On scientific method

1. On scientific method Presentation 7 Environment and Sustainable Development course UNU-MERIT PhD programme René Kemp

2. What is science? • It is what scientists do: reading, researching, writing, talking to each other, create clubs • It is the process of hypothesis formation, empirical testing, hypothesis reformulation, retesting, and so on • Falsification or verification?

3. Hypotheses of Adeoti • H1a: The introduction of the S.I.8/S.I.9 environmental regulatory law has led to increased adoption of wastewater treatment plants in the Nigerian manufacturing industry. • H2a: The adoption of EBT will be positively correlated with the firm’s internal capability for innovation as defined by the share of technical personnel in the total employment. • H2b: The adoption of EBT may be related to the existing level of investment in capital equipment for the main production activities. • H2c: The capability of a firm to adopt an EBT will be inherently determined by the technological knowledge related network contacts a firm has. • H2f: The type of EBT adopted for compliance with the S.I.8/S.I.9 regulation depends on the strategy for environmental policy implementation, whether co-operative or antagonistic.

4. Questions of transitions project • Q1: Are there identifiable transition phases such as the predevelopment stage, take-off stage, breakthrough stage and stabilisation stage? Can such stages be operationalised? • Q2: To what extent were TT foreseen, expected and intentionally managed, at the different stages? What was the role of widely shared expectations? • Q3: Are there common strategic behavioural patterns in transitions (such as regime actors first fighting a new development pioneered by niche actors and later on sustaining it)? • Q4: What role did incremental innovation play in TT? Did it help to sustain the old regime (‘sailing ship effect’) by defending it against a new development or did it provide opportunities for further change (‘stepping stone dynamic’)? • Q5: Does the interplay of technical change and institutional change differ in different transitions and in various phases of a particular transition? Does technical change lead/precede institutional change or is it the other way round? • Q6: What was the role of public authorities (in different phases)? What do the transitions tell about the proper role of public authorities and public policy in various transition stages?

5. What characterises social science? • A world that is infinitely complex • In which people are suspended in webs of significance (Geertz) • “reflective thought precedes science which merely employs it more methodologically. Man cannot live among things without forming ideas about them… [B]ecause these notions are closer to us than the realities to which they correspond, we naturally tend to substitute them for the realities, concentrating our speculations upon them” (Durkheim)

6. Theoretical frameworks are not falsified but accepted as the basis for research • If you are a neoclassical economists you do not seek to falsify the neoclassical framework of rational actors, you work with it • Are theories falsified? Some are, others are not. • Theories are appraised in the light of conflicting evidence (an example is the theory of Boserup about population pressure facilitating technological change) • Theories may be true (valid) in certain circumstances

7. Relativist position • “Every interpretation attempts to attain clarity and certainty, but no matter how clear an interpretation as such appears, it cannot on this account claim to be the causally valid interpretation. On this level it must remain only a peculiarly plausible hypothesis” (Weber)

8. The role of theory • It offers a perspective (a theoretical lens) on social worlds which involves categories and certain ontological assumptions • Which may be used for offering explanation using certain research methods and causal schemes • It facilitates communication between researchers using the same theory and even between those that alternative theories

9. Social science questions and the answers to them • Why is the Netherlands more rich than India is? Is it because of natural resource endowments, religion, culture, or because of all things together, including contingencies the importance of which cannot be determined in a definitive way • Why did the plain crash?Because of the weather conditions, the engine being faulty, the pilot doing faulty things; did the engine not work properly because of bad design or because of bad servicing; who is to blame for bad servicing, the person doing the servicing or the procedures; why were the procedures inappropriate, is it because the issue was not given proper attention by the company, something made possible by the lack of inspection by the government (why was that?)

