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Access level of this page. WorldSupporter Resources. The order in which the Scientific Utopia: II. Neyman, Pearson and hypothesis testing - summary of an article by Dienes The same applies for evaluating studies. Click the image to download your free revision guide preview.
A good first step in evaluating a psychological theory is to find the evidence that supports the theory. You need to be able to describe at least one relevant study and then to explain how that study supports the theory. This should be relatively easy for most theories and most researchers who propose the theory have also conducted the supporting research. A logical second step is to find evidence e. You can then describe and explain the contradictory study.
You can also provide a methodological critique of the supporting studies. This is another way of demonstrating critical thinking because you are evaluating the theory by evaluating its supporting evidence. You can read more about how to evaluate psychological studies here. For instance, the Multi-store Model of Memory attempts to explain memory formation. Can it explain all types of memory?
Theories that cannot be disproved by experiments fall into two categories: those intrinsically immune to experimentation, and those that cannot be disproved by experimentation due to lack of technology. The concept of falsification was formulated by Karl Popper when investigating the differences between dogmatic and critical thinking. Dogmatic thinkers, including the followers of Marx and Freud, try to interpret all events in terms of their favoured theory or beliefs, whilst a critical thinker tries to find the flaws in theories — especially their favoured ones.
This made possible the technology which changed the world during the industrial and information revolutions. Physics underpins the technology of locomotives and jets. As medicine has become more scientific it has been more successful. Dr Alexander Fleming observed the mould Penicillium retard the growth of the bacterium Staphylococcus, and predicted that penicillin could be used to treat bacterial disease.
Scientific theories are not the only explanatory systems that produce predictions. Long before there was science there were oracles, the most famous being the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi.
However, her prophecies were not subject to the statistical analysis used to test modern scientific predictions. Also, like the quatrains of Nostradamus, Oracular predictions were ambiguous and relied on equivocation. When King Croesus of Lydia asked the Oracle what would happen if he went to war against Persia, the Oracle prophesied that a great empire would fall.
The predictions based on the laws of motion of Newtonian physics, for instance, are very different. Marxist theory which Marxists claim to be scientific claims that it can predict future historical periods: in Marxist theory the feudal period is succeeded by the capitalist period, which is succeeded by the socialist period, which in turn is succeeded by the communist period.
But according to Marxist theory the countries which would be the first to undergo socialist revolution would be the advanced capitalist ones, Britain, Germany or the United States, not the peasant-based economies of Russia or China.
This prediction failed, even though it was a very broad theory. Let us briefly compare some well-known theories by assigning scientific quotients according to each of these criteria:. A disadvantage of this approach is the subjectivity in the weighting of the criteria and the scoring process. However this problem can be offset by choosing an expert panel to evaluate the theory against the criteria.
This is not meant to exclude an amateur from calculating a scientific quotient. There are other complications too. History shows us that whether or not a theory is scientific can change in the light of new evidence or new techniques. What is currently not testable can become testable, for example. The first six criteria given are intrinsic properties of theories, not alterable by new data or techniques.
The remaining five criteria are extrinsic properties that are likely to change as new data is gathered or new techniques become available. For example, just because a theory is based upon observed and gathered data it does not necessarily mean that the theory is accurate or is the simplest see 7. Moreover, the criteria are not of equal weight. Some of the criteria given above are necessary for a theory to be scientific, others more amorphously influential. We can combine this scientific quotient scoring system with a star system in which all the necessary criteria for a theory being scientific are given a star as shown , and so theories are unscientific if they do not pass all the starred criteria.
These criteria include: Is the theory self-consistent? Is the theory based on data? Has the theory been tested? However, a star system alone would not distinguish the degree of fulfilment of criteria between two competing theories, unlike the Scientific Quotient system. Before the background radiation from the Big Bang was discovered it was inconclusive which was the stronger theory.
However, using the Scientific Quotient system, I think the Big Bang theory would still have had a higher score. It would have fared better on simplicity , a single creation then expansion being a simpler explanation than the continuous creation of matter.
Also, at that time the Big Bang theory was more in tune with the rest of physics than matter being formed in interstellar space violating the first law of thermodynamics , and so had a stronger fulfilment of criterion 8.
I would think it fairer to say these are untested or otherwise incomplete rather than claim that they are unscientific. If we acknowledge that some of the necessary criteria for being scientific are extrinsic dependent on factors other than the theory itself , the claim that whether a theory is scientific or not could change with time. Or perhaps we can augment our vocabulary and say that there are immature scientific theories.
As I say, this theory of evaluation is itself in its preliminary stages. Russell Berg studied at the University of Leeds and is currently working as a food microbiologist.
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