Methodological Fallacies Research Articles

Introduction: Sexual Harassment and Gender-Based Violence in Political Science Fieldwork

Political scientists recently have taken great strides in addressing sexual harassment and assault in the discipline. Little has been said, however, about sexual violence that political scientists may confront during field research. Field research involves any data-collection activity that occurs away from a researcher’s home institution, including visiting a prominent archive, interviewing political elites, and conducting direct observation of political phenomenon, and fieldwork is widely considered essential to data collection and career development across political science subfields. Field researchers may experience numerous power disparities that put them at acute risk for sexual or gender-based violence in the field, and evidence suggests that such experiences are pervasive and professionally devastating. In an effort to reduce gender-based violence and discrimination across academic worksites, several disciplines and institutions have developed specific guidelines and protocols to prevent and address sexual harassment and assault during fieldwork (Berkeley PATH to Care Center 2020; University of California, Riverside 2018; University of Toronto, Department of Anthropology 2019; Woodgate et al. 2018). Political scientists, however, have largely failed to conceptualize field placements as work settings or to address gender-based violence during fieldwork in our curriculum, training, and policies. Instead, they rely on deeply held methodological fallacies that insist on a field researcher’s absolute privilege, trivialize experiences of sexual violence, and weaponize rape myths to portray survivors as professionally incompetent (Hunt 2022).

Applied forecasting for delayed cerebral ischemia prediction post subarachnoid hemorrhage: Methodological fallacies

IntroductionDelayed Cerebral Ischemia (DCI) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality after aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (aSAH). Researchers have utilized various methods for predicting patients at risk for DCI progression. MethodsAn eight-year retrospective review of aSAH patients who presented to St Louis University Hospital. The records were screened for demographic, clinical, and radiographic parameters. DCI was the primary outcome. We identified 16 features to fit various forecasting models and selected the best binary classifier through comprehensive machine learning (ML) workflows. Regression and ensemble tree-based algorithms were utilized, based on their performance on tabular data. We investigated whether a single model could outperform in our dataset. Due to the expected outcome class imbalance (DCI), we selected precision, recall, and F-score as threshold metrics. Precision-recall curves were used for model performance ranking. ResultsOf the 213 aSAH patients analyzed, 42 progressed to DCI (19.7%). The mean age was 55.7 years. The outcome variable (DCI) was imbalanced with a class ratio of 1:4. Bivariate analysis revealed two significant associations: The “Hunt-and-Hess scale” (p-value = 0.016), and “Posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus” (p-value < 0.001). The all-relevant important factors during feature selection were: “Fisher scale,” “Modified Fisher scale,” “Hunt-and-Hess scale,” and “Posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus”. “Treatment type” was tentative. The random forests model achieved a pooled accuracy of 71.1% (95%CI: 60.4, 83.4) with an F1-score of 0.484. The best binary classifier utilized extreme gradient boosting while trained on the all-relevant predictors plus “Aneurysm type.” Extreme gradient boosting achieved a predictive accuracy of 84.3% (95%CI: 75.9, 93.4) with an F1-score of 0.684. We describe the challenges that arise during training of a binary classifier on imbalanced datasets, and, while going through an extensive comparison review of similar published studies, we not only demonstrate the model's performance but also identify multiple forecasting methodological fallacies in neurological research. ConclusionBy implementing baseline patient characteristics combined with radiographic grading scales, we built a simple yet robust, highly accurate—but, most importantly—useful binary classifier for DCI prediction. The model is available online, and it can be utilized clinically as an effective forecasting tool (https://georgiosalexopoulos.shinyapps.io/download/).

Methodological Fallacies in the Determination of Serum/Plasma Glutathione Limit Its Translational Potential in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

This study aimed to review and critically appraise the current methodological issues undermining the suitability of the measurement of serum/plasma glutathione, both in the total and reduced form, as a measure of systemic oxidative stress in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Fourteen relevant articles published between 2001 and 2020, in 2003 subjects, 1111 COPD patients, and 892 controls, were reviewed. Nine studies, in 902 COPD patients and 660 controls, measured glutathione (GSH) in the reduced form (rGSH), while the remaining five, in 209 COPD patients and 232 controls, measured total GSH (tGSH). In the control group, tGSH ranged between 5.7 and 7.5 µmol/L, whilst in COPD patients, it ranged between 4.5 and 7.4 µmol/L. The mean tGSH was 6.6 ± 0.9 µmol/L in controls and 5.9 ± 1.4 µmol/L in patients. The concentrations of rGSH in the control group showed a wide range, between 0.47 and 415 µmol/L, and a mean value of 71.9 ± 143.1 µmol/L. Similarly, the concentrations of rGSH in COPD patients ranged between 0.49 and 279 µmol/L, with a mean value of 49.9 ± 95.9 µmol/L. Pooled tGSH concentrations were not significantly different between patients and controls (standard mean difference (SMD) = −1.92, 95% CI −1582 to 0.0219; p = 0.057). Depending on whether the mean concentrations of rGSH in controls were within the accepted normal range of 0.5–5.0 µmol/L, pooled rGSH concentrations showed either a significant (SMD = −3.8, 95% CI −2.266 to −0.709; p < 0.0001) or nonsignificant (SMD = −0.712, 95% CI −0.627 to 0.293; p = 0.48) difference. These results illustrate the existing and largely unaddressed methodological issues in the interpretation of the serum/plasma concentrations of tGSH and rGSH in COPD.

