The last topic of the course was “Integrating developmental scholarship into practice and policy” and I learned firstly, another meaning of scholarship in this lesson. I knew this term as help of institutions to students in order to continue their education. The scholarship is similar to research but it is broader than research. It is written in the article that if the facts are based on data, then that type of scholarship is called science. Then, the article cites McCall’s saying that “The purpose of scholarship is to improve life.” This sentence makes me think that what are the purposes of science? I do not agree with McCall and I think that science has three purposes: to explain, to control, and to predict. For example, if a new type of illness emerges, science will firstly try to explain it, then investigate methods to be able to control it with respect to its aim, and then based on these methods, predict the illness’ future, effects etc. but science has not a purpose of improving life. By explaining, controlling, and predicting, science enables people to improve their life. However, it does not make scholarship (research) for the sake of helping people. On the other hand, most people in the society think that science is a tool to make their life easy.
Secondly, one of the most important arguments in the article is related with the value of basic scholarship and applied scholarship. Although the author mentions about why applied scholarship is necessary and more valuable than basic scholarship, then according to many psychologists basic scholarship has more value than applied scholarship. It seems to me that the reason for psychologists’ valuing basic scholarship more than applied one is their struggle for making psychology a science. The author also talks about their struggle by saying that “Psychologists wanted to create a truly scientific discipline of psychology by invoking the basic sciences of physics and chemistry as its model.” However, in psychology, I think that there is a demarcation problem which is the problem of drawing a line between the statements of the empirical sciences and all other statements- whether they are of a religious or of a metaphysical character, or simply pseudoscientific (Popper, 2003). In other words, demarcation problem is the problem of distinguishing science from non-science. I think that psychology’s status whether it is scientific or not is not certain. Therefore, psychologists always try to make psychology scientific with their studies. Otherwise, they would not be interested in making laboratory experiments and search findings. By doing experiments, they think that psychology will be scientific. As parallel to psychologists’ views, similar debate occurs between evolution and intelligent design theorists. Demarcation problem uses also evolution and intelligent design theories. Intelligent design is the idea that various forms of life began abruptly through some supernatural agency, with their distinctive features already intact. For example, the very first fish would already have had fins and scales, the very first birds would have had feathers, beaks, and wings etc. (Radder, 2006). On the other hand, evolution theory consists of the following premises: evolution- change over time, natural selection, modification with descent (common ancestry), multiplication of species, and gradualism (Mayr (1991), as cited in Scharmann (2005).
At first view, it is not easy to separate these theories with respect to scientific perspective, as in the case of psychology. Therefore, many science researchers agree that NOS should be used to be able to demarcate science from non-science. Although subjectivity aspect of NOS contribute the solution of demarcation problem, there must be other aspects which NOS has not possessed yet such as being evidence-based, testability, and falsifiability. In conclusion, by using the criteria of NOS, we can decide whether psychology is a science or not. In this case, psychologists do not need to make psychology a science.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Role of Parents in Moral Development
Even though the definiton of morality is various, it is the system of rules that regulates the social interactions and social relationships of individuals within societies and is based on concepts of welfare (harm), trust, justice, and rights. We learned in the lesson that moral judgments need to be obligatory, universal, unalterable, impersonal and determined by criteria other than agreement, consensus or institutional convention. While some theorists claim that morality stems from mainly parents’ influence on children through their parenting practices, disciplinary strategies, and parenting styles, some theorists assert that the hierarchical nature of parent-child relationships constrain children’s moral development. Although I do not ignore the effect of peers on children, I think that the role of parents is utmost importance in moral development of their children. For example, Piaget found that children’s conflicts over moral issues such as object possession (taking a toy or not sharing), rights, aggression, psychological harm-all moral issues- do occur primarily in interactions with peers. Since peers have similar age with each other, children tend to follow how they behave toward each other. They learn the concepts of harm, justice and rights through these interactions. If the child is accustomed to steal money from people’s pockets, then his/her peers tend to follow him/her so that stealing and harming people will be normal behavior according to them. That is, their moral development can consist of harming and violating the rights. By directing their children to have friendship with particular peers, parents can provide these children to develop morally.
