Scientific Method What Is Ockham\'s

Scientific Method

What is Ockham's Razor? Can you think of instances where Ockham's Razor would show up in sociological research?

Ideally, the scientific method of posing a research question, and then embarking upon the process of logical deduction should proceed in an orderly fashion. A scientist creates a hypothesis based upon previous research. Then, through the experimental process, he or she proves or disproves the hypothesis. In creating the hypothesis, Ockham's razor holds that assumptions "should not be multiplied unnecessarily" (Wudka, 1998). A scientific hypothesis may be formed by previous research, but too much confidence in its accuracy before testing it in the real world is likely to produce inaccurate results during the process of experimentation.

For example, in the social sciences, which deal with the complicated, messy lives and thought processes of human beings, it is easy to subconsciously have prejudices about different groups of individuals. Social scientists are human beings and subject to common assumptions about what is 'correct' just like everyone else. Also, it is far more difficult to eliminate extraneous variables when examining the implications of different behavioral groups. For example, social scientists embarking upon a study of obese individual's exercise habits may have the assumption that physical activity is less frequent in this group, based upon their previous assumptions and research, and these assumptions are made even more difficult to overcome by the fact that it is hard to accurately measure how much someone moves in a day.

In such instances of sociological study, it is even more important to allow that the most intuitively obvious theory that verifies common assumptions of what is correct may not always be the right one. For example, when establishing causality, it might be tempting to assume that marijuana use 'causes' an individual to use harder drugs, because these behaviors are often manifested in the same individuals. But it might also be that people who abuse hard drugs think little of abusing marijuana, thus the fact that these two negative behaviors go hand in hand does not mean they are causally linked. Many people might be casual users of marijuana and not use hard drugs, thus the research must be structured to see if causality as well as correlation is established between hard drug use and using marijuana beforehand.

What do you think about the argument raised in the "Are scientists wearing blinkers?" section of the Web page? How does this idea tie into you chapter's discussion of neutrality and politics in research?

Far from being blinkered, Josh Wudka states that most scientists are actually very willing to entertain unusual theories. He advances the concept that scientists would love to prove everyone else before them wrong, and become the new media darling who wins the next Nobel Prize. However, in the past, virtually every intellectual revolution in science has been quite hard-won, which the website acknowledges in its discussion of Galileo and Copernicus. Furthermore, biases do exist in science -- a scientist paid to research side effects in a new pharmaceutical when the fortunes of a company hinge upon its FDA approval may not apply the same rigor to his or her analysis as a scientist from an independent authority.