Proving or Disproving Theories 324

1
Proving or Disproving Theories (3/24)

• Theory as methodology
• Theory as systemics

2
Theory as methodology

• What is the relation of theory to research?
• The simple view
• We test theories
• by seeing whether they predict correctly.
• If they predict correctly, they are proved.
• It is not that simple.
• Building bridges is hard.

3
Relation of theory to data

• A theory can neither be proved nor disproved
  by data alone.
• It is one of the commonest errors of
  undergraduate research to suppose they can.
• Yet the relation of theories to data is central
  to any empirical science.
• The facts do not speak for themselves, but the
  verdict of the facts is decisive.

4
Lieberson on Einstein, again

• When there is a case, like that of the proof of
  general relativity and the disproof of
  Euclidian space, that implies
• The auxiliary assumptions by which one gets from
  basic principles to observed measures are widely
  accepted.
• Lieberson was arguing that me need to spend more
  time and attention on middle range theories and
  measurements.

5
Theories cannot be proved true

• The fact that a theory predicts correctly does
  not show that the theory is true
• because there are always indefinitely many
  alternate theories for any particular empirical
  finding or body of facts.
• This is true both of very general theories and of
  very specific hypotheses.
• It is a well-known empirical fallacy to argue A
  implies B B is true therefore A is true. If
  all humans are female, then Mary Queen of Scots
  was female she was therefore, all humans are
  female.
• A theory course must make one better able to
  think of alternate theories for any finding.

6
Falsificationism Karl Popper

• Popper stressed the fact that if a theory
  predicts falsely, this does imply that the
  theory, as formulated, is false.
• Finding a single black swan shows that it is not
  true that All swans are white.
• Popper argued that good theories are those that
  make many predictions which could have been false
  but which turned out not to be.
• This position is called falsificationism, and is
  accepted, with modifications, by many
  sociologists, such as A. Stinchcombe.

7
The point of falsificationism

• Poppers real targets were Marx and Freud.
• He thought that conceptions such as the
  unconscious or latent class struggle were
  dishonest ways of avoiding real tests of the
  theories,
• Which were overly flexible, and could be made
  consistent with any observations, whatever.
• He argued for simpler theories that generated
  hypotheses that could be directly tested.

8
Why theories cannot be disproved, either

• The central problem of falsificationism was
  pointed out by one of Poppers students, Lakatos
• The fact that a theory has predicted incorrectly
  shows that there is some kind of problem with the
  theory or with the assumptions used to apply it,
• But it does not show what the problem is.
• Only with indefinitely many auxiliary assumptions
  is any particular data consistent or inconsistent
  with any particular theory.

9
An example the discoveries of Uranus and Pluto

• For Popper, the discoveries of the outer planets,
  not visible to the naked eye, were among the
  great triumphs of Newtonian mechanics.
• The theory was specific enough, so that when the
  know planets orbits were not as predicted, it was
  possible to calculate where additional planets
  would have to be to disturb the orbits in the
  ways, observed.
• But note that Newtonian theory was not rejected,
  but fixed.

10
Dealing with an Anomaly

• When a theory predicts incorrectly, in a way we
  do not understand, that is called an anomaly.
• One solution to the anomaly of Neptunes orbit
  was an additional planet, which was found,
• But many other solutions were possible a dust
  cloud, a magnetic field, a dark body, an optical
  problem, and scientists would never have rejected
  Newtonian mechanics without a superior theory,
  nor should they.
• Theories only make predictions with auxiliary
  assumptions and if one can make these
  arbitrarily, then any theory can be made
  consistent with any data.

11
Dealing with anomalies

• Whenever you apply a theory to data you make
  auxiliary assumptions,
• and the auxiliary assumptions may be
  nonproblematical in any particular case.
• Anomalies have been part of many scientific
  revolutions, such as Einsteins.
• Deciding how to respond to an anomaly is a
  theoretical judgment.
• Usually one makes the simplest, most modest and
  most economical corrections available (e.g.
  measurement assumptions.)

12
Lieberson 2002 and Darwin

• Sociological theory is more like Darwinian
  evolutionary theory than it is like physics.
• There is an overall framework
• but there are different kinds of causes
• operating at different levels
• With a lot of historicity.

