Doric's Science Blog

Physics and the social sciences

syndor — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 20:56:36 +0000

Lee Smolin writes in his book “The trouble with physics” about the problems some physicists have with string theory; a theory that is still untested but believed to be true by nearly the whole scientific community.
In the introduction of his book he writes that in science, “for a theory to be believed, it must make a new prediction, different from those made by previous theories, for an experiment not yet done. Only when a theory has been tested and the results agree with the theory do we advance the theory to the ranks of true theories”.
Then he mentions that Lisa Randall defines a theory as “definite physical framework embodied in a set of fundamental assumptions about the world, and an economical framework that encompasses a wide variety of phenomena. A theory yields a specific set of equations and predictions, ones that are borne out by successful agreement with experimental results”.
Smolin continues: “We tell our students that belief in a scientific theory must always be based on an objective evaluation of the evidence”.
He then writes that there can be good reasons to take a theory seriously as hypothesis about nature, but that it is not the same as declaring it true: “every unproved idea is met with a healthy dose of skepticism and criticism until it is proved”.
And continues by stating that there are two ways of doing science: research that arises from reflection on foundational problems (deep thought on the most fundamental questions surrounding its most basic concepts – the work of Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger and others) and research that is pragmatic and directed towards excellence in performing calculations (the work of Feynman, Dyson, etc.).
Two ways of doing science that solves different kind of problems, requiring very different ways of thinking.

So far Smolin. Let me resume the salient aspects of the scientific enterprise as he discusses them in his introduction:
- Experimentation
- Prediction
- Deep thinking of basic concepts
- Development of the mathematics
- Hypothetical theories
- True theories
- Skepticism
- Believe in (true) theory.

An important aspect of physical science is measurement. But Smolin doesn’t mention this because, I guess, it is so fundamental to its methodology (no measurement, no math and no answers).
Mainstream social sciences has tried to copy the physical sciences in its methodology. But the results of this endeavor are very bad. In my opinion we should rethink the way we do social science and radically change our course.
First of all the problems in the social sciences are of a very different nature than the problems in the physical sciences: Newton’s first law, for example, is about velocity and forces; a change in the velocity of an object is the result of a cause working on it.
In the social sciences we deal with phenomena that are complex and non-deterministic, like ‘leadership in organisations’. The interesting question here is: why do some people accept another person as a leader. Or in other words: which aspects of the leader, his followers and the environmental setting make a certain person a leader for a certain group (or nation)?
As said, in the situation of the social sciences the problem under study is complex: we study the interaction of human beings (brains) with a memory and a learning capability; we study the interaction of living, goal seeking systems. And goal seeking really means: constructing the future.

We should remember though, that there is no social reality, a reality that is the same for all participants. Reality is always an interpreted reality that changes. A stone today is a stone tomorrow, but a leader today can be a prisoner tomorrow.
When we think of velocity of objects and forces working on them, the first relevant questions to be asked are for example: how far will an object get in a certain time? Or how much force should I use to change the direction of an object with 15 degrees? Time, distance, velocity and force are all entities that can be measured.
With ‘leadership in organisations’ the story is very different. Here the first relevant question is for example: which factors determine effective leadership? And the factors involved are the elements of the following three sets:
- the characteristics of the followers (like gender, age, acceptance of authority, etc.);
- the characteristics of the leader (like gender, age, ability, etc.);
- the organisational factors (like the nature of the task, the culture and the structure of
the organisation).
So the first question of the social sciences has to do with the consideration of the totality of the relevant conditions. The second question is the question of the possibility of true (valid) measurement. I will not discuss this problem here, but the problem is big.

That being said, let’s look at the characteristics of science as mentioned by Smolin. I will place after each characteristic a short comment on its use in the social sciences.
- Experimentation (mostly impossible in the social domain, but sometimes it can
be done)
- Prediction (possible, but by other means than by mathematical models)
- Deep thinking of basic concepts (possible)
- Development of the mathematics (possible, but validity of the measurements is
often a problem)
- Hypothetical theories (we have plenty of them)
- True theories (I wonder …)
- Skepticism (not enough)
- Believe in (true) theory (ugh…).

