User:Nicola.georgiou/sandbox/Approaches to Knowledge/Seminar group 7/ Evidence

= Evidence = In the context of academic research, evidence is concrete proof provided in support of a certain claim or hypothesis. Evidence falls into two sets of categories: primary or secondary and quantitative or qualitative. In the former case, primary evidence is presented by primary sources, which is considered to be the most reliable, whereas secondary evidence, hence, is provided by the secondary sources, which carry out a supplementary function, in addition to primary evidence. As for the latter category, quantitative evidence is given a statistical significance, being usually represented by numbers, whereas qualitative evidence could be characterized as an abstract concept which usually addresses more theoretical questions, often using a case study approach. However, evidence and the way in which it is collected must always be questioned. There must be an in-depth reflection on the technique (quantitative and qualitative) that is relevant to a particular context or discipline to ensure that information is not lost in the process.

This section presents approaches to evidence in different academic disciplines and their research methodologies.

Archaeology: the study of the past through physical evidence
Archaeology is the study of the past through physical evidence and this discipline largely relies on four types of evidence that form the archaeological record. Like today’s material world reflects our ways of living, the objects of the past also disclose precious information about past societies. To piece together the past, archaeologists firstly take support on portable objects, called artefacts. Artefacts are objects that have been manufactured or altered by humans. A sub-category of artefacts, called ‘features’, comprises less apparent relics such as imprints in-ground or carves in stones. They are also ‘tools’, objects like polished stones, and ‘manuports’, un-altered objects that have been displaced from their natural location to a new one by human intervention. Both tools and manuports inform on human activities. Architectural structures, often made of durable material, are also traces of past human civilization on which archaeologists base their study on. Lastly, there are ‘ecofacts’ which comprehends organic or inorganic residues and are evidence from the past wildlife and environmental conditions. Usually, archaeologists must combine multiple elements from the archaeological record to establish evidence in the discipline. To successfully identify a ‘manuport’ for instance, a good knowledge of the site itself, given through ecofacts, is required.

Social Anthropology: How Evidence is Collected and Used
Social anthropology focuses on the comparison of similarities and differences between societies. The type of evidence used has evolved alongside the rise and fall of anthropological theories.

In the 19th century, “armchair anthropology” was prevalent as anthropology focused on other, “primitive” cultures. Secondary evidence such as reports and accounts from explorers or informants in colonies was often used, especially by British anthropologists.

In contemporary social anthropology, the evidence is produced through ethnography. Typically, it involves fieldwork and utilises methods such as participant observation, interviews or collaboration with participants from the society studied. Apart from immersing an anthropologist in the society they study and allowing them to collect evidence from a native’s point of view, it also gives participants an active voice in a field rooted in colonialism and power imbalance, collecting evidence from multiple equal perspectives. Evidence produced can only be made sense of once placed into the context of its culture or society, or when compared with other similar societies.

Due to the rise of theories like cultural relativism, there is an understanding that social anthropology is a subjective discipline and is affected by the relationships an anthropologist has with participants during their study, leading to further reflection on how evidence is produced and used in social anthropology. Reflexivity arose as a result — awareness of power dynamics inherent in collected evidence can help to minimise the effect of a social anthropologist’s positionality on the data they collect, and how they interpret evidence. How evidence is collected and utilised is just as important as the evidence itself in social anthropology — reflexivity and comparatibility in modern social anthropology minimises the impact of the anthropologist’s own biases during their collection and usage of evidence.

Evidences in Sociology: How to collect, use and interpret them
In Sociology, quantitative evidence (data based on surveys, censuses and statistics) provide a great knowledge for studying large-scale social processes. Quantitative evidence is essential, as a single person’s study might not be representative of a whole. For example, if a sociologist wants to study the impact of structural changes in an economy on individuals, one person's account might not be representative of the society and social structures as a whole. That is why he needs quantitative evidence. On the other hand is qualitative evidence. Qualitative evidences are the information that can not be measured, it is what gives an insight of the context, the social phenomena and social scene of the study, and a meaning of their world. Qualitative evidence comes from fieldwork, participant observation, interviews, explicit or not, ethnography, but also from the writer’s point of view.

