POLS1009 Chap.1 Science, Falsifiability and the Scientific Method
Science, Falsifiability and the Scientific Method
The course begins by asking what it means to study politics scientifically, and its answer is about method rather than subject matter. Science here is a critical, systematic search for knowledge in which explanations are tested against logic and evidence and remain provisional.
Popper's falsifiability criterion draws the line: a claim is scientific when some imaginable observation could show it to be wrong, which rules out tautologies and claims about the unobservable without calling them worthless. The chapter then follows the five stages from a surprising question to a theory, hypotheses, a demanding test and an evaluation that can support but never prove.
It places topics on Toshkov's terrain of polity, politics and policy, explains why political actors can react to the theories made about them, and closes with the five rules of the road that guard against coincidences, data-driven theorising and wishful reporting.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Science as a critical, systematic method whose explanations stay provisional
- 02
Falsifiability and why a refuted claim can still be scientific
- 03
Tautologies and claims about the unobservable
- 04
Five stages: question, theory, hypotheses, empirical test, evaluation
- 05
Why passing a test supports a theory but cannot prove it
- 06
Polity, politics, policy and relations between polities
- 07
Self-fulfilling and self-defeating predictions
- 08
Five rules of the road for scientific reasoning
Worked example · free
Tracing a turnout puzzle through the five stages
- 1Question. Why did turnout fall where polling places moved? The puzzle exists because the researcher expected a change of venue to make little difference.
- 1Theory. Voting has costs, and an unfamiliar or harder-to-reach venue raises the cost of finding where to vote, so some marginal voters stay home.
- 1Hypotheses. If the theory holds, the fall should be larger where the new venue is farther from the old one, and larger among voters without a car.
- 1Empirical test. Compare moved and unmoved wards with similar past turnout, and check the distance and car-ownership implications, which a rival story about the schools themselves would not predict.
- 1Evaluation. Results matching every implication support the theory without proving it; a mismatch sends the researcher back to refine the question or the theory.
Key terms
- Tautology
- A statement that is true by definition, such as one that calls a mayor effective whenever the mayor's budgets pass, so no observation could ever count against it.
- Scientific method
- A sequence that moves from a puzzling question to a theory, derives testable hypotheses, confronts them with evidence and evaluates the result before starting again.
- Polity
- The basic set-up of political authority, including the form of government and how power is divided, as distinct from the contest over power and the policies produced.
- Self-fulfilling prophecy
- A prediction that produces the outcome it forecasts because people change their behaviour after hearing it, as when fear of a bank failure triggers the withdrawals that cause it.
- Parsimony
- Explaining as much as possible with as few elements as possible, a goal that has to be balanced against covering more cases in more detail.
Science, Falsifiability and the Scientific Method FAQ
Can a claim be scientific if it turns out to be false?
Yes. Under Popper's criterion a claim is scientific when an observation could in principle refute it, so a belief that was tested and refuted, such as the earth-centred model of the heavens, was wrong but scientific. What disqualifies a claim is being untestable, not being mistaken.
Why does political science say theories are supported rather than proven?
Because a rival theory can predict the same observation. Passing a test is consistent with your theory but does not exclude alternatives, while failing a demanding test can refute it. This asymmetry is also why hypotheses are later tested against a null of no relationship.
What makes a statement unfalsifiable?
Popper's two kinds: being true by definition, as a tautology is, or concerning something no observation can reach. Such statements may matter a great deal to people, but no evidence could ever count against them, so they sit outside scientific testing.
What are polity, politics and policy?
They are Toshkov's three parts of the political terrain. Polity is the basic arrangement of authority, politics is the process of gaining and using power, and policy is the set of decisions produced. International relations studies relations between polities, such as war, trade and cooperation.
What are the rules of the road in scientific reasoning?
The lecture lists five: think in causes rather than bare correlations, theorise before examining the data, test against real evidence including contrary evidence, strive for objectivity in reporting, and pursue generality and parsimony while weighing the trade-off between them.
Exam move
Learn this chapter as a set of tests you can apply to any sentence. For each claim you meet in a reading, ask whether some observation could refute it, which of the five stages it belongs to, and which rule of the road it would break if it were the whole argument. Build a short list of your own claims that are falsifiable, tautological and unobservable, and check that you can explain each verdict in one sentence.
Then practise placing research questions on the polity, politics and policy terrain.
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