The difference between physical sciences and social sciences are huge. In the past a lot of physicists and mathematicians have worked on subjects that belongs to the social sciences and done all sorts of research. Their results are not spectacular.

Some thoughts on the concepts of space and time

syndor — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 14:11:19 +0000

Going home by tram this morning, after having done some shopping, I was reading a book I just bought, written by Lawrence Krauss with the intriguing title: Hiding in the mirror. I bought the book because it’s about scientist thinking about realities beyond perception.
At this moment, in connection with my dissertation, I am interested in the way humans try to picture the future. In organizations we talk about strategies and visions. I realize we build our future from the past and that we cannot build everything we would like to make. A question I ask myself in this regard is if the ideas we have of our future are more than only new combinations of elements of the past or the known. Is there something new in our future?
But the future is not the subject I want to write about at this moment. I just want to state that I have great difficulties in understanding people when they talk about space and time. It seems as if they use these words to describe two different entities in reality. That is not so, in my opinion. Time and space are words that refer to a cognitive process: the idea of getting from one object to another. In my view there exist only sets of different forms of energy and these sets, with their different characteristics, move. Krauss writes: “There are scientists today who truly expect to discover the existence of extra dimensions and perhaps even extra universes in our lifetime”. A very disturbing sentence indeed: a dimension isn’t a word that refers to an object in reality but a word that refers to the concept of the measurement of some characteristic of an entity (a movement, an action or an object). In my world time and space are not entities that exist in reality but are words that refer to a cognitive process: the measurement of the concept of ‘getting somewhere’. So I will read Krauss’ book about the mysterious allure of extra dimensions (‘from Plato to String theory and beyond’ – as the publisher promises) as an account of a voyage through new directions in science and fiction.

Motivation and innovation

syndor — Sat, 22 May 2010 06:32:09 +0000

Studying organizations is fascinating (and never ending).

Here is a link to a very nice video about motivation:
Motivating people: the illustrated version

Semantic universals

syndor — Sat, 15 May 2010 08:47:28 +0000

One of the subjects I stumbled upon is the work of Anna Wierzbicka, Professor in linguistics. In 1972 she wrote a book entitled “Semantic Primitives” and since then there has been a lot of linguistic studies based on her theory, the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. In short her work aims at finding the semantic primitives of human language (that is: indefinable words/concepts occurring in all the languages of the world) and build a metalanguage based on these primitives, such that all the words of all the languages can be defined by these primitives.

This linguistic research is interesting because it uses a solid method for constructing theory: the use of axioms and deriving theorems from the axiomatic system. Euclid in his “Elements”, for example, uses this method to build a system of rigorous mathematical proofs still valid 23 centuries later. Think also of the endeavor of Spinoza, who structured his “Ethics” like Euclid did. Of course I don’t agree with Spinoza who thinks that all of nature follow from the causal necessity of there being a God, but his endeavor is an interesting one.

As for my thesis, the work of Wierzbicka urges me to ask: can we trace ‘primitives’ in the way we work together in organizations? Jan Dietz and Fernando Flores have something to say about this. But that’s for a future posting.

For further reading on semantic universals, you can follow these two links:
NSM Homepage and Book review by Björn Lundquist.

The structure of my dissertation (PhD thesis)

syndor — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:32:31 +0000

My PhD thesis addresses two aims:
The first is to choose or to design a theoretical system that will lead to scientifically effective research, on the basis of clarified concepts and the explicit statement of the presuppositions used.
The second is to validate this theoretical system by way of an empirical study and to contribute to the theory of Organizational Performance.

The structure of my thesis will be as follows (structure might change as a consequence of what I will be reading).