Qualitative and quantitative evidences are often complementary and essential, and one tend to be more important than the other depending on the situation. Evidence must be documented and collected with as much rigour as possible. This is Sociology as an Empirical discipline. Threw observed patterns, information from collected cases and experiences, you can draw evidence, but you can not through anecdotal, isolated reports. Evidence must always be conceptualized and well interpreted, it does not speak for itself. It is only a part of the circuit of knowledge. It is a support to advanced arguments, and the reader must always be aware that qualitative and quantitative evidences in sociology can always be badly interpreted: qualitative evidence seen by a sociologist may deviate from the reality as what he sees though his participant observation, or fieldwork is always interpreted in a way that may not fit reality. As to the quantitative evidence, sociologists can use surveys, censuses and statistics to support their argument in an environment for which those evidences are not intended.

Pharmacology: the evidence required for a drug to be approved
Pharmacology as a discipline is based on empirical, quantitive evidence that is collected throughout the preclinical and clinical stages of a drug trial. In a contemporary study, drugs go through successive phases before they are allowed onto the market, beginning with the pre-clinical trials that aim to discover aspects of the drug, such as toxicity, efficacy and other safety information, and if these are passed, the drugs move to clinical trials These experiments normally either occur “using in vitro (test tube or cell culture)” or “in vivo (animal)” methods, with new developments in technology also allowing some tests to be performed “in silico profiling using computer models of the drug-target interactions”. If a drug passes the pre-clinical testing, it then moves into clinical trials, which, in modern medicine, consists of five phases that must be fulfilled for a drug to be judged safe and effective for human use. In Phase 0, small quantities of the drug are given to very small focus groups of around 10 to 15 people, the purpose of which is to test how the drug is processed within the body. Phase 1 is done in slightly larger groups of 15 to 30 people, and attempts to find the optimum quantity of the drug; balancing side effects with the effectiveness of completing the drug's purpose. The phases progress up to Phase 4, where new FDA approved drugs are trialled on several hundreds of thousands of patients, the purpose of which is to attempt to discover any uncommon side effects that were not revealed in previous testing stages and learn more about both short and long term side effects of the drug.

This evidence-based research is an important development in modern medicine, as doctors would previously use value judgements and their personal experience with different treatment methods to decide how best to treat a patient, while the scientists working on drug testing see hundreds of thousands of patients and are able to assess the most effective drug based on extensive research and quantitative evidence. There have been major developments in the evidence required for pharmacology since the discipline arguably began in 1747, with scientist James Lind being the first person to conduct a clinical trial: he aimed to discover the optimum way of reducing scurvy onboard ships. In the 1800s there was the arrival of the concept of a placebo, which led to the developments in blind and double-blind trials, the first double-blind trial being in 1943, looking at the effectiveness of Patulin treatment for the common cold which are now requirements for evidence to be considered valid in modern pharmacology. Evidence is an essential aspect of the discipline, as without it drugs would not be allowed onto the market, and there is more weight placed on quantitative, verifiable evidence than qualitative statements.

Experimentation in scientific research : sustainability science
Sustainability science is now one of the most urgent research areas. There are interdisciplinary research approaches leading to the development of evidence and information in this field, ranging from science to more social aspects. Experimentation is the most used method for sustainability research because it leads researchers to evidence that could explain the causes and provide solutions to those issues.

However, it is a controversial methodology. This field aims to produce empirical evidence that would lead society towards sustainable development. Still, the blurred distinction between conventional projects and scientific experiments and how those compare to one another triggered criticism: the conceptual foundations of these experiments have been pointed out. Also, it has been highlighted that context and variables can be neglected during the study of those experiments. Sustainability research takes place in specific, complicit contexts, unlike any other scientific field and needs to be relevant to all, especially large corporations, to participate in a more active, process-oriented discipline. This goes against traditional science interpretations, where evidence is universal. The journal of cleaner production defined scientific experiments "as a scientific practice that relies primarily on an intervention, and that aims to produce empirical evidence."