The perspective transformation in illusionistic ceiling painting of late Baroque

The following work has shown the analyses carried out in order to clarify facts necessary to understand the phenomenon of the perspective representation in the works of art in Renaissanse and late Baroque. A lot of misunderstandings have arisen on the grounds of critical work made by many theoreticians and art historians. The aim of this work was to stipulate the reasons for the conceptual and methodological fallacies. Having evaluated the methods used by illusionistic ceiling painters of late Baroque, it was possible to conduct some geometric analyses of the paintings placed on the vault of the Leopoldine Hall at the University of Wrocław.

Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel by Isaac Kalimi

Reviewed by: Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel by Isaac Kalimi Kyle H. Keimer isaac kalimi, Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). Pp. xvii + 385. $125. Kalimi’s work is a methodologically informed and nuanced contribution to studies on the historicity of biblical narratives pertaining to King Solomon. Its main purpose is the analysis and comparison of the early (Samuel–Kings) and late (Chronicles) biblical accounts of Solomon’s birth, naming, early life, ascension, and reign, including in particular his building of the temple in Jerusalem. K. draws out the unique representations of Solomon that arise in these two historiographical sources as a result of different and specific theological, ideological, and didactic contexts. He argues that 2 Samuel 9–20 + 1 Kings 1–2 do preserve a good amount of historically informed detail that has been fashioned into an early and coherent historiography (providing a portrait of Solomon “the man”), while the later Book of Chronicles has entirely different historiographic aims in view (providing a portrait of “the myth,” a “utopic” Solomon who never actually existed). Each portrait of Solomon arose because that was what was needed; the two portraits fit the contexts of the individual authors. Kalimi’s study proceeds in two main parts. Part 1 details the sources and historical background of Solomon’s time (four chapters), while part 2 addresses literary and historio-graphical observations pertaining to Solomon’s birth, rise, and temple building (ten chapters). After a brief introduction that articulates the study’s purpose and methods, in chap. 2 K. details the epigraphic, archaeological, and biblical sources available (or lacking), for Solomon and his reign, even though a reconstruction of the historical Solomon is not the main purpose of the volume. [End Page 117] In chap. 3, K. provides a survey of scholarship that has rejected the historicity of a united monarchy and raises the question of whether there is any foundation for such a view. It is this chapter in particular that defines K.’s careful and meticulous work, which is evident throughout the volume. While recognizing that the biblical text cannot simply be taken at face value, K. ably dissects a number of works by so-called biblical minimalists, drawing out their shortcomings and methodological fallacies before concluding that such minimal-ist/revisionist approaches to the biblical text are “baseless,” “unsupported,” and tendentious, leaving “the real work of historical reconstruction . . . to be done” (p. 63). He then follows up this chapter with his own historical evaluation of Solomon’s kingdom, focusing in particular on the historicity of Solomon’s temple, Jerusalem in the days of David and Solomon, the size of David and Solomon’s kingdom, and Solomon’s harem (chap. 4). In particular, K. notes that many of the narratives preserved about Solomon—and about David—are apologetic in nature and, fitting with other ancient Near Eastern apologies, find their best historical setting in the period of Solomon or very shortly thereafter. What is striking about this chapter in particular is that K. weds the archaeology to detailed textual study in a very informed manner. The result is that many of the straw-men arguments espoused by archaeologists and biblicists are illuminated for what they are: evidence of poor attention to detail and unwarranted interpolation. For example, the well-rehearsed claim that the biblical texts portray Jerusalem as a large and rich city from which David and Solomon controlled a far-reaching “empire,” while the archaeology indicates that the site was a small hill country settlement from which only local chieftains could have controlled the local territory, is attacked with facts and informed sociological and anthropological considerations. Kalimi builds a sustained case to show that the size of Jerusalem is not related to the extent of David’s or Solomon’s kingdom. Moreover, while the biblical description of David and Solomon’s kingdom is not as grandiose as modern scholars purport, it nevertheless is described in a manner comparable to what is used elsewhere in the ancient Near East, which is to say that power and authority were understood differently by ancient authors in comparison to how modern scholars...

