Transcript Sociological Imagination

Lesson 6: Questioning
SOCI 108 - Thinking Critically about Social
Issues
Spring 2012
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What is Questioning?
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See what I just did there?
What?
Never forget the importance of ‘why’
Learning Outcomes
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Recall the ways that humans come to have
knowledge
Define empirical
Ask a variety of levels of critical thinking
questions
How do you know what you know?
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Intuition
Common sense
Authority
Tradition
Intuition
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Where does this come from?
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Ex: Truthiness
Common Sense can steer us wrong
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True or False:
U.S. black/white income gap has narrowed
significantly in recent years.
The ratio of black-to-white family income has
consistently been around 55-60% ever since the
major civil rights laws were passed in the 1960s.
There has been some fluctuation, but not much
(Farley 1995, in Farley 1998).
Sociology and Common Sense
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True or False:
On average, men have a higher tolerance for
both pain and temperature extremes than women
do.
On average, women tolerate pain, heat, and cold
better than men do when physiological tests are
performed. However, U.S. culture socializes men to
be “tough” more than it does women–so women may
often act wimpier!
Sociology and Common Sense
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True or False:
Most homeless people choose to be homeless.
Only ~ 6% of homeless people are that way by
choice (Kendall 2000). 40+% of homeless adults are
actually employed. (Population Review Bureau
supplement). Over 1/4 of homeless women get that
way fleeing domestic violence.
Sociology and Common Sense
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True or False:
Teenage pregnancies have increased
dramatically since the 1950s.
Actually, they decreased over past half century;
teens less likely to marry/start family. Percentage of
teen pregnancies involving unmarried teens
increased dramatically (but even that has been
dropping since the early 1990s). (Kendall 1996)
Authority
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Where does this come from?
Where does legitimacy come in?
Weber’s three types:
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Legal-rational
Traditional
Charismatic
Empirical Science
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Empirical – observable through one or more
of the five senses
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Sight
Hearing
Smell
Taste
Touch
Does California exist empirically?
Empirical
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An empirical question is answered by
observing and analyzing the world?
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What are the standardized test scores of 9th grade
algebra students?
Why do people commit suicide in some societies
more than other societies?
Cause and Effect
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Social sciences often look for things that
cause other things
We know that:
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Size causes length of life (smaller dogs live longer
than larger dogs)
Fertilizer on your lawn causes a greener lawn
Lower education causes lower income
Correlation ≠ Causation
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Often we confuse causality with causation
Correlation, sometimes called association
Relationship between two or more variables
Increases in ice cream sales correlates with
an increase in violent crime
Science
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Science describes repeating patterns
Pseudoscience describes idiosyncratic
(peculiar) phenomena that are non-reliable
and non-repeatable
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Often appears to be scientific
Skeptical
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Debunking or teasing out the truth through
the use of critical thinking
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Always be skeptical
Errors and Hits
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Errors are false assumptions
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Hits are correct assumptions
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Type 1 error: believing a falsehood
Type 2 error: rejecting a truth
Type 1 hit: Not believing a falsehood
Type 2 hit: Believing a truth
While investigating a claim ask
yourself:
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What is the quality of the evidence supporting this
claim?
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What are the credentials and background of this
claimant?
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3)
A writer for the National Enquirer
Dr. Phil (re: a diet)
Does the “thing” work as claimed?
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A fuzzy photograph
My best friend’s wife said this…
Does Miss Cleo have the right to answer all the time or just
some of the time?