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6 Lecture "Science is united by its methods." The goal of science that sociology shares is inference. We are attempting to make generalizations of what we study. We don't just study things for their own sake. We study them to understand more general phenomenon. We try to make generalizations of a population by finding a representative sample. There is a personal generalization from the standard of our own experience. Many works of sociology are put out in a speculative way. Some of the most successful are not tested but written in a manner that relates to people. Third way. The mosaic of generalizablilty. Life is a mosaic, and each piece contributes to the general picture. Fourth generalizability- theoretical. These are theories constructed. In Sidewalk, Professor tried to reconstruct the theory "eyes and ears are what we need on the street" We can make a generalization with using the whole population. 1. The goal is inference. 2. The procedures are systematic and public. i.e. Be able to compare observations of different days. Anyone should be able to do the same study and replicate the results. Replication is crucial. Contrast with journalist. The journalist misses many details in the study. He or she doesn't emphasize a representative sample. 3. Data quality is of paramount concern in any science. Most debates in scientific journals are about data. 4. The conclusions are uncertain. Without a reasonable estimate of uncertainty, a researcher is not engaged in science. We all need to speak with modesty and stipulate our uncertainties. The challenge of ethnographers will be to stipulate uncertainties to something more aligned to statistics. 5. Alternative explanations must be considered- the hallmark of a good scientist. i.e. Journalists don't need to present other side. 6. The goal of social science is to improve theory. But there are whole areas of sociology not interested in improving theory. This is a more open on point sociology. We try to seek explanations as a paramount goal of our work. Sociologists spend most of their time tackling cause and effect. i.e. A person has a criminal record. When they leave, they may or may not get a job. It seems to be that going to jail is detrimental to the job search. Going to jail seems to cause a lack of jobs, but that is disputed. Correlation is not necessarily causation. It's difficult to claim a correlation is a causation. But other factors may be true causes. We need other ways to figure out correlation vs. cause. Experiments try to disentangle cause and effect. Generalizability is better done in the real world rather than in a lab. Groups of white and black testers were sent out. They made it clear that they had a criminal record. The other characteristics were evened out to isolate the criminal record. Using this test, direct evidence was produced to support the effect of a criminal record. Employers almost never test references. 7. Politics and values. Sociologists try to separate their facts from their politics and values. i.e. The woman who did the study believed that people who had criminal records may should be a negative credential. She also makes poltical arguments from the study. But her science makes no such judgments. 8. Science is obsessed with ethics. Before doing a study, a sociologist spends a lot considering the impact and method of his or her studies. Sociologists worry about ethics. i.e. In the Tearoom Trade, the sociologist tracked people's license plates. He went to the MVC and found their addresses. He then did surveys of people in the neighborhood and found that these people were quite normal in everyday life. But the sociologist didn't think much about ethics. Now, in order to engage in a sociological study, the study must be analyzed by peers in an ethics board to determine if it is ethical. The effect of the study on humans must be found.

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