Early modern case studies : The example of Germany’s Imperial Chamber Court －Historical context, methodological fallacies and the difficulties of working with source material－

Early modern case studies : The example of Germany’s Imperial Chamber Court －Historical context, methodological fallacies and the difficulties of working with source material－

Methodological Traps, Pitfalls, and Fallacies in the Study of Intellectual Silence

This article is a response to four responses to my book Europe, Byzantium, and the “Intellectual Silence” of Rus’. That book in turn responded to the question posed by Francis Thompson, “Where was the Russian Peter Abelard?” It began with two premises − that theology was “the crown jewel of disciplined thought” in both the Eastern and Western Churches during the medieval period and that medieval Christian theology represented an amalgamation of prior Christian thought with Neoplatonism. The literature of early Rus’ was little more than what would have been contained in a large Byzantine monastic library, because those in charge of educating the newly baptized pagan Rus’ on the basic principles of Christianity felt compelled to provide them only necessary information to save their souls. But why did the package not include the seven liberal arts (including dialectic), which were the basis of the Western Church curriculum?

Methodological fallacies and perceptions of rural disparity: How rural proofing addresses real versus abstract needs

In 2016, the EU committed to ‘rural proofing’ its policies. Rural proofing has now become a priority across Europe. Prior to this, rural proofing or mainstreaming, the reviewing of universal policies to ensure comparable treatment of rural areas, was relatively unique to England and Northern Ireland. The first case of legislating rural proofing has occurred with The Rural Needs Act (Northern Ireland) 2016. Qualitative data was collected from civil and public servants with experience of pre-legislative ‘rural proofing’, as well as those facing new responsibilities under the Act. Additional data was obtained from key informants active in agricultural, environmental, and rural organisations. Several key findings emerge, all underpinned by a central issue: that the approach entirely stands on an assumption of rural disadvantage, the nature of which is never articulated. We argue that this is not driven by a lack of evidence, but by a more fundamental problem: the pervasiveness of viewing rural issues through a lens tinted by methodological fallacies. Failure to correct for these weaknesses by means of a dynamic theory of rural leads to flawed policy, because it is designed to treat disparity rather than accommodate diversity. In other words, it is premised on a binary of urban/rural. The findings of this research will inform the development of rural proofing policies going forward.

Children and Parents Deserve Better Parental Discipline Research: Critiquing the Evidence for Exclusively “Positive” Parenting

ABSTRACTThis article critiques the scientific evidence for the emerging view in nonclinical parenting research and in popular books that parents should use only positive methods of parenting and rarely resort to any disciplinary consequences. Four methodological fallacies pervade research used to support this viewpoint: the correlational fallacy (inferring causation from correlations), the trumping fallacy (permitting correlational conclusions to trump stronger causal evidence), the extrapolation fallacy (extrapolating favorable comparisons of under-usage versus over-usage to zero usage), and the lumping fallacy (lumping inappropriate and appropriate usages together). Conclusions based on any of these methodological fallacies are premature at best and counterproductive at worst. These fallacies would incorrectly make many medical procedures appear to be harmful, such as radiation treatment. Premature conclusions supporting exclusively positive parenting may partially explain the immigrant paradox in the United States and escalating criminal assaults against minors according to Swedish criminal records (where positive parenting is most prominently advocated). Exclusively positive parenting needs to be supported by stronger research, including randomized trials with oppositional defiant children, before being accepted as definitive. We also need research to understand how the parental management skills featured in effective clinical treatments for young oppositional defiant children generalize to parenting in nonclinical families.

Inventing a Christian America: the myth of the religious founding

Preface Introduction: The Christian Nation Debate, Methodological Fallacies, and the Role of Myths Chapter 1: A Haven for Religious Freedom Chapter 2: A Model for Christian and Civil Government Chapter 3: The Revolutionary and Constitutional Impulse Chapter 4: A Government of Men Chapter 5: The Birth of a Myth Conclusion Index

Актуальные проблемы экономической методологии

The paper attempts to identify methodological fallacies in the works of Russian economists, published during the 2004–2014 period. Produced are econometric assessments of how wide-spread these fallacies are. Among these fallacies is the erroneous interpretation of the subject and method of the economic science. Also highlighted are the excessiveness of new economic concepts and categories coined recently, and overuse of mathematical and econometric models. It is emphasized also, that many economists consider the &amp;#34;Normative Economics&amp;#34; to be a science in its own right. The number of scholarly works containing methodological errors is growing at an increasingly rapid pace. Presented are the widely acknowledged fundamental principles of the Positive economics methodology.

