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What Is (Social Science) Theory, with Help from Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time

KEYWORDS: first day, explaining theory, science

Students often struggle to understand what is meant by the word theory especially in what they expect to be a “business” class, even when they have been exposed to the popular scientific gestalt all their lives. This is a first-or-second-day-of-class activity that I use to help students understand what social science theory is using an area of unrealized common ground: their general knowledge of humans’ evolving conceptualization of the universe from the Greeks to the Big Bang. In preparation for the activity, students read the first chapter of astrophysicist Stephen Hawkin’s 1988 popular science book, A Brief History of Time. The instructor then leads a discussion, encouraging students to offer “truths,” “rules,” or “principles” of “how science is done.” Through a semi-inductive approach, we finish the activity with a list of at least 13 “general principles” for understanding what scientific theory is.

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