Another role of parents is related with being role-model. Various studies show that young children have social experiences with physical and psychological harm, fair distribution and the violation of rights through their experiences of rules, rule violations, and peer conflicts. By considering children’s possible social experiences, parents can help children gain moral development concepts. Rather than giving advices to their children about moral concepts, parents should try to behave like that (not only saying but also doing) and to make them observe that their parents are respectful to each other’s rights. Or, by providing children to trust the parents, they can learn better the trust concept, for instance.
As parallel to these views, in the article, Smetana (1999) cites that affective component of family-child interactions provide parental warmth, involvement and support which enable children to develop moral reasoning. Hence, parents should be careful in their relationships with students and use affective interactions . Moreover, there is also cognitive dimension of parents’ roles. In the social domain view, parents’ communications with their children are crucial in the construction of moral knowledge. By explaining the reasons for rules, trying to apply these rules in the house, giving appropriate reactions when children violate the rules, parents can enable their children to think critically about their actions so that they obtain moral development.
Finally, it can be said that moral development of children is dependent on the role of parents during the construction of it. Hence, parents should be careful in selection of their children’s peers, have awareness about children’s possible social experiences and give importance to affective and cognitive components of parent-child interactions.
Attachment Theory
In this blog entry, I will talk mainly about how Bowlby’s attachment theory emerges and the importance of the theory from the perspective of infants.
After Bowlby’s first empirical study about maternal deprivation and separation, he found that separation has clear-cut and significant effect on child and parent-child relationship so that it will be easy for him to document effects of separation on the relationship. Then, he decided to focus on attachment in order to analyze parent-child relationship. Considering the importance of the theory, Bowlby found that in order to grow up mentally healthy, “the infant and young child should experience a warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with his mother (or permanent mother substitute) in which both find satisfaction and enjoyment” (Bowlby, 1951, cited in Bretherton, 1992). That is, an infant needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to be able to occur normally. Bowlby views attachment as “proximity to an attachment figure as a predictable outcome and whose evolutionary function is protection of the infant from danger, insisting that attachment has its own motivation and is in no way derived from systems subserving mating and feeding” (Bretherton, 1992). In other words, it can be said that attachment is necessary for an infant to live in a healthy way since it enables him/her to develop socially and emotionally.
When we consider humans, the necessity of attachment can be understood better. In many species other than humans, young animals, for example, move closer to adults or follow them for a long time. They can walk after birth immediately. Their need for adults is less than human infants’ need for adults. Human infants cannot walk or follow their adults. They even cannot cling to these adults for maintaining contact, as well as not talk and say their need at that moment. They can only send signals by crying or facial expressions etc. to their adults. Hence, they need attachment. If it is not provided to an infant, then he/she will have trouble in development process and in the future he/she will probably harm people around him/her or even the society. For example, during first six months if there are no consistent caretaker, the infant will not form an attachment and he/she will cause many problems in the future for himself/herself and the society. I think that one of the most important reasons for having so many robbers, fighters, liars etc. in the society is due to the lack of attachment when these people are infants. If they got attachment from caregivers, then they would learn and internalize the concepts of love, toleration, and helpfulness.
REFERENCES
1- Bretherton, I. (1992). The Origins of Attachment Theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainstworth. Developmental Psychology Journal, 28, 759-775
Language Development
Today’s topic in the course was language development. Oral language can defined as a socially shared code, or conventional system, that represents ideas through the use of arbitrary symbols and rules that govern combinations of these symbols. From the child development course, I have learned that oral language is crucial in all aspects of life but we are not aware of this fact and we simply overlook oral language. Chomsky claims that children learn an intricate grammatical system almost entirely on their own. All their need is to hear a language spoken, and they will master it. His words also support why most schools emphasize academic skills and not consider oral language as a part of the academic curriculum. Similarly, many teachers believe that most children develop language skills naturally and do not require remediation. I believe that not guiding children to develop their language cause them to have problems related with language in the future such as not speaking well, not understanding grammar of spoken language and fluency problems in reading.