13
Levels of Theory

• The core theory involve fundamental principles
  e.g. the nature of time and space in Einstein, or
  the nature of dynamics in Newton and Uranus
• Stinchcombe includes basic ideas about causality,
  in the core.
• Auxiliary assumptions involve other forces (All
  other things equal) and measurements.

14
Stinchcombe and the Theory-construction Movement

• One World uses Stinchcombe as the founder of the
  theory construction movement.
• Active and important today.
• Use of systems representations of the basic
  configurations of theory.
• Addressed the implications of data for theory.

15
Stinchcombes Levels Re Marx
16
Levels Re Culture of Poverty
We have discussed the relation of poverty and
culture of poverty several times. It is useful
to think how these levels might relate to the
data that we analyzed last Monday. (See Below)
17
Theories as Systemics

• Often there are a lot of specific causal
  influences that have been demonstrated.
• But it is not clear how they fit together what
  is their dynamic under what conditions the
  effects obtain, etc.
• Whenever there are feedbacks, the problems become
  intricate.
• E.g. Myrdal.

18
Feedbacks are inconvenient but dynamically
important

• Feedbacks enormously complicate empirical
  estimation of causal relations.
• Therefore 20th c. sociology has tended to ignore
  them
• But they are dynamically important.
• Positive and negative feedbacks are explanatory
  primitives.
• Mid-20th c. systems theory tended to privilege
  the analysis of negative feedback systems, and
  Parsons did even more so.
• Contemporary chaotic and complex systems dynamics
  tends to look at positive feedbacks.

19
Systems and Sociological Theory

• Many research models have no feedbacks, but most
  theoretical models are systemic.
• Functional theory stresses norms and values which
  function as negative feedback thermostats.
• Conflict theory stresses vicious cycles of power
  and privilege, which operate as positive
  feedbacks.
• Organization, theory, symbolic interaction, and
  other theoretical approaches can also be most
  simply represented as feedback models.

20
Systems and feedbacks about the culture of poverty

• Virtually all sociologists would agree the
  poverty and the culture of poverty are mutually
  reinforcing.
• Most would also agree that INCOME _at_16 is a
  reasonable measure of the effect of poverty and
  that broken families (e.g. FAMILY _at_16) are a
  reasonable measure of culture of poverty.

Poverty
Culture of Poverty

21
Knowing How v. Knowing That

• These issues are relevant to the kinds of
  disagreement that people have analyzing the data
  on the effects of poverty (e.g. INCOME _at_16) and
  culture of poverty (e.g. FAMILY _at_16) on
  opportunity (e.g. RANK).
• That is, there are issues of conceptualization
  and measurement.
• And, there are issues of interpretation of the
  coefficients and partial coefficients.

22
The effect of INCOME _at_16

• INCOME _at_16 by RANK
• BELOW AVG AVERAGE ABOVE AVG TOTAL
• BELOW AVER 3653 4309
  1324 9286
• 39.3 46.4 14.3 100.0
• AVERAGE 3699 9154 2658 15511
• 23.8 59.0 17.1 100.0
• ABOVE AVER 963 1954 1895 4812
• 20.0 40.6 39.4 100.0
• Missing 2988 4920 2288 10375
• TOTAL 8315 15417 5877 29609
• 8.1 52.1 19.8

• Gamma .305
• What is the size of the effect of growing up poor
  on opportunities?
• What does this prove, what does it imply, and
  what does it suggest
• about the complex of cumulative poverty?

23
The effect of FAMILY _at_16

• FAMILY _at_16 by RANK
• BELOW AVG AVERAGE ABOVE AVG TOTAL
• YES 7638 15072 6469 29179
• 26.2 51.7 22.2 100.0
• NO 3662 5256 1694 10612
• 34.5 49.5 16.0 100.0
• TOTAL11300 20328 8163 39791
• 28.4 51.1 20.5

• Gamma -.179
• What is the size of the effect of growing up in a
  non-intact family
• on opportunities?
• What does this prove, what does it imply, and
  what does it suggest
• about the complex of cumulative poverty?

24
Controls

• Some people believe that giving poor childrens
  parents money (e.g. AFDC) will largely or
  entirely fix the problems of those poor children
  who also have broken homes (which is many of
  them.)
• Partly they believe that this will cause fewer
  homes to break up.
• Some people believe that fixing childrens
  broken homes (e.g. faith based programs) will
  largely or entirely fix the problems of poor
  children.
• Partly they believe that this will pull most of
  the homes out of poverty.
• The size and the relative size of INCOME_at_16
  effects and FAMILY _at_16 effects can be suggestive.
• The effect of one, controlling the other is even
  more sugestive.