That definition led to the development of a typology which helps compare, select, define and refine the different types of experiments, thereby generating evidence based-knowledge. Nowadays, scientists and practitioners acknowledge the importance of experimentation when searching for evidence in scientific research, especially in sustainability science.

Methodologies of Legal Studies: primary and secondary sources of legal research.
Legal studies as an academic field are concerned with looking into and commenting on national and international law, on rules and regulations and on case law. It seeks to find answers to such questions as: what would be the best way to draft a legislation? Which laws and regulations should be applied in a particular situation? Thus an investigation needs to be conducted. Legal research encompasses every step of the process that starts with a factual analysis of issues researched and concluding with the practical application and presentation of the findings.

Firstly, legal research involves developing a deep understanding of the law itself and how different aspects of it interact with each other. Hence, like in every other research, legal research methodologies are based upon using primary and secondary evidence, or data.

Primary Evidence
Primary sources, also called legal, comprise two aspects: Primary authority and Primary field sources. Primary authority is represented by the three governmental organs: the Judiciary, the Legislature and the Executive bodies. These actors are the ones who declare the primary field sources, which usually include: legislative enactments (statutory law), case law (opinions of the judiciary, common law or court decisions), as well as regulatory materials (administrative agency regulations and decisions) and constitutions. However, primary sources also fall into two categories. Some primary evidence is referred to as «mandatory», while others can have «persuasive» authority. The former is obligatory for the court to follow, as for the latter, the court has a choice whether to follow them or not.

Secondary Evidence
Secondary sources, also referred to as non-legal, are mainly analysis, summaries or commentaries, on law and used for citing the persuasive value. The secondary authority could be represented by NGOs, individuals and autonomous bodies. In contrast, secondary sources constitute materials such as textbooks, cases, digests, periodicals, journals, reports, encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc..

Approaches to research
Legal scholars doing the research usually follow two main types of methodologies: documentary research and field research. Documentary research includes doctrinal legal research and review of documentary materials. Whereas empirical, statistical, quantitative and non-doctrinal research, which are also used fall under the second category.

Forensic Science: Evidence in False Convictions
False convictions are most likely to occur due to (faulty) forensic evidence, second only to eyewitness testimony. The reason for this occurrence is due to forensic evidence being predominantly subjective in nature; fallacious forensic scientific tests and methods such as microscopic hair analysis, ballistics, handwriting and bite-mark comparisons, involve purely observational methods in which one compares the likeness of two objects, patterns or images. This method of determining ‘uniqueness’ of an object, person or circumstance is known as the forensic individualization theory which in itself has little to no scientific validity as it implies a certainty of knowledge and evidence which does not exist: “absolute specificity and absolute identification.”

Even DNA evidence - something which has proven useful in overturning wrongful convictions – can be unreliable as it lies in the realm of probability and interpretation. This concept of probability is becoming increasingly common as statisticians have become a fundamental part of trial procedures. Statistics, and more broadly, math, is used in courts as evidence of guilt or innocence and is often misused and misrepresented to sway a jury. An example of this is the case of Sally Clark who was falsely convicted of murder under the misconstrued statistic that there was a “1 in 73 million [chance] that she [was] innocent.”

Another facet to evidence in court cases is understanding who is generating this forensic evidence and how it is being represented and understood. This evidence, lacking in objective scientific methodology, relies on human interference and analysis; forensic experts are tasked with providing an educated analysis and opinion on whether a pattern or match exists, meaning that evidence is no longer neutral or separate of objectivity. Evidence is interpreted through filters, one of which is often the pressure put on crime analysts to provide scientific evidence to corroborate already presumed innocence or guilt. The seemingly malleable and fallacious nature of forensic science provides an explanation for the prevalence of false convictions.

