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part 1) Based on the video what do you think should be the role of science in relation to the public good. Do researchers and scientists owe anything to the public?posts should be 150 words min. https://www.ted.com/talks/siddhartha_roy_science_in_service_to_the_public_goodPart 2) Reaction Papers: You are expected to read all material and prepare a reaction paper of 1-2 full pages (min. 600 to 1000 words) for each reading assignment. These papers should discuss your analysis of the material and in particular how it relates to your life experience. First person, avoid summary and do not use quotes.
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Figure 2.1 Many believe that crime rates go up during the full moon, but scientific research does not support this conclusion.
(Photo courtesy of Jubula 2/flickr)
Chapter Outline
2.1 Approaches to Sociological Research
2.2 Research Methods
2.3 Ethical Concerns
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Have you ever wondered if home schooling affects a person’s later success in college or how
many people wait until they are in their forties to get married? Do you wonder if texting is
changing teenagers’ abilities to spell correctly or to communicate clearly? How do social
movements like Occupy Wall Street develop? How about the development of social
phenomena like the massive public followings for Star Trek and Harry Potter? The goal of
research is to answer questions. Sociological research attempts to answer a vast variety of
questions, such as these and more, about our social world.
We often have opinions about social situations, but these may be biased by our expectations
or based on limited data. Instead, scientific research is based on empirical evidence, which is
evidence that comes from direct experience, scientifically gathered data, or experimentation.
Many people believe, for example, that crime rates go up when there’s a full moon, but
research doesn’t support this opinion. Researchers Rotton and Kelly (1985) conducted a
meta-analysis of research on the full moon’s effects on behavior. Meta-analysis is a technique
in which the results of virtually all previous studies on a specific subject are evaluated
together. Rotton and Kelly’s meta-analysis included thirty-seven prior studies on the effects of
the full moon on crime rates, and the overall findings were that full moons are entirely
unrelated to crime, suicide, psychiatric problems, and crisis center calls (cited in Arkowitz and
Lilienfeld 2009). We may each know of an instance in which a crime happened during a full
moon, but it was likely just a coincidence.
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People commonly try to understand the happenings in their world by finding or creating an
explanation for an occurrence. Social scientists may develop a hypothesis for the same
reason. A hypothesis is a testable educated guess about predicted outcomes between two or
more variables; it’s a possible explanation for specific happenings in the social world and
allows for testing to determine whether the explanation holds true in many instances, as well
as among various groups or in different places. Sociologists use empirical data and the
scientific method, or an interpretative framework, to increase understanding of societies and
social interactions, but research begins with the search for an answer to a question.
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