25
The effect of INCOME _at_16 controlling FAMILY _at_16

• INCOME _at_16 by RANK
• Controls FAMILY _at_16 NO
• BELOW AVG AVERAGE ABOVE AVG TOTAL
• BELOW AVER 1446 1522 427 3395
• 42.6 44.8 12.6 100.0
• AVERAGE 907 1803 430 3140
• 8.9 57.4 13.7 100.0
• ABOVE AVER 208 392 277 877
• 23.7 44.7 31.6 100.0
• TOTAL 2561 3717 134 7412
• 34.6 50.1 15.3

• Partial Gamma .301 (conditional gamma .260)
• What is the size of the effect of growing up poor
  on opportunities
• controlling culture of poverty?
• What does this prove, what does it imply, and
  what does it suggest
• about the complex of cumulative poverty?

26
Effect of FAMILY _at_16 controlling INCOME _at_16
(showing only 1st conditional table.)

• FAMILY _at_16 by RANK
• Controls INCOME _at_16 BELOW AVER
• BELOW AVG AVERAGE ABOVE AVG TOTAL
• YES 2207 2786 896 5889
• 37.5 47.3 15.2 100.0
• NO 1446 1522 427 3395
• 42.6 44.8 12.6 100.0
• TOTAL3653 4308 1323 9284
• 39.3 46.4 14.3

• Partial Gamma -.133 (conditional gamma -.098)
• What is the size of the effect of culture of
  poverty on opportunities
• controlling growing up poor?
• What does this prove, what does it imply, and
  what does it suggest
• about the complex of cumulative poverty?

27
Functional theory

• Functional theorists mainly treat society as a
  stable solidary system.
• Durkheim is the classical example.
• Parsons view of social structure as a
  self-maintaining normatively integrated system is
  the main contemporary example.
• There are functional approaches and theories in
  every section and sub field of sociology
• We have suggested that negative feedbacks require
  or imply functional analysis

28
Conflict theory

• Other theorists mainly treat society as a
  competitive system.
• Marx view of modes of production and
  exploitation as replacing each other by a process
  of class conflict is the classic example
• Mills, Feagin, Massey, and Reskin are
  contemporary examples.
• We have suggested that positive feedbacks require
  or imply conflict theory.

29
Functions and Thermostats Negative Feedbacks

• A function is something that is needed
• e.g. social order, socialization into family,
  economic production, health,
• Such that a failure to have that need met will
  generate changes to restore it.
• This self-maintaining structure can be
  represented as a kind of thermostat

Failure to meet need
Anomie search
-
reforms to try to meet functional needs
30
Stinchcombes representation of functional theory

Functional structure (e.g. sweating, ship magic,
inheritance
Homeostatic variable (functional need ) (e.g.
constant body temp. low anxiety, low conflict)
Tensions and shocks
-
-
The only difference between this and the
representation we have been using is that it uses
fancier names and explicitly represents the
notion that you would not need a structure if
it were not for tensions.
31
Conflict theory and Vicious Cycles Positive
Feedbacks

• Conflict theory treats society as a kind of game
  of monopoly characterized by vicious cycles of
  advantage/disadvantage.
• Money, power and prestige leads to access to
  further money, power and prestige
• More generally

Access to further resources
Resources

32
Stinchcombes representation of Marxian theory as
functional

Functions for aristocracy
-
Feudal structure (e.g. peasants tied to the land)
-
Functions for urban employers
-
-
Functions for urban workers
-
i.e. the feudal structure maintains the interests
of the aristocracy, and so they support it
(oppose any erosion of those functions.) But the
feudal structure blocks the urban groups, who
oppose it.
33
Discussion of Stinchcombes representation

• In Stinchcombes representation says that if what
  benefits one group holds back others, then there
  is a negative feedback supporting it and
  positive feedbacks opposing it.
• If the system causes urban groups to grow, then
  it dooms itself, and the groups opposing it grow.
• I believe that this representation recognizes
  positive feedbacks but does not use them as
  effectively as it might.