February 5, 2012

Scientific Method, Truth, Reality, and Objectivity

Are they really what we think they are?

Presentation made on April 22, 2003
Yeditepe University Graduate Colloquium
Istanbul, Turkey

A. Cemal Ekin

We are all social scientists studying social phenomena that affect the business world in one way or another. I would like to explore a few critical and related terms we use both in our scientific endeavors as well as in our daily lives. After the presentation, I do not expect you to know more than you already do but I do hope that you will have more nagging questions that seek answers in your mind. After all, science is all about finding answers to questions.

Science, in a very general sense, is the sum total of our efforts to understand the world around us. Since the humankind looked at the sky and saw things that inspired awe, our curiosity to know more about our world, our universe and our selves never stopped. As a result, we have accumulated an enormous amount of knowledge yet what we yearn to know is even greater than what we already know. [Read more...]