Science and Knowing

It is important to recognize that science broadly, and social science more specifically, represents only a fraction of the ways that humans gain knowledge about our world. We are constantly watching, listening, and learning, and we add knowledge to our understanding of the world around us constantly (and often without even realizing it). Read below for a few “ways of knowing” that you might have encountered in your life!

Even though it’s useful, the desired learning from a scientific endeavor must be balanced with practical limitations on time, resources, and manpower. Scientific investigation is often necessary for some of the bigger questions in our world. In the realm of behavioral science generally, which includes family science, psychology, social work and more, we can use the scientific method to ask some very important questions: what’s the best way to treat drug addiction? Why do some adopted children develop behavioral disorders and others don’t? How many couples are using donor sperm, eggs, or embryos, and what does that mean for their parenting? These are just a few of the myriad potential questions out there that could have significant impact on our understanding of the world and how people go about their lives. These are also questions that can’t readily be answered by other methods of knowing alone. As such, applying science in a way that achieves the best results with the least amount of resources is imperative.

But this doesn’t mean we should throw out all other ways of knowing; often these other ways spark scientific thinking. You can question authority with a scientific study or test a rationalization to see if it holds up. You can take an empirical observation and study it to see if it applies elsewhere or test a tenacious family theory. Don’t dismiss other ways of thinking just because we’re talking science here; rather, consider why you know the things you know and what else you might want to learn.

Science is also important because it allows multiple minds to work on problems together; science should be seen as an ongoing conversation throughout time. To get a larger, more complete picture of one question’s answers, we need to see what others have learned from similar questions. We then need to record our findings for our own iterative processes share the results with the world so that the next person knows where to build on what we’ve found.

Philosophies of social science

There are a few different philosophies that can guide our thinking when we choose to pursue a scientific exploration of social phenomena. An ontology is a set of assumptions about what is real. When you learned about the gravitational force or the mitochondria of a cell in prior physical or life science classes, you were learning about the theories and observations that make up our understanding of the physical world.  We assume that gravity is real and that the mitochondria of a cell are real.  With a powerful microscope, mitochondria are easy to spot and observe, and we can theorize about their function in a cell.  The gravitational force is invisible, but clearly apparent from observable facts, like watching an apple fall.  If we weren’t able to perceive mitochondria or gravity, they would still be there, doing their thing because they exist independent of our observation of them.  This is a philosophical idea called realism, and it simply means that the concepts we talk about in science really and truly exist.

Ontology in physics and biology is focused on objective truth.  You may have heard the term “being objective” before: it involves observing and thinking with an open mind and pushing aside anything that might bias your perspective.  Objectivity also involves finding what is true for everyone, not just what is true for one person.  Gravity is certainly true for everyone, everywhere, but let’s consider a social science example. Children who are subjected to severely traumatic experiences will likely experience negative mental health effects afterwards.  A diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is considered objective because it refers to a real mental health issue that exists independent of the person making the observation, and it presents similarly in all clients who experience the disorder (hence our ability to list diagnostic criteria in manuals and measures).

Objective, ontological perspective implies that observations are true for everyone, regardless of whether we are there to observe them or not observe them.  Epistemology, or our assumptions about how we come to know what is real and true, helps us to realize these objective truths.  The most relevant epistemological question in the social sciences is whether truth is better accessed using numbers or words, or perhaps a mixture of both. This leads us to our first major research categorization exercise. In social science research, you will encounter studies that are quantitative, others that are qualitative, and occasionally studies that are a mixture of both, called mixed-methods.

Quantitative Research

Generally, scientists approaching research with an objective ontology and epistemology will use quantitative methods to arrive at scientific truth.  Quantitative methods examine numerical data to precisely describe and predict elements of the social world.  This is due to the epistemological assumption that mathematics can represent the phenomena and relationships we observe in the social world. Mathematical relationships are uniquely useful because allow us to make comparisons across individuals as well as time and space.  For example, let’s look at measures of poverty. While people can have different definitions of poverty, an objective measurement such as an annual income less than $25,100 for a family of four is insightful because (1) it provides a precise measurement, (2) it can be compared to incomes from all other people in any society from any time period, and (3) it refers to real quantities of money that exist in the world.  In this book, we will review survey and experimental methods, which are the most common designs that use quantitative methods to answer research questions.

It may surprise you to learn that objective facts, like income or mental health diagnoses, are not the only facts that are present in the social sciences. Indeed, social science is not only concerned with objective truths, but it is also concerned with subjective truth. Subjective truths are unique to individuals, groups, and contexts. Unlike objective truths, subjective truths will vary based on who you are observing and the context you are observing them in.  The beliefs, opinions, and preferences of people are actually truths that social scientists measure and describe.  Additionally, subjective truths do not exist independent of human observation because they are the product of the human mind.  We negotiate what is true in the social world through language, arriving at a consensus and engaging in debate.

Qualitative Research

Epistemologically, a scientist seeking subjective truth assumes that truth lies in what people say, in their words.  A scientist may thus use qualitative methods to analyze words or other media to understand their meaning.  Humans are social creatures, and we give meaning to our thoughts and feelings through language.  Linguistic communication is unique.  We share ideas with each other at a remarkable rate.  In so doing, ideas come into and out of existence in a spontaneous and emergent fashion. Words are given a meaning by their creator., but anyone who receives that communication can absorb, amplify, and even change its original intent.  Because social science studies human interaction, subjectivists argue that language is the best way to understand the world.

This epistemology is based on some interesting ontological assumptions. What happens when someone incorrectly interprets a situation?  While their interpretation may be wrong, it is certainly true to them that they are right.  Furthermore, they act on the assumption that they are right.  In this sense, even incorrect interpretations are truths, even though they are only true to one person.  This leads us to question whether the social concepts we think about really exist.  They might only exist in our heads, unlike concepts from the natural sciences which exist independent of our thoughts.  For example, if everyone ceased to believe in gravity, we wouldn’t all float away.  It has an existence independent of human thought.

Consider how mental health conditions may be viewed in various cultures. For example, in Western psychiatry, schizophrenia is defined by certain experiences and symptoms which can include hearing voices. In some cultures, however, hearing voices may be seen as receiving a message from the gods, and those who hear such messages may be considered special and given positions of honor, rather than considered ill (Luhrmann et al., 2024). Think about how the same experience, that of auditory hallucinations, could result in very different interpretations by both the person experiencing these sounds and those witnessing the individual hearing them. Does this mean that schizophrenia does not exists? Does it mean that spirits cannot exist? If your answer to these questions is “no, that’s not what these findings mean” then you are adopting the ontology of anti-realism, which is the belief that social concepts do not have an existence apart from human thought. Unlike realists who seek a single, universal truth, the anti-realist sees a collection of truths that are created and shared within a social and cultural environment. This may mean that, if you were to want to ask a question about experiences of trauma and recovery, you’d find yourself more likely to want to talk with those who have these experiences and hear their words about what they experienced and how they have recovered – you may be much less interested, in this case, in counting or quantifying anything about their experience or using a checklist of symptoms to diagnose something about them.