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Topics due Friday.
Thought papers and discussion grades
Method and proposal sign ups
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How do inductive and deductive research fit
together?
Explain metaphysics, positivism,
determinism, post-positivism, critical realism,
constructivism, and evolutionary
epistemology. What do these approaches
have to do with how science is conducted and
interpreted?
What is Kuhn?
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Science as cumulative vs. revolutionary
Rules of science change with new paradigms
vs. Popper
 Do we falsify or do we confirm?
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Can we say what’s a “better” PD?
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What is Kuhn’s view of how science
progresses?
Is science cumulative?
What is pre-paradigm period like?
What is a paradigm? Why are they useful?
When is a field a science?
What is normal vs. extraordinary science?
What is a “good scientist”? How does that
affect the types of questions we ask?
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How do paradigms change? Who changes
them? How does the new one get picked?
How do we know when a paradigm changes?
What does a paradigm affect?
How do paradigm changes affect what we
already “know”?
What is the difference between a paradigm
and a theory?
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What is the role of a student?
How do textbooks play a role?
What is a scientific community? How does it
differ from other types of communities?
How does peer-review relate to Kuhn’s ideas?
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What does Kuhn think of psychology?
 Kuhn was “not anti-psychology, only rather bored
with psychologists generally who, on the whole,
he thought were not serious about much other
than playing safe…If he had a specific complaint
about the social sciences, it was not that they
were not “advanced” but that they somehow
lacked a sense of how they were going about their
enterprises” (J. Bruner, p.c., cited in Driver-Linn,
2003)
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Do we have a paradigm? What is it?
A PD has
 1) symbolic generalizations (rules);
 2) metaphysical paradigms (shared commitment
to beliefs);
 3) values;
 4) exemplars (concrete problems with solutions)
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Are there things we see now that we couldn’t
before?
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Do we have agreements on our commitments in
these areas?:
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Conceptual
Theoretical
Instrumental
Methodological
How do these affect how we see things?
Do they differ by area of psychology?
How do our paradigms affect what we study?
How we study it?
Do we have taboo topics?
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What do our textbooks tell us about our
paradigm(s)? Have those changed over time?
What are some myths our textbooks have
promulgated?
Did we have a pre-paradigm phase, or are we
still in it?
What is an example of a paradigm change? Of
a crisis?
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How do theories and paradigms constrain
psychology? How are they good?
How does this relate to cross-cultural or
interdisciplinary research?
How do Kuhn’s ideas relate to
 HARKing?
 Confirmation bias?
 phacking?
 Nonlinear systems ?
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How do Kuhn’s ideas relate to graduate
training? Should we be doing it differently?
How does our way of doing it differ (if it does)
from other sciences?
Should we be doing normal or extraordinary
science? What are psych examples?
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How does Kuhn define a science?
Is psychology a science? Why are we so
defensive about that?
Why do we care? Does anyone else?
Driver-Linn, 2003
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Is there a truth?
Is science moving closer to it?
What is the “alternative” to science?
Does science have to be theory driven?
Paradigm-driven?
Critiques of Kuhn?