

Coke

Joke

Smoke

Oak

Albumin

Schema Violation, Emotions, and Discovery

2. Articulate problem “Without some statement of the problem, the scientist can rarely go further

and expect the work to be fruitful” EXAMPLE: “Does expression of emotions promote coping?”

3. Hypothesis formation

Hypothesis: A formal statement of conjecture, that can be stated in “ifthen” terms, or A B terms.

A (people who are emotionally stressed) B (will cope better if they express their disturbing thoughts and feelings).

4. Reasoning and Deduction: If general hypothesis is true, then specific instances must also be true. Deducing specific from general allows for experiment design.

GENERAL HYPOTHESIS: Expression of distress promotes coping.

SPECIFIC INSTANCE: College freshmen will get sick less often if they express their thoughts and feelings about starting college.

5. Observation and Induction: If something is true in a specific instance, it may also be true in general.

EXAMPLE: When I talk about my problems, I feel better. Maybe this is true for everybody.

What’s The Rule?

3, 5, 7

13, 15, 17

Rule: 3 increasing whole numbers

What’s my point?

Induction is seductive—be careful of self-confirming patterns. How to avoid this pitfall?

Ask yourself: What else might explain this outcome?

Science and Facilitated Communication

Science

Hypotheses arise form emotional problem, feeling of un-ease

Problem statement

Hypothesis statement, presented in falsifiable form

Experiment framed.

Facilitated Communication Studies

Prosecutor worried about veracity of FC. OD Heck want to show that FC works

“… were these communications coming from the autistic children?”

If FC real, then it should work when facilitator blind to what child sees.

Facilitator and child see same vs diff. pix; how is accuracy affected?

Science Facilitated Communication 

Conduct objective, varied, and replicable measures

Double blind study;Pix naming, mesg. passing, eyes on keypad

New hypothesis—FC a sham—makes other discrepancies evident

Kids type w/o looking at keypadWhy so many autistic so verbally skilled?

New hypothesis has powerful social consequences

Devastates believers; liberates kids; redeems “abusers”

Serendipity (unexpected discovery) Uncons. drives overt behavior; D. Wegner

Science and Facilitated Communication

Framing of Facilitated Communication Experiments

Kid Sees

Facilitator Sees 

Cup Dog

Cup

I

II 

Dog

 

III

IV

1. Which are the criterion cells?

2. If FC is valid, what should be facilitator's response in criterion cells?

“A Beautiful Theory Destroyed by an Ugly Fact”

Basic Assumptions Overturned by Science“Beautiful” Theory

 

“Ugly” Fact

Earth center of universe Copernicus, Galileo: Earth a satellite in far corner of cosmos

Humans are a select creation 

Darwin: humans are an advanced primate

Time and space are fixed, constant 

Einstein: Time and space are relative

Sexualized thinking is deviant 

Freud: Sexualized thinking is normal

 Disease, illness a spiritual problem 

Pasteur: Disease, illness a microbial problem