Chapter-1 Formulation of the problem
§1.1 Development and state of affairs within Organizational Performance
§1.2 Research questions
§1.2.1 Which philosophical and theoretical system could best be used to clarify some important concepts used in Organizational Performance such as complexity, (self) organization, co-operation, rituals, innovation, design, innovation, performance, norms, values etc.
§1.2.2 What are the implications of the findings in §I.2.1 for research and diagnosis of Organizational Performance and it’s improvement? With other words: what are the epistemological and methodological starting points?
§1.2.3 Empirical Research within the field of Organizational Performance.

Chapter-2 Philosophical and theoretical foundations
Elaboration of §1.2.1. Activity: study of literature.
§2.1 Ontology (Nature and meaning of some concepts)
§2.2 Epistemology (How can we develop knowledge in the area of interest)
§2.3 Methodology (Which methods and techniques should we use to do effective research and diagnostics)
§2.4 Theoretical foundations of organizations and their context (politics, society, economy, psychology, rationality, choice making, anthropology).

Chapter-3 Meaning and implications for research and diagnosis of Organizational Performance
Elaboration of §1.2.2. Activity: study of literature.
§3.1 Choices and proposal for a conceptual, theoretical framework for research and diagnosis of Organizational Performance

Chapter-4 Empirical Research concerning a subject within Organizational Performance
Elaboration of §1.2.3. Activity: study of literature and conduct of empirical research.
§4.1 Research questions
§4.2 Background and theory
§4.3 Operationalisations and hypotheses
§4.4 Research design
§4.5 Conducting the research
§4.6 Results
§4.7 Discussion and contribution to theory
§4.8 Résumé and conclusions

Chapter-5 Last considerations
What did we learn? What are the expectations about research and diagnostics of Organizational Performance in the next future? What have we added to the knowledge base of this subject?

Attachments

Bibliography

Ewald Vervaet over het positivisme (in Dutch)

syndor — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:21:18 +0000

Discussie over het positivisme

Op 28 april 2006 heeft dr. Ewald Vervaet het bestuur van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen (KNAW) verzocht een discussie te openen over het positivisme in het algemeen en over de positivistische psychologie in het bijzonder. Dat verzoek wordt begeleid door het artikel ‘Het positivisme en zijn ongeldigheid’.

Vervaets verzoek wordt door zes hoogleraren aanbevolen en door 37 academici die geen hoogleraar zijn, ondersteund. Dat laatste geldt ook voor enkele belasting-betalende niet-academici.

In Trouw heeft een kort artikel gestaan, dat vooral gaat over enkele van de vele maatschappelijke consekwenties van het positivisme: ‘We slaan door in onze cijfergekte’.
Aan het slot van dat artikel kunt u doorklikken naar het Trouw-artikel ‘Cijfers maken het leven niet veiliger’ van de criminoloog drs. Frans Kets over het positivisme bij de politie.

Naar aanleiding van de studiemiddag Positivistische psychologie: geslaagd of mislukt? van 8 november 2006 heeft Vervaet een vervolg gegeven aan zijn brief van 28 april (en 11 mei).

meer …

Douglas Rushkoff: Economics is not natural science

syndor — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:24:40 +0000

We must stop perpetuating the fiction that existence itself is dictated by the immutable laws of economics. These so-called laws are, in actuality, the economic mechanisms of 13th Century monarchs. Some of us analyzing digital culture and its impact on business must reveal economics as the artificial construction it really is. Although it may be subjected to the scientific method and mathematical scrutiny, it is not a natural science; it is game theory, with a set of underlying assumptions that have little to do with anything resembling genetics, neurology, evolution, or natural systems. more …

Friedrich August von Hayek on Methodology

syndor — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:09:03 +0000

Throughout his writings, Hayek has emphasized that a
“scientistic prejudice” is working as a bad steering factor in
the research for sound theories in the general field of social
sciences, and especially in economics. Notwithstanding Hayek’s
criticism, most contemporary economists still think that they
must imitate methods of physical and biological sciences in order
to do good and valid science. While Hayek was first vehemently
reproving this methodological choice in his early writings (for
example, Hayek 1952), he was afterwards convinced by Popper, as
he himself acknowledges (see Hayek 1967) that the scientific
method social scientists sought to transpose into their own
research field was mere illusion. more …

Thanks to Tony Earls who mentioned this paper from Robert Nadeau at the Université du Québec à Montréal at Twitter.com.