I think that the state of oral language is like a vicious cycle. Children have oral language problems, but parents and children are unaware so schools neglect it. Then, teachers overlook and children continue to have oral language problems. Since schools are interested in academic skills, they don’t mention about oral language skills. However, these skills form the basis of academic skills. Additionally, oral language supports for learning other subject areas such as reading, writing, and content areas. To be able to read questions and answer them (that is, in order to be successful academically), children need to have oral language skills. Communicating with friends about homework, understanding teacher’s verbal directions during exams or worksheets, listening to teacher’s instruction on a topic all require oral language skills. By considering the importance of oral language, activities which can develop these skills should be integrated into the curriculum.
When we consider teachers, they can use strategies for teaching oral language skills. For example, they can use imitations for proper use of language by providing a sentence and asking the child to repeat it. Or they can teach language by forming small groups and connecting interactions between peers about correct use of language. Moreover, they can present games and activities in order to make students enjoy learning oral language. In order to enhance students’ receptive skills (an understanding or comprehension of spoken words) as a part of oral language, teachers can read a story and ask students to predict the end of the story or they can play listening games like “Simon Says”. Similarly, parents can develop their children’s language. In general, it is believed that normal children would have great difficulty learning language on the basis of parental conditioning, because parents are such poor language teachers. However, I don’t agree with this belief. Although some parents’ speech is full of grammatical errors, they mainly tend to speak with their children in a very simple, clear, and grammatical fashion. Also, speaking with children increases their vocabulary. Similarly, Hart and Risley (2003) found when parents talk a great deal to their babies and toddlers, the parents can boost their children’s vocabularies at age 3 years. These gains, in turn, are associated with elevated IQ and reading scores in elementary school.
In conclusion, to be able to enhance oral language skills, teachers should give opportunities students to practice what they have been learned about oral language. Parents should also do more practice with their children in a simple and clear way. Schools also should incorporate oral language into the curriculum. If parents, teachers and schools give importance to oral language by applying the suggestions, then vicious cycle will be broken and we will have students who have highly-developed oral language skills.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Learning through Schemas
We use frequently schemas in our lives. Almost all work, we use them such as taking car key from home, opening the car with it, putting it to the circuit and running the car. When we are going to workplace, we use same roads. During traffic jam, sometimes we must change our road and in this case if you have another road’s schema in your mind, you will easily reach to workplace by using this road. Nevertheless, if you don’t know how another road take you to the workplace, you will be confused and have difficulties in arriving it on time because you have no schema about this new road and you don’t know where to go.
Let me give another example. I was an introvert person at the beginning of the university years and I was afraid of talking with teachers. I remember that before I was entering to the room of Finlay Mcquade, I had denoted my schema about my questions. After I asked my first question, if he answered yes, then I would ask second one but if he answered no to first question, I would ask different question. If he answered me in a different way which I didn’t expect, I would not have said anything since I had constructed my schema before the interview and I had no schema about this interview previously.
So, what about learning without having schemas? I think it is hard to learn and hold knowledge in brain without schemas. In order to provide learning, we use behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism etc. and it seems to me that schema theory is not interested in how learning occurs. Its only aim is having schemas by making connections and it doesn’t deal with how we construct schemas.
Now, I believe that firstly learning occurs, then we try to make it meaningful by constructing schemas and hold them in our minds. Holding knowledge with schemas facilitates retention of knowledge. Instead of remembering many knowledge separately without schemas, remembering the schema related with the topic is much more easier (of course, some branches of schema can be forgetten because of not using them in long time but with the help of schemas, we remember more knowledge and easier).
