學習筆記：社會科學的特質

Earl R. Babbie是社會科學界的泰鬥，他在Survey research methods一書中總結的社會科學特點包括（懶得翻譯了，直接抄寫在這裡）：

Logical: Scientists use inductive and deductive logic to achieve their goals. Theories must not contain logical inconsistencies.

Deterministic: Scientists assume that events happen for reasons. Things do not "just happen."

General: The aim is to understand overall patterns of events. The larger the scope that is explained, the more useful it is.

Parsimonious: The aim is to gain the greatest amount of understanding from the smallest number of variables.

Specific: The scientist must be specific about the methods of measurement used to investigate a given phenomenon.

Empirically verifiable: Propositions and theories must be testable in the real world.

Intersubjective: Descriptions of observations are sufficiently detailed that other scientists should be able to replicate the observations.

Open to modification: As time passes, new evidence may be expected to revise existing ways of thinking about a phenomenon.

這裡（http://www.china-socialwork.org/socialSencise.htm）有一篇北大邱澤奇博士翻譯的Earl R. Babbie的文章“社會科學研究的價值目的”，文章不錯，但亂碼較多。當然，國內也翻譯了不少Earl R. Babbie的經典著作，還是直接看書比較過癮。