Reddit mentions: The best scientific research books

> Or that communism creates starvation (joke)

I don't think this is a joke. While causal designs would be difficult to apply, the spatio-temporal correlation is hard to ignore.


>Regarding causality- as you know that’s nearly impossible to prove in the social sciences.

Actually, these days the application of designs and approaches that provide strong support for causal claims have become quite prevalent. Some standard references-



1

2

3

4

good framework reference or a slightly heavier read

and the old classic


In fact, the Nobel prize in economics this year went to some people who have built their careers doing exactly that

It's actually become quite hard to publish in ranking journals in some fields without a convincing (causal) identification strategy.


But we digress.


>We will never be able to do an apples to apples study between heterosexual and homosexual child rearing for some of the reasons you mentioned above. (Diversity of relationship styles, not both biological parents within gay/lesbian couples)

In this case it isn't far fetched at all. The data collection for the survey data used in the study you linked could just as easily have disagregated the parents involved in same sex romantic relationships instead of pooling them. If I understood correctly, the researcher had obtained the data as a secondary source, so they didn't have control over this.

Outcomes for children in the foster care system are well studied, so one could in principal easily replicate the study comparing outcomes between children in the foster care system and those adopted into homes shared by stable same sex couples (you couldn't likely restrict it to married same sex couples, though, because laws permitting same sex civil marriage are too recent to observe outcomes).

>My bottom line-that I don’t see many disagree with if they are being intellectually honest, is a stable monogamous heterosexual family structure is the best model for immediate families. Or would you disagree?

But that's not the question at hand, is it? What we are interested in here is comparing kids bouncing around the state care system to those adopted into homes with two same-sex parents in a stable relationship.

That is exactly my point. The comparison you propose is uninformative relative to the question of permitting same sex couples to "foster to adopt". Because the counterfactual for those children is not likely to be a "stable monogamous heterosexual family". It is bouncing around the foster care system.

I'm a Political Methodologist; I'm happy to give you some help. It would be useful to know what your mathematical background is, and what sort of things you're interested in doing. You have to understand, to me, this question is a little bit like "I'm interested in American Politics; suggest an introductory text, please." There's a huge variety of stuff going on here, it's hard to know where to start.

Do you want to be able to read statistics wrt PoliSci? Or are you interested in figuring out how everything works, so that you can create / replicate?

If you want something very undergraduate centric, my undergrad research methods class used the Kellstedt and Whitten book. It was fine, but obviously very rudimentary. It will get you to understand some of the big picture type stuff, as well as some of the simple statistical nuts and bolts you'd want to understand. This class also used the everpresent King, Keohane and Verba text, which is oriented around qualitative work, but Gary King is the foremost quantitative methodologist in the discipline, so it's still pretty good (and "qualitative" certainly doesn't mean "non-rigorous" -- it's cited a lot because it really delves into deeply into research design). That said, I don't remember a whole lot about this class anymore, and I haven't looked in these books for ages. My feeling is that both of these books will probably be close to what you're looking for -- they're oriented around intuition and identifying the main issues in inference in the social sciences, without getting too bogged down in all of the math.

That said, if you have more math background, I'd suggest Mostly Harmless Econometrics which is often used as a first year graduate level quant methods book. It's absolutely fantastic, but it isn't easy if you don't have the math background. It may also assume some preexisting rudimentary probability or statistical knowledge. I'd also suggest the Morgan and Winship. These two books are structured more around causal inference, which is a subtle reframing of the whole "statistics in the social sciences".

For more nuts and bolts econometrics, Baby Wooldridge is one of the standards. I think it's pretty often used in undergrad econ classes.

In general, though, statistics is statistics, so if you want to learn it, find an appropriate level of statistics/econometrics book.

Take a look at those books in your library/online/etc and see if any of them are what you're looking for.

>I am soon starting to work on my bachelor thesis

> Essentially, I think I know what I want to do, but not quite how.

> I don't know what type of methodology I should use either. Any ideas on how I could proceed?

So firstly, you've not yet started your bachelor's thesis, so these questions and uncertainties are normal and expected. Things start to make sense and come together over time and with work, don't get caught up on wanting to nail everything down right now - you need to work hard to get there.

It sounds like you already have some good ideas about what you want to look at and potentially how you are going to do that, good, hopefully your supervisor will be able to help and guide you in the right direction, though remember it's you that will drive your thesis forward, they are simply there to make sure you don't come off the tracks and explode in a fiery mess.