On art and science: an epistemic framework for integrating social science and clinical medicine.

Calls for incorporating social science into patient care typically have accounted for neither the logistic constraints of medical training nor the methodological fallacies of utilizing aggregate "social facts" in clinical practice. By elucidating the different epistemic approaches of artistic and scientific practices, this paper illustrates an integrative artistic pedagogy that allows clinical practitioners to generate social scientific insights from actual patient encounters. Although there is no shortage of calls to bring social science into medicine, the more fundamental processes of thinking by which art and science proceed have not been addressed to this end. As such, the art of medical practice is conceptualized as an innate gift, and thus little is done to cultivate it. Yet doing so is more important than ever because uncertainty in diagnosing and treating chronic illnesses, the most significant contemporary mortality risks, suggests a re-expanding role for clinical judgment.

Replication in music psychology

In this article, we address the current state and general role of replication in empirical sciences in general and music psychology in particular. We argue that replication should be an integral part of the quality management of science because it helps to improve and maintain the general benefit of empirical sciences by enhancing the confidence in scientific phenomena and theories. Replicating empirical experiments has two major benefits: (1) It increases the sheer number of observations and (2) it provides independent evidence which works as a safety net against methodological fallacies, causally influential but unknown (i.e., random) factors, researcher degrees of freedom, and outright fraud. Furthermore, we argue that for low-gain/low-cost sciences such as music psychology, measures to ensure quality standards, in particular the amount of replication experiments conducted, can be expected to be lower than in high gain/high cost sciences. These lower expectations stem from the general acknowledgments that in low-gain/low-cost sciences (1) research resources are normally scarce and (2) the consequences of inadequate theories are relatively harmless. We argue that the view of music psychology as a low-cost/low-gain science can explain the striking lack of replication studies and meta-analyses. We also discuss possible counter-measures to enhance the reliability of music-psychological knowledge.

Predicting Symptomatic Cerebral Vasospasm after Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: Are We There Yet?

Delayed Cerebral Ischemia (DCI) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality after aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (aSAH). Researchers have utilized various methods for predicting patients at risk for DCI progression.An eight-year retrospective review of aSAH patients who presented to St Louis University Hospital. The records were screened for demographic, clinical, and radiographic parameters. DCI was the primary outcome. We identified 16 features to fit various forecasting models and selected the best binary classifier through comprehensive machine learning (ML) workflows. Regression and ensemble tree-based algorithms were utilized, based on their performance on tabular data. We investigated whether a single model could outperform in our dataset. Due to the expected outcome class imbalance (DCI), we selected precision, recall, and F-score as threshold metrics. Precision-recall curves were used for model performance ranking.Of the 213 aSAH patients analyzed, 42 progressed to DCI (19.7%). The mean age was 55.7 years. The outcome variable (DCI) was imbalanced with a class ratio of 1:4. Bivariate analysis revealed two significant associations: The “Hunt-and-Hess scale” (p-value = 0.016), and “Posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus” (p-value < 0.001). The all-relevant important factors during feature selection were: “Fisher scale,” “Modified Fisher scale,” “Hunt-and-Hess scale,” and “Posthemorrhagic hydrocephalus”. “Treatment type” was tentative. The random forests model achieved a pooled accuracy of 71.1% (95%CI: 60.4, 83.4) with an F1-score of 0.484. The best binary classifier utilized extreme gradient boosting while trained on the all-relevant predictors plus “Aneurysm type.” Extreme gradient boosting achieved a predictive accuracy of 84.3% (95%CI: 75.9, 93.4) with an F1-score of 0.684. We describe the challenges that arise during training of a binary classifier on imbalanced datasets, and, while going through an extensive comparison review of similar published studies, we not only demonstrate the model's performance but also identify multiple forecasting methodological fallacies in neurological research.By implementing baseline patient characteristics combined with radiographic grading scales, we built a simple yet robust, highly accurate—but, most importantly—useful binary classifier for DCI prediction. The model is available online, and it can be utilized clinically as an effective forecasting tool (https://georgiosalexopoulos.shinyapps.io/download/).