Psychology: Reliability of Eyewitness testimony
Eyewitness testimony is highly important in criminal trials as it is often used as evidence to build a criminal case and can be the main evidence in a conviction. However, psychologists have questioned the reliability of such testimonies.

To begin with, the psychological state of the witness affects his or her ability to perceive and remember an incident. A study on the impact of anxiety and life stress on an eyewitness's testimony revealed that if the witness was stressed or anxious, he may be less attentive to important clues related to the task and therefore miss information crucial to the witness's task.

Furthermore, psychologists have questioned the reliability of the memory of a witness. In a study on the psychology of eyewitness testimony, Jack P. Lipton showed that when there is a delay between the eyewitness's observation and his testimony, the accuracy and quantity of the testimony is significantly impacted. The experiment involved 40 men and 40 women who had to watch a film in which a man is killed and robbed. The subjects all believed that the film was a real event. Then they had to testify in 'trial' either immediately or one week after the event. It was found that after a delay of one week, "the accuracy was 4.3% less than when immediately tested and the quantity was 18.0% less after the delay".

Finally, the type of questions asked by the prosecutor or lawyer to the witness can shape his or her testimony. If the witness is asked leading questions, which means a question where the desired answer is suggested or the witness is led to the answer, his or her testimony can be distorted and shaped.

Psychology: Validity of Evidence in Psychological Research
There is a fine line in psychological research between following the ethical guidelines of the British Psychological Society (BPS) and maintaining the highest level of validity possible, as often these two necessities can counteract each other. For example, guidelines express the need for fully informed consent from participants in a psychological investigation, however, this can often cause participants to show demand characteristics and behave differently towards the situation to how they normally would , calling into question the validity of any evidence collected, as it may not be an accurate representation of human behaviour.

There are two types of evidence within psychology, in the forms of primary and secondary data. The validity of these can be called into question in different ways; for example, primary data, collected by the psychologist for their specific investigation, can have a lower level of validity due to the methodological constraints of getting informed consent. This can be avoided through the use of deception, and whilst this is also technically not advised in the BPS guidelines, psychologists can deem it necessary on the grounds that it may be the only way to carry out their research. Using deception can call validity into question again, as it can be argued that experimenters are not necessarily measuring what they intend to measure if they have to act through the guise of measuring something else - however through peer review processes and appropriate experimental design, often the benefits of the research outweigh the costs, and so the evidence can be viewed as having high validity.

The validity of evidence from secondary data is often questionable as more often than not, the data being used has not been collected for the sole purpose of the investigation, and is being reinterpreted from its original study that had a different aim. Whilst this can be a positive as it highlights the interdisciplinary nature of psychology, allowing collaboration which a range of other disciplines such as economics and geography, and also has often already been through statistical analysis meaning its significance is already known , it also introduces a subjectivity towards the data and once again raises the question whether the experimenters are measuring what they intend to measure, especially considering they are not doing the actual data collection themselves.

Historical Evidence: the paradigmatic shift from archival to quantitative data
History is a dynamic discipline which has changed (in terms of paradigm and evidence) according to time and context. The idea of evidence in history was well discussed by Leopold Ranke in the 19th century. For Ranke archival data was the main evidence of historical research. With Thomas Khun’s introduction of a discipline’s paradigm in the 20th century, archival data has been paired by many other sources of information. The most important paradigm shift in history has probably been the increasing introduction of quantitative data. This numeric information, based on statistics, demographic sources or more sophisticated mathematical models, form the evidence of the modern discipline. Historians are supposed to use interdisciplinary thinking to catalogue, compare and contrast this evidence in such a way that data can hold significance and lead to a meaningful mapping of the information. In my previous sandbox, I have reported statistics from a National Geographic article which discussed how American cities flattened the curve in 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. The numbers regarding Philadelphia, New York or San Francisco are the quantitative evidence that we can use to study contemporary data in the time of Covid19 pandemic. Quantitative data can also be used according to a contrast/comparison analysis between past and present.

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