As for Discourse Analysis - you don't need linguistic expertise, unless you wish to do a very particular form of it. Discourse analysis itself is a very broad church, go pick up some of the overview texts, something like this (though there is a more recent edition) http://www.rasaneh.org/Images/News/AtachFile/27-3-1391/FILE634754469767402343.pdf

Just be aware that the use of discourse analysis within sociology will touch upon slightly different things and be developed in slightly different ways than it would in straight Linguistics, or in English, so initially work with texts that have been written by academics within Sociology or similar disciplines.

In terms of research design and questions, pick up some good research design books, something like this looks as good a place as any to start: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Qualitative-Inquiry-Research-Design-Approaches/dp/1412995302

Or this: https://www.pearsonhighered.com/program/Neuman-Basics-of-Social-Research-Qualitative-and-Quantitative-Approaches-3rd-Edition/PGM1100031.html

Thanks very much for stopping by :) I was heartened by your link, and the progress described.

> That doesn't necessarily exclude alternative medicines... but not sure how many of those have been established to effective by the scientific community.

Actually, that definition would exclude everything that calls itself "alternative medicine". Anything that has been proven to be effective is simply called "medicine" :)

I recommend Trick or Treatment if you'd like to read a review of the evidence by experts for laymen, or Bad Science (book or blog) for more stuff.

Lastly - and sorry to bang on for so long - you could do worse than get in touch with former MP Dr Evan Harris, who gave this talk along with Prof David Nutt. It was a most enjoyable evening - but more importantly, Dr Harris is part of a campaign to make more policies based on sound evidence, and he could probably tell you a lot more than I could :)

If you need help constructing and conducting qualitative interviews, I strongly recommend the following books:


Kathy Charmaz's (2014) Constructing Grounded Theory 2nd edition

This is a very readable introduction to Grounded Theory and has a good chapter on crafting/conducting intensive interviews.


Brinkmann & Kvale's (2015) InterViews: Learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing 3rd edition.
A comprehensive guide to conducting research interviews.


Rubin & Rubin's (2012) Qualitative interviewing: the art of hearing data 3rd edition.
A good overview of the responsive interviewing approach.

If you're even vaguely interested in this, I heartily reccomend Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science.

Alternatively (or tl;dr) in short the answer is yes. Definitely. Sometimes, people become even more responsive to the placebo then they would if they assumed that it was just normal medication. If this sounds odd, think about when you were a teenager first starting off on passionpop, or whatever your equivalent is. There would always be some girls who would take a sip or two, and then claim that they were soooooo wasted!! the entire evening. It's because they know that alcohol has an effect on them, and so they are anticipating (and thus reacting to) whatever effect it may have on them.

Lots of studies for new meds and treatments complete double blind studies, where one control group is told that they are taking the placebo for XXXX, where another control group isn't told that they are taking a placebo and think that its normal medication. This is to ensure that a persons reaction to the medication isn't just the result of a person having positive associations with taking a pill.

Edit to add that I can link to sources if you want. I'll just need to dig around some old essays to find them.

so you are using a youtube video and a 4 year old source, which cites a 24 year old source as your sources?
Also, as a side point, if water had memory there would be so many things it "remembered" that homeopathy would have zero effect. Any water is homeopathic by your assumption, its very rare that water is perfectly clean. Please read a book It will help to educate you on what science is and has some reliable sources.

>You can't argue this because you'd never know for sure. It would be like throwing someone in jail because they have a gene that makes them likely to commit a crime.

Depends on epistemological strength. Surely a gene isn't nearly predictive enough, but Minority Report-style perfect information might be.

>That's nothing more than a correlation. It's not an experiment at all

Your qualm here is with the social sciences. You can't always conduct "experiments" in social science (economics, political science, sociology, etc.), but you can establish statistically significant correlations and causal inference. You're welcome to read up on social science methodology. I'm not saying that Dubner and Levitt are right, per se, but either abortion has some effect on crime or it does not; whether we can know that answer is irrelevant to the question's moral significance, which is grounded in some fact about the world.

>abortion is outright immoral by the definition of "maximization of well-being,"

This leads to debates among consequentialists about how to handle Parfit's repugnant conclusion. Very sharp of you to pick up on, and Harris doesn't give a good answer in the book. As for my personal views, I think I have a few reasonable responses but this conversation has gone on long enough!

Well worth reading on this subject is Ben Goldacre's exposé of Matthias Rath, available online (it was missing from the first run of his book due to legal action taken by Rath (subsequently defeated, but still managing to prevent that chapter being published then), and so has been made freely available online (Go Streisand Effect!)).

In short, this is a movement that has caused hundreds of thousands of needless deaths, demonised genuine heroes like Zackie Achmat and led to a disaster in South Africa of epic proportions.

Bad Science is one of the best books I've ever read. This guy knows what he's talking about.

I have this book and I, too, confirm it's a great read.

A bit longer, but all are solid suggestions, and although I could add two dozen more, I'm sure others will take up the cause.