Review Article: The significance of neighbourhood context to child and adolescent health and well-being: A systematic review of multilevel studies

Growing up in a poor neighbourhood has negative effects on children and adolescents. In the literature it has been concluded that the risk of low birth weight, childhood injury and abuse, and teenage pregnancy or criminality double in poor areas. However, the validity of such studies has been questioned, as they have been associated with ecological or individualistic fallacies. Studies using multilevel technique might thus contribute important knowledge in this field. The present review clarifies the importance of neighbourhood contextual factors in child and adolescent health outcomes, through considering only studies using multilevel technique. Keyword searching of the Medline, ERIC, PsycInfo, Sociological Abstracts, and Social Citation Index databases was performed. Original studies using multilevel technique to examine the effect of neighbourhood characteristics on child and adolescent health outcomes, and focusing on populations in high-income countries were included. Neighbourhood socioeconomic status and social climate were shown to have small to moderate effects on child health outcomes, i.e. birth weight, injuries, behavioural problems, and child maltreatment. On average, 10% of variation in health outcomes was explained by neighbourhood determinants, after controlling for important individual and family variables. This review demonstrates that interventions in underprivileged neighbourhoods can reduce health risks to children, especially in families that lack resources. An analysis of methodological fallacies indicates that observed effects and effect sizes can be underestimated, and that interventions may well have greater impact than this review was able to establish.

Math Modeling in Educational Research: An Approach to Methodological Fallacies

Math modeling is currently at the focus of educational methodologists' attention. However, little is known about the extent to which principles of the math modeling lead to methodological fallacies in educational research. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the nature and principles of math modeling and to examine its application in educational research according to transcendental realism theory. The conclusion of the article suggests some methodological fallacies in educational research. Finally, the implications of the fallacies in educational research are considered.

Bad Habits, ‘Bad’ Quartos, and the Myth of Origin in the Editing of Shakespeare

This article is the latest contribution to a continuing debate on the editing of Shakespeare in relation to new conceptions of authorship and authority and to the developing contribution of performance studies. Introduced by Brian Parker in NTQ24 (1990), it has subsequently drawn submissions from Stanley Wells in NTQ26 (1991), Graham Holderness and Bryan Loughrey in NTQ 34 (1992) and, most recently, Alan Posener in NTQ39 (1994). Here, Andrew Spong challenges criticisms which Holderness and Loughrey's ‘Shakespearean Originals’ project has received, and suggests that the sort of methodological and theoretical fallacies which its editors have been accused of displaying can be no less readily evidenced from the positions adopted by their critics. Andrew Spong is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Textual and Contextual Studies at the University of Hertfordshire. His research interests include the challenge of historical materialism to postmodernism and the sociology of the Elizabethan theatre.

Qualitative Research: Rigour and qualitative research

Various strategies are available within qualitative research to protect against bias and enhance the reliability of findings. This paper gives examples of the principal approaches and summarises them into a methodological checklist to help readers of reports of qualitative projects to assess the quality of the research. In the health field--with its strong tradition of biomedical research using conventional, quantitative, and often experimental methods--qualitative research is often criticised for lacking scientific rigour. To label an approach “unscientific” is peculiarly damning in an era when scientific knowledge is generally regarded as the highest form of knowing. The most commonly heard criticisms are, firstly, that qualitative research is merely an assembly of anecdote and personal impressions, strongly subject to researcher bias; secondly, it is argued that qualiative research lacks reproducibility--the research is so personal to the researcher that there is no guarantee that a different researcher would not come to radically different conclusions; and, finally, qualitative research is criticised for lacking generalisability. It is said that qualitative methods tend to generate large amounts of detailed information about a small number of settings. The pervasive assumption underlying all these criticisms is that quantitative and qualitative approaches are fundamentally different in their ability to ensure the validity and reliability of their findings. This distinction, however, is more one of degree than of type. The problem of the relation of a piece of research to some presumed underlying “truth” applies to the conduct of any form of social research. “One of the greatest methodological fallacies of the last half century in social research is the belief that science is a particular set of techniques; it is, rather, a state of mind, or attitude, and the organisational conditions which allow that attitude to be expressed.”1 In quantitative data analysis it is possible to generate statistical …

Methodological Fallacies and Politically Correct Explanations in Gender Stratification Research

The Forum consists of comments on previously published papers and responses by authors. Unlike the Comment section in many other academic journals, the Forum includes solicited as well as unsolicited contributions. We encourage debates by actively seeking points of view contrary to those expressed in articles published in the journal. The Forum is intended to promote an open and critical debate that contributes to the intellectual vitality and further development of rational-choice-based theory and research. Forum contributions should follow the form used by Rationality and Society and should not exceed five double-spaced pages.

Design Options and Methodological Fallacies in the Studies of Reproductive Failures

Design Options and Methodological Fallacies in the Studies of Reproductive Failures