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A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can be or that has been repeatedly tested and has corroborating evidence in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results.
The post-processualists' approach to archaeology is diametrically opposed to that of the processualists. The processualists, as positivists, believed that the scientific method should and could apply to archaeological investigation, therefore allowing archaeologists to present objective statements about past societies based upon the evidence.
Through ad hoc variations to the theory and sympathetic interpretation of the data, supporting scientists will resolve the apparent conundrum. In extreme cases, they may ignore the data altogether. Thus, the failure of a scientific paradigm will go into crisis when a significant portion of scientists working in the field lose confidence in it.
Postpositivism or postempiricism is a metatheoretical stance that critiques and amends positivism [1] and has impacted theories and practices across philosophy, social sciences, and various models of scientific inquiry.
The word "frequentist" is especially tricky. To philosophers it refers to a particular theory of physical probability, one that has more or less been abandoned. To scientists, on the other hand, "frequentist probability" is just another name for physical (or objective) probability.
In social science, antipositivism (also interpretivism, negativism [citation needed] or antinaturalism) is a theoretical stance which proposes that the social realm cannot be studied with the methods of investigation utilized within the natural sciences, and that investigation of the social realm requires a different epistemology.
[6] This methodology is also at times referred to as a grounded theory approach to qualitative research or interpretive research, and is an attempt to unearth a theory from the data itself rather than from a predisposed hypothesis. Earl Babbie identifies three purposes of social-science research: exploratory, descriptive and explanatory.
Interpretivism (social science), an approach to social science that opposes the positivism of natural science; Qualitative research, a method of inquiry in social science and related disciplines; Interpretivism (legal), a school of thought in contemporary jurisprudence and the philosophy of law