If we connect some knowledge in a schema to each other meaningfully (not randomly connection of knowledge, otherwise it can cause misconceptions), then it is easy to remember and hold this schema in long-term memory. If we memorize the knowledge (schema) rather than connecting it to each other meaningfully, then we will have problems with remembering and making inferences. For example, if you memorize the statements “All swans are white” and “This is a swan”, then you will probably have difficulties in connecting these statements and making an inference. However, if you meaningfully construct them in your schema, then you will infer that “This swan is white.” Therefore, constructing schemas in a meaningful way is crucial in providing permanent learning.
Finally, I believe that first learning occurs by behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism etc. and then we hold this learning in our minds as schemas. If we construct these schemas meaningfully, then learning is permanent but if we construct them randomly, then learning is temporary and strongly possible to be forgetten.
Let me give another example. I was an introvert person at the beginning of the university years and I was afraid of talking with teachers. I remember that before I was entering to the room of Finlay Mcquade, I had denoted my schema about my questions. After I asked my first question, if he answered yes, then I would ask second one but if he answered no to first question, I would ask different question. If he answered me in a different way which I didn’t expect, I would not have said anything since I had constructed my schema before the interview and I had no schema about this interview previously.
So, what about learning without having schemas? I think it is hard to learn and hold knowledge in brain without schemas. In order to provide learning, we use behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism etc. and it seems to me that schema theory is not interested in how learning occurs. Its only aim is having schemas by making connections and it doesn’t deal with how we construct schemas.
Now, I believe that firstly learning occurs, then we try to make it meaningful by constructing schemas and hold them in our minds. Holding knowledge with schemas facilitates retention of knowledge. Instead of remembering many knowledge separately without schemas, remembering the schema related with the topic is much more easier (of course, some branches of schema can be forgetten because of not using them in long time but with the help of schemas, we remember more knowledge and easier).
If we connect some knowledge in a schema to each other meaningfully (not randomly connection of knowledge, otherwise it can cause misconceptions), then it is easy to remember and hold this schema in long-term memory. If we memorize the knowledge (schema) rather than connecting it to each other meaningfully, then we will have problems with remembering and making inferences. For example, if you memorize the statements “All swans are white” and “This is a swan”, then you will probably have difficulties in connecting these statements and making an inference. However, if you meaningfully construct them in your schema, then you will infer that “This swan is white.” Therefore, constructing schemas in a meaningful way is crucial in providing permanent learning.
Finally, I believe that first learning occurs by behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism etc. and then we hold this learning in our minds as schemas. If we construct these schemas meaningfully, then learning is permanent but if we construct them randomly, then learning is temporary and strongly possible to be forgetten.
Moving From Stage to Another in Piaget's Stages
In this entry, I will emphasize the contribution of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium in passing from one stage to another. Firstly, I think that child’s assimilating new information to the existing schema cannot take him to the next stage if assimilating process does not promote thinking and creating relationships between topics. Additionally, if it promotes thinking, then it is called accommodation. I learned that accommodation requires change in existing schema or creating a new schema. Therefore, a child can learn with assimilation but he can’t move to the next stage with only assimilation (definition of assimilation considers fitting existing schema but does this schema necessary? If so, what about child’s first knowledge related with a topic? Or don’t we define learning first knowledge as assimilation?).
Secondly, a child can learn with accommodation and it can take him/her to the next stage. In accommodation, there must be existing schema and since he/she has to modify this schema with new information, he/she will need to think about this new information (how he/she organizes it in mind and why it happened as it did). That is, he/she will put new information to the new schema by reasoning so that this reasoning may provide essential development in order to come to the next stage.