10. Causal variables within different social science approaches of innovation

11. “Intentionalist” and monocausal explanations are inappropriate for system innovation and societal changeThe interplay of factors is important (cause-effect chains)We may not have the 2nd world war without Hitler but as an explanation this is poor and teaches no lessons

12. Quantitative versus qualitative methods • Quantitative approaches relying on statistical significance • Qualitative approaches relying on interpretative understanding (verstehen); narrative method (story telling)

13. Source: Spicer (2004)

14. Synergies • Quantitative methods may help to test whether certain findings apply wider • Qualitative research may help to interpret odd findings of quantitative research or qualify the findings • Qualitative research may generate hypotheses • The robustness of quantitative findings can be assessed • When it comes to policy advice, contextual aspects may be considered without getting bewildered by sheer complexity

15. Source: Spicer (2004)

16. Phronesis • Aristotle distinguishes between two intellectual virtues: sophia and phronesis. Sophia (usually translated "wisdom") is the ability to think well about the nature of the world, and is used in our attempts to discover why the world is the way it is (this is sometimes equated with science); sophia involves deliberation concerning universal truths • Phronesis is the ability to think about how and why we should act in order to change things, and especially to change our lives for the better • Phronesis is about practical wisdom/judgement routed in experience

17. Phronesis is concerned with particulars, because it is concerned with how to act in particular situations. One can learn the principles of action, but applying them in the real world, in situations which one could not have foreseen, requires experience of the world • The importance of phronesis to contemporary thought has been spelled out by Bent Flyvbjerg in his book Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it Can Succeed Again; Flyvbjerg argues that instead of trying to emulate the natural sciences, social science should be practiced as phronesis

18. Phronetic social science focuses on four value-rational questions, which are answered for specific cases of social action: (1) Where are we going? (2) Who gains and who loses, by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this development desirable? (4) What should we do about it? Flyvbjerg (2001)

19. Detached analysis or engagement with practioners? • Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful —George E.P. Box • “Abstract analysis of institutional arrangements that would be “optimal” in idealized situations is at best a useful heuristic for the main work, and at worst a diversion from it”– Nelson and Winter (1982)

20. Schumpeter on method • What distinguishes the 'scientific' economist from all the other people who think, talk, and write about economic topics is a command of techniques that we class under three heads: history, statistics, and 'theory'. The three together make up what we shall call Economic Analysis.Of these three fundamental fields, economic history -- which issues into and includes present day facts -- is by far the most important. I wish to state right now that if, starting my work in economics afresh, I were told that I could study only one of the three but have my choice, it would economic history that I would choose. And this on three grounds. (1) First the subject matter of economics is essentially a unique process in historic time. Nobody can hope to understand the economic phenomena of any epoch, … who has not an adequate command of historical facts and an adequate amount of historical sense (…) • (2) Second, the historical report cannot be purely economic but must inevitably reflect also 'institutional' facts that are not purely economic (…) • (3) Third, it is, I believe, the fact that most of the fundamental errors currently committed in economic analysis are due to a lack of historical experience more often than to any other shortcoming of the economist's equipment. Schumpeter in History of Economic Analysis

21. Pointers about PhD research • Why do you want to do this research? (is it really what you want to be working on for 3 years, does it fit with your research capability?) • What do you expect to find? • What framework (theoretical lens) do you use (and why do you use this) • What other frameworks are there? Is your framework better or simply more convenient for you?

22. Pointers -- continued • The problem definition: should be as specific as possible • Engage in multi-method analysis (or make use of the findings of others) • case studies are useful in their own right but also help to generate hypotheses and interpret research findings obtained with different methods; they may be used for analytical generalisation • Econometric studies allow for statistical generalisation • Models are rigorous

23. On interpretation • Determine the mileage of different explanations (can it be explained in power terms, knowledge terms, in terms of economic variables? • Determine the robustness of your results • Acknowledge inconsistencies (instead of hiding them)

24. Presenting your results • What have you learned? • Did you find what you expected to find? • How do your results compare to those of the literature? • Are the others wrong? How solid are your results? • What is your original contribution? This should be clearly and explicitly stated