week 8 dq post

How to properly identify and assess a variable. The word quality is the foundation word for qualitative. Quality, as in how accurate and solid is this identified variable.

The two would be what is the variable and how does that variable work. Based on the scientific method determining how the variable works could be a definition for qualitative study. Its validity depends on how accurate the focus through the questions and the presentation of the project is.

Every scientific study which involves audience participation there will of course be an element of dissociation. Some peoples perspectives on various and assorted aspects of their life and the lives of others are set in stone but those perspectives are inherently going from slightly incorrect up to and through violently delusional.

Example most people have no idea that Abraham Lincoln as a teenager was sold into slavery by his father for a length of time. It was technically speaking “indentured servant” which had an end date, and killing the servant was for white folks against the law. Black folks did not have that luxury.

Lincoln had a very personal stake in his decisions regarding the slaves in America. Most people have less than no idea. There are even critics of his who make claims about him and this subject which have zero foundation in reality. However, since the events happened 150 years ago, the facts have been replaced with loyalty to party and or loyalty to some idea or other.

Qualitative studies ethically have to consider first and foremost that as a matter of absolute fact some people have a skewed perspective of reality. Ethically this creates a large number of issues and problems when trying to find the truths of any given situation. When more than a few aspects of any given study have a flawed foundation, this could create mistakes in the process of what exactly are the variables and how do those variables work.

My two criteria for evaluating a study.

First I compare the information coming at me with the database of studies and more than 4 decades of scientific exploration of my own. As a researcher you have to build your own database of information. You have to have done your own experiments which have to follow the scientific method. Everything has to be based on evidence, everything has to be tested down the line. Every variable itself has to be tested.

Example Ted Bundy in a solid and consistent examination of his life close to everyone who has studied him has started from a perspective of “here are the established facts”( Lincoln, & Guba, 1985). After a lot of time studying him, I can tell you definitively as a matter of absolute fact, most of those assumed facts are assumptions’ which different groups have simply accepted those fictions as facts and refused to test them. Same exact in physics and related fields which used C as a constant, assuming C is a steady 186,000 mps (miles per second). This is not true, it is an average based on flawed thinking and astrophysics calculations which are more than 150 years old. The amount we know about gravity waves now v back then alters the framework for some of the most fundamental equations in physics which use C as a constant. Refused to perform due diligence on them to separate facts from fictions. Ted Bundy’s first experience with murder came at least once if not 3 times during his 4-18 years. His step father was a proud Son of the Confederacy. Large chunks of the step fathers family were still in the south, in some association with the plantations they either owned and or worked for/with. There is documentation evidence of no less than 1 lynching within a reasonable distance from where Ted was as a child and an event his step fathers family would have been involved with said lynching. No one has done the due diligence to find out the actual dates, times, locations, etc. of said lynching when young Ted was a child. Fact he was in the area as a child when at least one lynching occurred. Fact his family spent huge amounts of time in areas which the SOC had in effect large communities and at the time he was involved both legal and illegal militias. Seattle, Lynden, and the South all reported incidence of inappropriate behavior towards established communities during the time Ted was a minor. All sentences are simply a more acceptable form of mathematics. Every “person, place, thing” is a variable. Those variables need to be compared with the database in your head regarding validity. Test and retest each and every variable. Example cleopatra did not die in Egypt, those fictions have zero foundation. Ask yourself this question, if she died in Alexandria why oh why was it absolutely necessary to have more than half the entire Roman Army stationed at what would become Hadrian’s Wall in 150 years. They were stationed in a 75 mile stretch of land, the boarder of Rome at that time was more than 10k miles. But more than half of the army was in 75 miles. Kind of a lopsided allocation of resources. Every single push north into Northumberland from 50 bce to the last day Rome was Rome failed and in some cases failed very very badly for the Romans. All those variables point absolutely to something else was happening since the variables do not add up. There are too many “oh, that is illogical” variables. Compare the variables of Cleopatra and the variables of Hillary in the 2016 election, the patterns are on the extreme side of consistent. A scientists job is not to take sides but to observe, which is the largest ethical issue in all humans, the human nature desire to “take sides” to be part of the group. The study of the past builds a map of the future, but only if the variables are identified correctly. Same exact variables apply to the Blood Countess, on a good day her trial was a kangaroo court, on a bad day it was worse than Salem. Her main accusers were men who owed her vast sums of money and they could not pay her back. However after her conviction they were allowed to seize her property and her treasuries.

Really really interesting is that a solid scholastic argument can be made that the equations for C and the equations which go into criminology regarding serial killers is linked in more than a dozen ways. I could explain how serial killers’ actions and the relevance of C being a consistent inconsistent variable share more than a few dozen variables, but that is a very long explanation. The actions and motions of the variable and variables in a qualitative study are the entire point. Those variables have to be trustable.

I can think of dozens and dozens of other variables which have accepted definitions which have between very little to absolutely no foundation in reality. Check the work in the study to what you already know to be facts and scientifically sound variables. However, this is actually the most difficult part because there are cultural fictions most humans have accepted as facts which have various levels of fictions built in.

The first was of course check the scientific consistency of the variables

Second check the foundation assumptions the ethics the epistemological foundation of the study. This part is where things become difficult. In any given study you by default have to start with some given filters which have built in bias. First the head researcher has built in prejudices, second the institution (usually a department) they work for has their own rules and regulations regarding proper actions. Example my father back in his grad school days after passing with a B+ one of his math classes he had an advisory meeting with the head of the math department. During that meeting the dept head asked my father questions about mathematics. My father was a very large man in many ways, but he was in fact a born coward. He had a mastery of algebra, but his understanding of upper mathematics did not exist. He was asked to leave the math dept, my father had a chip on his shoulder for the rest of his life about that failure. Any and all research my father did in academics had a flawed academic foundation. His epistemological understanding of how stats works was invalid. He was too proud to admit that, and his academic record proved that beyond any measure. When computer science came along he was pretty good at it, because he could program using algebra. However, he could not program when the equations required upper end algorithms. you have to be aware of your own illusions and limitations.

Next the school board have their own rules and regulations regarding what is a good study and what is a feel-good study which has little validity to it. Then the ethical review board; some are great, some are ok, and some review boards are so biased do not hand them any study that is not simply a copy of the studies they have already approved with minor changes. Then of course there are the participants in the study who have their own issues with clarity of reality.

Ontologically the above factors have to be considered. The nature of what data is, the nature of how it can be collected (ethically), and the filtering process through the various review boards, up to the through established scientific facts. Which is interesting since in the very rough half a millennium since the in extreme brief the invention of the scientific method most of the “established facts” which science is built upon have been proven wrong. There has been several waves of accepted facts have been accepted community wide, then new research comes into the situation and those proven foundation variables are proven wrong, replaced with new ideas. That has happened at least 3 times. Euclidean geometry, Newtonian Physics, Einstein, and now string theory. We are on the verge of a new wave of thinking, since there are variables of string which are correct and variables which are obviously not correct. The qualitative study the fictional Amy and Sheldon came up with for their Nobel was actually mostly correct, what was presented and explained on the show those variables were consistent with what we know today. Although there are some HUP issues.

To be a valid study the variables have to be identified correctly and their action must be measured accurately in order to do the scientific method thing of “predict future actions”. X variable will do y at z point. C being a key factor in mapping out the variables live cycles, most things have violence. All things need to in effect eat/absorb. Predicting a variables next move is one of the main reasons qualitative studies exist.

references

Lincoln, Y. S., & Guba, E. G. (1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.