Moreover, accommodation and discrepant event concepts are highly connected with each other even though we haven’t discussed in the last lesson. Discrepant event is defined as a stimulating approach that puzzles the child. It causes the child to wonder why the event happened as it did. Hence, this thinking will direct the child to accommodate new information to the schema and to the next stage. For example, in primary school, we were taught that world is turning around the sun and we assimilated this information without reasoning and thinking. Nevertheless, when we came to secondary school, some of us started to think and reason why world is turning around the sun, and these students probably skipped to the formal operational stage with the help of accommodation and discrepant event.
Finally, a child can move to the next stage by utilizing equilibrium. For equilibrium, there must be disequilibrium in existing schema. After handling disequilibrium, the child will be in the position of equilibrium. It seems to me that disequilibrium has same meaning with cognitive conflict and having cognitive conflict creates inconsistencies in mind of child and it directs him/her to think and cope with these inconsistencies to be able to stabilize his/her internal world (the state of equilibrium). Furthermore, in creating equilibration, accommodation is always used. If the child has previous knowledge and modifies it, then it means that he/she creates disequilibrium (accommodation). However, in assimilation, disequilibrium is not possible because to have the state of disequilibrium, previous knowledge is obligatory and in assimilation, there is no previous knowledge.
In conclusion, it can be said that while assimilation doesn’t take a child to the next stage, accommodation and equilibrium give him/her opportunity to move to the next stage.
Secondly, a child can learn with accommodation and it can take him/her to the next stage. In accommodation, there must be existing schema and since he/she has to modify this schema with new information, he/she will need to think about this new information (how he/she organizes it in mind and why it happened as it did). That is, he/she will put new information to the new schema by reasoning so that this reasoning may provide essential development in order to come to the next stage.
Moreover, accommodation and discrepant event concepts are highly connected with each other even though we haven’t discussed in the last lesson. Discrepant event is defined as a stimulating approach that puzzles the child. It causes the child to wonder why the event happened as it did. Hence, this thinking will direct the child to accommodate new information to the schema and to the next stage. For example, in primary school, we were taught that world is turning around the sun and we assimilated this information without reasoning and thinking. Nevertheless, when we came to secondary school, some of us started to think and reason why world is turning around the sun, and these students probably skipped to the formal operational stage with the help of accommodation and discrepant event.
Finally, a child can move to the next stage by utilizing equilibrium. For equilibrium, there must be disequilibrium in existing schema. After handling disequilibrium, the child will be in the position of equilibrium. It seems to me that disequilibrium has same meaning with cognitive conflict and having cognitive conflict creates inconsistencies in mind of child and it directs him/her to think and cope with these inconsistencies to be able to stabilize his/her internal world (the state of equilibrium). Furthermore, in creating equilibration, accommodation is always used. If the child has previous knowledge and modifies it, then it means that he/she creates disequilibrium (accommodation). However, in assimilation, disequilibrium is not possible because to have the state of disequilibrium, previous knowledge is obligatory and in assimilation, there is no previous knowledge.
In conclusion, it can be said that while assimilation doesn’t take a child to the next stage, accommodation and equilibrium give him/her opportunity to move to the next stage.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Risk Taking in Adolescence
After analyzing three articles related with risk taking in adolescence, I realized that there are no exact answer whether adolescent take risks more than adults or not. According to the one’s point of view, the preference of two conflicting views can change. If we look at the latest statistics, it is clear that adults have more risky behavior than adolescents. However, if we focus on the neuroscience, it explains that the temporal gap between puberty and the slow maturation of the cognitive-control system makes adolescence heightened vulnerability for risky behavior. Both views seem reasonable to me but I think that there should be studies controlling some variables such as socioeconomic and neurological and the structure of brain should be learned in a much more detailed way.
