quote:

Originally posted by Zild Like I said. You don't pull it out of your ass you base it on empirical observations. Like the theory of relativity. Empirical observations were made that showed classical mechanics to break down in certain instances. Einstein noticed this and then formulated his theory of relativity which then went on to be empirically tested through experiment which shows that it too breaks down under certain instances. But nowhere did someone just write down some equations and say hey thats probably how it works. Many times theory will correctly predict currently unobserved phenomena but that doesn't mean it was pulled out of someone's ass.

Well we don't get the luxury of hearing about the theories that fail miserably. They are either not reported or get lost in time. Also when writing up results and theories, scientist like to make it sound more like a structured set of steps they went through, that is all for the reader, so it is never as simple as someone noticed these things that are important, and then devised this thing about them and it was good. Bad things happen in between...like guess work and ass pulling work...that doesn't get reported. it makes for great stories though.


and didn't quirks force your field to be a 'soft' science?

Are you talking about quarks? No those are elementary particles. They are fully explained by the wave-particle model. We're just still waiting for the higgs boson. If we can't experimentally find the Higgs boson then we have to throw out the whole standard model.

Soft science is stuff like biology or geology where there isn't much mathematics involved due to the scale of the phenomena studied. I think I pointed that out already. There are mathematical models for very simple things like atoms, but not for complex things like animals.

But like I said stuff isn't just made up. You take measurements then you derive laws using mathematics you already know. I think maybe people are confusing theory with hypothesis which is something you pull out of your ass then go test.

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Last edited by Zild on Nov-27-2007 at 18:07

That was kinda why i put the " around the pulling out of ass, of course that's not what you do. I'm not sure i can follow your distinction between hypothesis and theory, how can you put forward a hypothesis without having any theoretical thoughts first? It seems impossible to me.

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quote:

Originally posted by teegee sometimes, i sit on my hand until its numb and then masturbate...i call that a stranger.

quote:

Originally posted by eckmek how can you put forward a hypothesis without having any theoretical thoughts first? It seems impossible to me.

thats what psychology is all about


its called exploratory research. I am about to engage in some soon. I want to find out if there are cognitive measures, personality measures, and demographic measures that relate to and possible could predict some variance in gambling behavior. There is no theory about this, just correlational studies showing some groups that gamble more than others. I have a hypothesis, that these variables can predict significant portions of variance in gambling behavior, but I am not following a theory like evolutionary theory, or psychodynamic, or behavioral, or i guess even some cognitive ones.


A hypothesis is just a testable question. Whether your hypothesis is a good one really depends on prior theory.

quote:

Originally posted by Boomer187 some groups that gamble more than others.

May I ask what you're dividing the groups into? Race, class/economic status, geographical location, cultural ethnicity, etc...? I dunno if it's a secret until you've conducted your research or something, just wondering. :X

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Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On May I ask what you're dividing the groups into? Race, class/economic status, geographical location, cultural ethnicity, etc...? I dunno if it's a secret until you've conducted your research or something, just wondering. :X

its no secret, they found a higher proportion of males are pathological gamblers (PG)than females (although recent findings are showing that this is evening out), females prefer machine gambling as opposed to table games (a way to escape stress), males mostly gamble for excitement. I also saw a study where african americans showed highly rates of PG (i don't believe it), adolescents have a higher rate of PG, even college students show high levels as compared to normal populations. there is not much on the elderly in gambling, that is what I will be researching.

The poor have been shown to gamble a higher percentage of their income and therefore are classified as PG very easily. so the poor are more overrepresented than rich people because they can take a $40k gambling hit easier than someone that makes $10k/year.


i haven't seen anything on geographic location, although they have to have something on it. I've also found that those people that are low on the personality dimension of conscientiousness are more likely to be PGers than highly conscientious people.


thats all I got off the top of my head. there is surprisingly little research on gambling, but it is increasing. and I will also look at age, ethnicity, income and prefered type of game in my stuff.

Very interesting. Thanks for divulging the secrets of your study so that I might now conduct one in similar fashion and take all the credit for it! Muahahahaha

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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Here's my thought...

