Scientific investigations: Logic or rhetoric? · Scientific investigations: Logic or rhetoric?...
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Scientific investigations: Logic or rhetoric?
Stuart Birks
Massey University
ANZSASI, 11 June 2011
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Logic and rhetoric
• Logic proof
• Rhetoric persuasion – Adam Smith on rhetoric
– “Proof” in law is not proof • It is persuading a judge or jury
• How much analysis is rhetoric?
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Theory and evidence
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C
A Empirical
Analysis
Real world
Theory
B
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Analysis
• Much evidence
• Want a few conclusions
• Theories/models – main elements, basic relationships
– “good” if explain much with little
– inflated view of understanding?
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Theory as analogy
• Paradigm (Kuhn)
• Analogy („as if‟ alternative/simplified structure) or metaphor
• The blind men and the elephant
• Frame
– use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, elaboration
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What do we “know”?
• Choice of frames:
– Galbraith (“conventional wisdom”)
– Kuhn (“normal science”)
– Hardin (“street-level epistemology”)
•Also for “experts”
– Bourdieu (“Fast thinkers”) and media soundbites
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What do theories tell us?
• Data and consistency, Friedman:
“Observed facts are necessarily finite in number; possible hypotheses infinite.
If there is one hypothesis that is consistent with the available evidence, there are always an infinite number that are.”
So a significant result does not give the only possible explanation.
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“Cause” and INUS conditions?
• Insufficient but
• Necessary part of an
• Unnecessary but
• Sufficient set of conditions
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In summary, we:
1. Read a lot into simplified analyses;
2. Assume, by analogy, that structures apply to the real world;
3. Treat apparently plausible explanations as if they are the only explanations;
4. Accept many commonly held views as if well-founded.
And then we use flawed techniques and reasoning
(but that‟s another story)
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Scientific investigations: Logic or rhetoric?
Stuart Birks
Massey University
ANZSASI, 11 June 2011
10