Although I don’t ignore biological results stating that adolescents are more prone to risk taking than adults because of their structure of brain, I think that these results are exaggerated by biodeterminists. There must be other factors influencing risk taking such as socioeconomic status and without knowing contributions of each factor to risk taking, we should not judge adolescents publicly. the reason for two conflicting views’ being logical within its own context is due to lack of controlling factors in a study. For example, adolescents were found as having less risky behavior than adults with respect to the statistical results. Nevertheless, we don’t know the socioeconomic status of these adults and adolescents. If these adults have low socioeconomic status than the adolescents, then the claim that adolescents have less risky behavior will be wrong. Since these adults had low income, they might show risk taking behavior. As parallel to Delisi (2010), I suggest to conduct studies including socioeconomic and neurological variables in the same models so that exact decision about risk taking in adolescence can be given easily.
Another hot debate in solving the conflict is related with brain. How much do we know about the brain? The answer to this question also will affect our decision of risk taking in adolescence. While some argue that we know very much about the brain, some argue that we know too little to have a decision. Fischer, as cited in Males (2009), assert that “We do not know very much!...Most of the recent advances in brain science have involved knowledge of the biology of single neurons and synapses, not knowledge of patterns of connection and other aspects of the brain as a system.”
Furthermore, neuroscience claims that there are two networks in brain; socioemotional and cognitive-control networks. Steinberg (2004) cites that while socioemotional network is sensitive to social and emotional stimuli and is remodeled in early adolescence by the hormonal changes of puberty, cognitive-control network subserves executive functions such as planning, thinking ahead, and self-regulation and matures gradually over the course of adolescence and young adulthood largely independently of puberty. Then, risk taking in adolescence occurs with the result of interaction between two networks. In adolescence, first network is dominant over second network since emotional stimuli are activated frequently and generally risk taking occurs due to lack of thinking logically.
In conclusion, there is lack of clarity between two conflicting views. It can unequivocally be said that there is no correct answer to the question of “Do adolescents have more risky behavior than adults or not? In order to arrive at exact decision in these views, we should know more about the biology of brain, specifically the impacts of brain networks and their contributions to the behavior of people. Moreover, in a study, researchers should control socioeconomic and neurological variables. I believe that if we control these variables in studies, two conflicting views will vanish since these views overlap. Even in the future if it is found that adolescents show more risky behavior than adults, we should not label adolescents as limited in a biodeterministic way. Rather, we should investigate new ways for adolescents in order to make them show less risky behavior.
Although I don’t ignore biological results stating that adolescents are more prone to risk taking than adults because of their structure of brain, I think that these results are exaggerated by biodeterminists. There must be other factors influencing risk taking such as socioeconomic status and without knowing contributions of each factor to risk taking, we should not judge adolescents publicly. the reason for two conflicting views’ being logical within its own context is due to lack of controlling factors in a study. For example, adolescents were found as having less risky behavior than adults with respect to the statistical results. Nevertheless, we don’t know the socioeconomic status of these adults and adolescents. If these adults have low socioeconomic status than the adolescents, then the claim that adolescents have less risky behavior will be wrong. Since these adults had low income, they might show risk taking behavior. As parallel to Delisi (2010), I suggest to conduct studies including socioeconomic and neurological variables in the same models so that exact decision about risk taking in adolescence can be given easily.
Another hot debate in solving the conflict is related with brain. How much do we know about the brain? The answer to this question also will affect our decision of risk taking in adolescence. While some argue that we know very much about the brain, some argue that we know too little to have a decision. Fischer, as cited in Males (2009), assert that “We do not know very much!...Most of the recent advances in brain science have involved knowledge of the biology of single neurons and synapses, not knowledge of patterns of connection and other aspects of the brain as a system.”
Furthermore, neuroscience claims that there are two networks in brain; socioemotional and cognitive-control networks. Steinberg (2004) cites that while socioemotional network is sensitive to social and emotional stimuli and is remodeled in early adolescence by the hormonal changes of puberty, cognitive-control network subserves executive functions such as planning, thinking ahead, and self-regulation and matures gradually over the course of adolescence and young adulthood largely independently of puberty. Then, risk taking in adolescence occurs with the result of interaction between two networks. In adolescence, first network is dominant over second network since emotional stimuli are activated frequently and generally risk taking occurs due to lack of thinking logically.
