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Academic Skills summary

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All the theory you need for writing at an academic level. All the theory you need to pass the Academic skills exam.

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  • January 14, 2024
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Summary Acadamic Writing

Introduction to science

What is science?

 Latin verb ‘scire’: knowing
 Systematic knowledge acquisition: reliable (accuracy and repeatable) and valid (do you
measure what you want to measure?)
 Fundamental scientific research (pure basic scientific science)
o Purpose: understanding, formulating general theories, abstract
o What is ..?
o Reason: curiosity, exploratory in nature, provides a foundation for further,
sometimes applies research
o Knowledge-driven
o Performed by: scientists
 Applied scientific research
o Objective: to contribute to solving practical problems, less abstract
o How can..?
o Reason: practical, contributing to improving the world
o Knowledge-driven !!
o Performed by: scientists
 Practical research
o Purpose: advising and/or intervening, concrete, mostly commercial
o How to intervene..?
o Reason: practical and aimed at (usually) only one stakeholder
o Problem-based, use of knowledge
o Carried out by: consultants, managers, engineers, scientists in role of consultants

Four ways to acquire knowledge

1. Intuition  possible starting point of scientific research by means of formulating hypotheses:
‘’I believe that…”
2. Authority  acquire knowledge through an authoritative person. Also starting point of
scientific research.
3. Rationalism  reason is the only or main source of knowledge. Reasoning, logic and
mathematics instead of observations. Assumption: the ‘’truth’’ can be ascertained through
reason
4. Empiricism  knowledge is the result of experience and observations through the senses.
Assumption: the origin of all knowledge comes from our senses. By means of experiments

Scientific methods

1. Induction and deduction (late 17th century-1850): from specific to general and from general
to specific
o Induction: from specific to general  from a specific observation to a broader
general claim
o Deduction: From general claim to a specific judgment
 Syllogism (deductive argument derived by Aristotle):
P1. All A is B

, P2. C is an A
Claim. C is B
A,B,C are terms of the argument, P1 and P2 are the premises of the
argument (assumptions that something is true)
2. Testing of hypotheses (1850 – 1960): process of testing an assumed relationship or
hypothesis by means of (new) observations
o 1850: induction was considered inappropriate to develop good scientific theories
o From now on, add testing of hypotheses as step after induction
o William Whewell: Science should focus on the confirmation of predictions from
theory and experience
o Still influential as scientific method
o Logical positivism  a claim or theory is only meaningful if it is controllable
(verifiable) by mean or observation. This directly links with empiricism
o Principle of verification = the truth of a theory must be demonstrated/proven by
observation
o Karl Popper method or approach is falsification method  criticism on logical
positivism  verification is impossible, because you can’t witness all situations
o A theory is falsifiable and not verifiable  a theory is true as long as it has not been
shown to be false  black swan
o According to Popper, the reasoning of logical positivism is based on fallacy
(drogreden): affirming the consequent (confirming the consequent)  ‘’If p, then q’’
is true, q is true, so p is true (then it must be a result of p?)
3. Naturalism (from 1960): ‘approach’ and period within science that assumes that theories
must be tested empirically, including the empirical cycle.
o Is in line with the previous method
o Pragmatic: which theories work? ‘’it should help you’’
o Requirement: access/evaluate theories on the basis of ‘’empirical adequacy’’: are
these empirically sufficient? Which theories appear to explain and predict in
practice? Then: further develop theory or reject (evolution or revolution)
o In other words: do the empirical data support the theory? Are the predictions
accurate? Are the ‘’right” causal relationships found? Are these exactly?
o Thomas Kuhn: normal science versus revolutionary science
o Normal science: developing and further developing theory based on a certain view of
reality
o Revolutionary science: new view of reality leads to new insights and thus to new
theories. New insights no longer fit In with the current theory or are even
contradictory.
o Kuhn calls looking at reality paradigm: ‘’a framework of thought or beliefs by which
reality is interpreted. Revolution leads to paradigm shift’’. Examples: ‘’earth is flat’’
and ‘’earth is center of the universe’’
o Feyerabend’s Anarchistic Theory of Science: that scientific methods are criticized and
are failing is not surprising!
o Enfant terrible’ of the philosophy of science, universal scientific method does not
exist
o The only scientific method that will not hinder the progress of science is the
anarchistic method: anything does: do not care about existing scientific methods and
requirements. Follow your own way.

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