Yes, you are right, one could go much deeper into explaining how experiments are designed. And yes, a person without higher education could find this explanation challenging.
As for the social sciences, this is where Big Data shines. We can't in good faith subject people to violence or other known dangers, but we can collect data about all kinds of people and guns, and crunch it. Giant sample sizes and tracking many variables has helped us recognize correlations that no one had predicted. Hopefully this approach will yield useful information about gun violence as well. Unfortunately it depends on people being willing to report about themselves and their lives to a system that could be percieved as "Big Brother".
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2016-04-14 06:09 pm (UTC)As for the social sciences, this is where Big Data shines. We can't in good faith subject people to violence or other known dangers, but we can collect data about all kinds of people and guns, and crunch it. Giant sample sizes and tracking many variables has helped us recognize correlations that no one had predicted. Hopefully this approach will yield useful information about gun violence as well. Unfortunately it depends on people being willing to report about themselves and their lives to a system that could be percieved as "Big Brother".
I have no answers, just more questions.