In conclusion, there is lack of clarity between two conflicting views. It can unequivocally be said that there is no correct answer to the question of “Do adolescents have more risky behavior than adults or not? In order to arrive at exact decision in these views, we should know more about the biology of brain, specifically the impacts of brain networks and their contributions to the behavior of people. Moreover, in a study, researchers should control socioeconomic and neurological variables. I believe that if we control these variables in studies, two conflicting views will vanish since these views overlap. Even in the future if it is found that adolescents show more risky behavior than adults, we should not label adolescents as limited in a biodeterministic way. Rather, we should investigate new ways for adolescents in order to make them show less risky behavior.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Falsifiability
Before child development theories, I want to deal with falsifiability standard of a theory to be able to decide a good or bad theory.
The idea of falsificationism belongs to Popper believing that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability and scientific theories are falsifiable. According to him, after applying tests, if theories fail to stand up, then they are replaced by other theories standing up to these tests. If they stand up, then they continue to survive until another test’s application to them. He (2003) claims that every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation; than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. That is, science progresses by trial and error, conjectures and refutations and only the fittest theories survive.
To me, falsificationism is the possibility of a theory’s being false. If there is a possibility of its being wrong, then it is falsifiable and scientific. There is a widely known example about human behaviors, as Popper (2003) cited: “that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. According to Freud, the first man suffered from repression, while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler, the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority and so did the second man. I could not think of any human behavior which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory.” In this example, there is no other possibilities except saving the child or not saving him. Therefore, theories of Adler and Freud are not falsifiable and so they are not scientific theories, according to Popper. On the contrary, we can say that Einstein’s theory of gravitation was falsifiable because there was clearly a possibility of refuting the theory.Chalmers (1999) states that the more falsifiable a theory, it is the better. For example, Newton’s theory about solar system is superior to Kepler’s theory because there are more opportunities to be able to falsify Newton’s theory than Kepler’s theory. Moreover, according to Chalmers, theories should be clearly stated and precise. If a theory is so vaguely stated that it is not clear exactly what it is claiming, then it can always be evaluated as consistent with the results of experiments and observations. This situation causes theory to be non-scientific because of lack of falsifiability condition.
The idea of falsificationism belongs to Popper believing that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability and scientific theories are falsifiable. According to him, after applying tests, if theories fail to stand up, then they are replaced by other theories standing up to these tests. If they stand up, then they continue to survive until another test’s application to them. He (2003) claims that every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation; than others; they take, as it were, greater risks. That is, science progresses by trial and error, conjectures and refutations and only the fittest theories survive.
To me, falsificationism is the possibility of a theory’s being false. If there is a possibility of its being wrong, then it is falsifiable and scientific. There is a widely known example about human behaviors, as Popper (2003) cited: “that of a man who pushes a child into the water with the intention of drowning it; and that of a man who sacrifices his life in an attempt to save the child. According to Freud, the first man suffered from repression, while the second man had achieved sublimation. According to Adler, the first man suffered from feelings of inferiority and so did the second man. I could not think of any human behavior which could not be interpreted in terms of either theory.” In this example, there is no other possibilities except saving the child or not saving him. Therefore, theories of Adler and Freud are not falsifiable and so they are not scientific theories, according to Popper. On the contrary, we can say that Einstein’s theory of gravitation was falsifiable because there was clearly a possibility of refuting the theory.Chalmers (1999) states that the more falsifiable a theory, it is the better. For example, Newton’s theory about solar system is superior to Kepler’s theory because there are more opportunities to be able to falsify Newton’s theory than Kepler’s theory. Moreover, according to Chalmers, theories should be clearly stated and precise. If a theory is so vaguely stated that it is not clear exactly what it is claiming, then it can always be evaluated as consistent with the results of experiments and observations. This situation causes theory to be non-scientific because of lack of falsifiability condition.
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