In the end you have to have FAITH that something came from nothing whether is be a God or physical matter. Either matter "just existed" or God "just existed".

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I believe that some type of force drives evolution, it's not just some random event. But I don't really believe in ID creating everything on Earth, rather an active force in the Universe. Can I prove this? Probably not. But can we study this? Yeah, through DNA, genetics, it's all leading up to trying to find that one answer to the question about why are we here? What are we doing here? We can't objectify everything, or say "we can't see it, so it's not there". That ignores individual experience.

After all, we assign a name to everything, we subjectify it, so even all of those names in science to explain the world, isn't truly explaining it objectively..you would have to avoid labels, categories, names period...in order to truly "experiences" something, so isn't this much like God? We call God..God, but what does God mean? could God be a sound we called something we didn't know?

So both science and religion try to explain things we know nothing about. We shouldn't act like we know everything, because we don't. Something might be true now, but who knows in a hundred, five hundred or a thousand years..if all we know now is proven to be a lie..whether it's science or religion. Both could be wrong, or both could be right (or somehow approach being "right"). The "laws" like the laws of physics might be true now, but who knows if something we find in the future will disprove one of these laws.

quote:

Originally posted by Boomer187 thats what psychology is all about its called exploratory research. I am about to engage in some soon. I want to find out if there are cognitive measures, personality measures, and demographic measures that relate to and possible could predict some variance in gambling behavior. There is no theory about this, just correlational studies showing some groups that gamble more than others. I have a hypothesis, that these variables can predict significant portions of variance in gambling behavior, but I am not following a theory like evolutionary theory, or psychodynamic, or behavioral, or i guess even some cognitive ones. A hypothesis is just a testable question. Whether your hypothesis is a good one really depends on prior theory.

But okay, then this is a matter of a definition i'm not aware of. When you're thinking about that maybe the demographic, cognitive and personality measures have something to do with gambling behaviour, that's what i would call theorizing, while you call it strictly a hypothesis...i could be wrong 'cause mine were just thoughts while you sound like you have some kind of knowledge there .

But i will still maintain though, that it seems unlikely for one to "empty your head" so to speak, so that you can only observe what is happening and then describe that. Without anything in your head you wouldn't know what to describe or what to hypothesize about? And that "somethnig" in your head can then be a prior theory, a new hypothesis, or something else. So yeah...

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quote:

Originally posted by teegee sometimes, i sit on my hand until its numb and then masturbate...i call that a stranger.

quote:

Originally posted by eckmek But okay, then this is a matter of a definition i'm not aware of. When you're thinking about that maybe the demographic, cognitive and personality measures have something to do with gambling behaviour, that's what i would call theorizing, while you call it strictly a hypothesis...i could be wrong 'cause mine were just thoughts while you sound like you have some kind of knowledge there . But i will still maintain though, that it seems unlikely for one to "empty your head" so to speak, so that you can only observe what is happening and then describe that. Without anything in your head you wouldn't know what to describe or what to hypothesize about? And that "somethnig" in your head can then be a prior theory, a new hypothesis, or something else. So yeah...

yeap, its just semantics.

Stephen Colbert's method of disproving evolution:

Here's what you need:
One (1) Fishbowl
One (1) Pitcher of water
One (1) Hamster, alive
One (1) Hardbound copy, Charles Darwin's 'Origin of the Species'

Step 1: Fill your fishbowl with water. I don't want to give anything away, but soon it's going to be a bowl for another kind of animal.

Step 2: Drop the hamster (you can call it "Skip") into the fishbowl.

Step 3: Cover the fishbowl with Charles Darwin's 'Origin of the Species.

Step 4: Follow the Scientific Method -- observe! Is the hamster "evolving" gills? Has he "evolved" a jackhammer to drill through the fishbowl, or "adapted to his environment" with a tiny hamster flamethrower to burn through 'Origin of the Species'? Didn't think so.

Step 5: Let the [b] hamster go. Just because Darwin was a sick twist with a God Complex doesn't mean we have to buy into his power trip.

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