• What the dog saw, by Malcolm Gladwell
  
  
• Bad Science, by Ben Goldacre
  
  
• 
  God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens
  
  
• The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris
  
  
• The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein
  
  
• Super Freakonomics, by Levitt & Dubner
  
  
• The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
  
  
• The Case for Mars, by Robert Zubrin
  
  
• The Value of Nothing, by Raj Patel
  
  
  

Maybe?

>Hancock, G. R., Mueller, R. O., & Stapleton, L. M. (Eds.). (2010). The Reviewer’s Guide to Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences (1 edition). New York: Routledge.

If one were to go searching for a PDF of it online, it could be found...
There's also a second edition.

The Wisdom of Whores

You might find Bad Science entertaining

I didn't know the human body had an internal light source. If you genuinely believe in this holistic shit, read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Holistic crap is my greatest pet peeve.

Recommend this book on the subject.

Failure to reproduce a finding could be for a plethora of reasons, so it's not that simple (and believe me, I wish it was!). If one group cannot reproduce a finding, it doesn't mean that the finding is immediately false and needs to be redacted. There are often technical reasons and experimental details that account for the difference, but it takes some effort from both parties to parse these out. Further, it's still incredibly difficult to get people motivated to take the time to write a manuscript and publish negative data, when they just want to move onto a new project instead.

As far as we're aware, lying and straight up malice are very small contributors to the reproducibility issue. I recommend reading Rigor Mortis to expand on much of this.

that doesn't narrow it down too much ;)

edit -

http://www.amazon.com/Science-Higher-Education-Step-Step/dp/1515206467

Amazon sells the book and has a look inside so you can see the table of contents and some of the pages.

http://www.amazon.com/Pandas-People-Central-Question-Biological/dp/0685459039/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1302235123&sr=8-1

Here is the article the independent reports upon.

https://www.amazon.com/2009-State-Future-Millennium-Project/dp/0981894127

I second this, and this book I found really informative: https://www.amazon.ca/Crafting-Your-Research-Future-Engineering/dp/1608458105

Here’s a cheap read that should cover the basics.

Creswell's Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches.

https://www.amazon.com/Qualitative-Inquiry-Research-Design-Approaches/dp/1412995302

https://www.amazon.com/Rigor-Mortis-Science-Worthless-Billions/dp/0465097901

This book is a must read. Essentially, the way that academic research is set up, is that you have to “publish or perish,” so there are lots of people out there who either intentionally or unintentionally publish sloppy work.

Two words: Denzin and Lincoln. This is the qual. Bible.

If you can get a copy of Wisdom of Whores, the author explains a lot of factor that influence the spread of AIDS.

Also Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

So I checked out amazon...
best review by far.

No. You still don't understand what the placebo effect is, or the degree to which people can fool themselves.

I can highly recommend Bad Science by Ben Goldacre if you're actually willing to learn about this (it's a fun read).

Risk
Bad Science book , book and blog
PD at TED
numberwatch on the data dredge

Fun and game books Duelling Idiots and Cabinet ... there are many books on this subject but I haven't read most of them.

serious probability writing Jeffreys and Yudkowsky

Bad Science - Ben Goldacre

Website

Book - Amazon

Book - Wikipedia

I picked up Bad Science by Ben Goldacre because of this subreddit. I couldn't find it in the library because of how new it is, however, it's not so expensive in the book store. I thought there would be a lot of "here's why so and so is wrong, and here's your defense against it" kind of stuff, but actually, it very quickly gets to how you on your own can figure out whether a claim is bullshit or not -- very eye-opening, and a better read than "this is wrong, and that is wrong, and here's why"... more like "well, we established this is wrong, but here's why we figured that out. Now that you've led by example, here's resources you can use to figure out if a future claim is wrong".

An essential for the rising skeptic.

1. Broken Promises: How the AIDS Establishment has Betrayed the Developing World. By Edward C. Green. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1611321123/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506457150&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=broken+promise+edward+c+green&dpPl=1&dpID=51XHYGY52WL&ref=plSrch
   
   
2. The Wisdom of Whores By Elizabeth Pisani. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393337650/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506457277&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=the+wisdom+of+whores&dpPl=1&dpID=51e5bRcm0DL&ref=plSrch
   
   
3. The Invisible Cure: Why we are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa.. By Helen Epstein. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0312427727/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506457333&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=the+invisible+cure&dpPl=1&dpID=41PaOG%2BmQ1L&ref=plSrch
   
   
4. The Origins of AIDS. By Jacques Pepin. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0521186374/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506457438&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=the+origins+of+aids
   
   
5. No Time to Lose: A Life in Pursuit of Deadly Viruses.. By Peter Piot. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393345513/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1506457493&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=peter+piot
   
   
6. Anything by Laurie Garrett!

You've yet to provide a single piece of evidence for anything you have stated. I cannot go through all your points as they are assertions rather than supported statements. Let's try a few and then call it a day. What I am going to do is offer a citation EVERY SINGLE TIME. If you do not reply in kind, I will use this as evidence that you are talking shite.