Yuelin on science

syndor — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:00:48 +0000

Caveat: Edward de Bono, founder of lateral thinking, remarked that he never debates. He said that two parties cannot agree primarily because they have either different information, or different perception, or different values. I interpret Bono as meaning that recognizing our differences and trying to view from the other party’s perspective is better than debating. With regards to the views I express in my blogs, I take Bono’s advice to heart . more…

Scientific knowledge

syndor — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:43:02 +0000

I share my love of science with many other people I love science. Science is a way of thinking and a way of manipulating certain aspects of the real world in order to gain knowledge about those aspects. Science has produced a body of knowledge about the empirical world. Science explains how aspects of the world work and predicts some future outcomes. The knowledge we acquire through science is codified in language. American scientists write their findings in English; Dutch scientist write in Dutch (and sometimes in English). Knowledge is communicated through sentences in one language or the other. So the sentence ‘the earth is spherical’ can be thought of as resulting from scientific investigation and not so the sentence ‘the earth is flat’.

Can we make deductions from a sentence that it is the result of scientific investigation? No we cannot.
So which sentences about the world should we believe as a truthful representation of it?
There is no straightforward answer to this question. But there are some clues we can find to determine which statements are the result of scientific inquiry. I will elaborate on this below, but let me make three preliminary remarks first.

[1] Science cannot explain why entities exist. It can only explain how entities are (causally) related to one another and can show how entities develop from other entities. Science can explain, for example, how a seed becomes a plant by describing the developmental stages from the beginning to the end. In this respect we may say that science is a very humble undertaking (but a difficult one).

[2] Science studies entities that are perceptible, observable. One of the most important concepts in science is the concept of causation: how some entities (events) cause some other entities to move or to change.
Causation itself is not an empirical entity, it is a concept that relates empirical entities in a temporal order to each other. A natural law of physics for example, is a statement about an empirical event that causes another event (every time).
The concept of ‘God’ is not a scientific concept because it does not conjugate two empirical states of affairs to each other. It is a concept that has no empirical foundation.

[3] The truthfulness of a scientific statement can be evaluated by the methods that were used to produce the statement (knowledge) in question. Methodology is the study of how science should be practiced. Methodology is a complex theory that prescribes how investigations should be performed on the basis of evaluation of practices. It is an activity (a method) we could compare with the buzz word “Best practice”: the most effective and efficient way to accomplish a task based on proven and repeatable procedures.

In their book “Wat een onzin!”, published in 2008 – I don’t think it has been translated in English (yet) so my translation of the title would be: “Sheer nonsense!”, Dutch scientists Herman de Regt and Hans Dooremalen discuss the rules a person can use to distinguish between sentences that are the product of scientific investigation (often called hypothesis or propositions) and sentences that are not (statements about ghosts, homeopathy, deities, etc.). I will discuss one rule De Regt and Dooremalen mention, the rule of falsification. This rule states that scientific statements should be falsifiable. The statement “all swans are white” is falsifiable and can be tested to be false by finding at least one black swan. The statement “God created the world” is not a falsifiable statement because we have no means to test it; the word “God” does not refer to an empirical entity.

Summarizing: scientific research produces falsifiable statements about the empirical world and these statements are subsequently subjected to refutability tests. Falsifiable statements about the empirical world are stated in terms of observable, interrelated entities.