1. "Something that works due to equal or superior forces, does not work with tiny inferior forces. The belief that it can work with tiny inferior forces, is an ideological belief not based on logic."
   Absolute shit. Total and utter. I honestly don't know where you are getting this from. Please read "How the Weak Win Wars".
   
   
2. "This is a silly thing to say. It's like saying "who cares what they think. They're crazy anyway."
   nationalist (this is the majority of terrorist movements);
   No it is not. You're wrong. Flat out wrong."
   No, I didn't say "who cares what they think" You are the one offering a one-size-fits-all explanation that refuses to take their claims seriously. I am the one saying that different groups have different goals. On trends in the movement, while it is true that nationalist and ethnic goals are declining, they still account for most terrorist movements in the world. See this RAND report's conclusions. Or are RAND not as wise as you? (also note, note that ideology is treated as a political motivator, not inherently terroristic - i.e. used the way I define it; not you).
   
   3."No it is false, naive, and dangerous to glorify them by claiming their ideals are complex and motivations are all different. They do these things because they want to kill people, people that they emotionally hate. They are irrational. They are motivated by various ideologies but they all have one common ideology: That destroying property and killing innocent random people within the area of your enemy, will result in social change."
   You really seem to be struggling with the differences between means and ends. Just because a group targets civilians it does not mean the group's goals are to target civilians. It might mean that they do this because they think it will meet other goals. By your logic, the US army only goes to war because it likes to blow stuff up; not because blowing some stuff up might have political effects. Read Clausewitz. On terrorists and extreme violence read Pape
   
   
   
3. "I don't think you have read any literature at all. You're an ignorant person who wants to oversimplify terrorists to "oh they have all sorts of reasons" and "oh they don't have beliefs or anything, they can be just anyone." you don't make any rational or coherent logical sense. You're just blurting out things that don't follow logically."
   How is saying that terrorist groups have various goals and various beliefs "oversimplify" the issue. It adds complexity. You are the one offering a monocausal explanation. I never said they didn't have beliefs. I am saying they have different beliefs. Oh, and by the way, saying "it's complex" does not mean "it's random" or "we can't understand." It simply means simple answers may not work. On the various goals of terrorists, see Hoffman.
   
   
4. "As they should. Duh. Why are you even mentioning this? Except to act like a little prick who wants to insult people? Grow up you little child. This is no way to talk to someone especially when you clearly show how ignorant you are on the subject."
   I was referring to things that you said political scientists ignored. I was telling you they didn't. So don't get your nose out of bent when I contradict you. Admittedly my tone is not nice. But then neither is yours.
   
   
5. "Yes analysts. And those analysts agree with me, not you."
   You haven't mentioned a single person by name. Everyone I have mentioned is a peer-reviewed political scientist. Show me your sources. I hope you are smart enough to know that some sources are less credible than others.
   
   
6. "(which incidentally, is rarely necessary to be able to form a coherent analysis).
   And how does that make any logical sense? Absolutely it is necessary to make accurate analysis which you clearly failed to do."
   You said that you cannot study terrorism without clearance. I said you can as (a) there are tons of cases one can study that are now declassified, (b) many viable methods don't require clearance (e.g. interviews), and (c) unless you are trying to explain a specific operation or attack you do not necessarily need every single bit of fine-grained information. Your question determines your method. On designing research please see KKV or Brady & Collier
   
   
7. "But learning begins with admitting you are wrong and/or ignorant
   Yeah so admit that you are wrong and ignorant."
   I have been wrong on many things, many times. It took me some time to become smart enough to figure out when to let go of ideas. It is not easy for most people. But buddy, don't fucking fool yourself, you are not winning this argument.
   
   
8. "You're the one trying to justify terrorism here and oversimplifying the issue into "oh we cannot claim they are motivated by any ideology. they are just motivated by what they are motivated by." Kind of insane bullshit that I don't know what blog you read it from but it's clearly incoherent."
   I am not trying to justify anything. I am trying to explain it. Studying lung cancer doesn't mean you are in favor of cancer, or against cigarette companies for that matter. It simply means trying to explain it. I'm not the one with blinkers on here.
   "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." - Sun Tzu.
   
   If you don't respond with proper citations don't expect a reply. But, whatever you do don't chalk it up as an intellectual win.
   
   EDIT: for formatting, before I gave up.