home page for social
science time Line 1975
research
generating ideas
home page to Andrew Roberts'
web site the ABC Study Guide home page

boots in fairy land: ABC Julie Ford

Based on the glossary of Paradigms and Fairy Tales

Amazing serendipity buzzer: Transcendental flash

Bathwater fallacy: Fallacy of misplaced concreteness

Bridge: Operationalisation: the magical link between ideas and appearances
See
chapter eight

Cricket pitch: Test ground for scientific theories
The testing is overseen by
umpires, including Karl Popper, who do not agree about the rules. And the activities on the pitch are not always cricket. They include dancing. An important use of the pitch is as a large oblong area for laying out data in piles in order to perform statistical tricks on them.

Julie Ford's book was published in 1975. The first electronic spreadsheets appeared in 1978. The spreadsheet lays out data and analyses it much in the same way as Julie's research assistants did laying out piles of data on the cricket pitch.

Dervish dance: Formal choreography of testing rituals

Digging: Knowing, feeling, understanding

Do-it-yourself-multi-purpose-data-matrix: Classification of modes of data stipulation which may be appropriate for social science purposes
See
chapter sixteen

Dwarves: Operationalisers by appointment to the Fairy Courts

who tells this fairytale Fairies: Ideas, potentially thoughts and/or images, manifestations or appearances. Fairy tale: Connection of idea in the form of an explanatory story, or theory. Fairyland: Land of ideas. Any realm of thought. Alternative universe.
See
chapter two

Julie Ford argues that science has to begin with fairytales told about the world. There are different levels of fairytale (page 80):

"Common sense provides us with a way of spinning fairy tales about what might be going on 'out there', and while we continue to believe in them we have a firm foothold in reality"

"At the same time, academics insist that the methods of reasoning on which we rely as real people in the real world can be extended and organised into paradigms which, while still answerable to common sense, yet transcend it. Thus grander fairy tales are spun..."

"And all the while even stranger sages tell stories that are stranger still.."

Gold star: Honorific title awarded for faithfulness to deductive methods in science. Gold star badge: Mark of gold star status. Gold-star- rabbit: One recognised as of gold-star merit.

Julie Ford only awards gold stars to those who support falsification as the standard for testing:

"remember that the test pitches used by Gold_Star Rabbits, and specified by such distinguished umpires as Sir Karl Popper, are intentionally aslant. The Gold-Star spirit requires players to do their damnedest to falsify their research hypotheses, not to verify them." (Ford, J. 1975, p.403)


Gryphon: Chance
See chapter fourteen

Julie considers the case for probability sampling "a most unlikely story".

Library: Storehouse of written thoughts kept as knowledge.
See
chapter three

Lights: Guides
See
chapter ten

"It seems that you have already made one move down the dark warren which leads from this fairy-tale place to the lands of reality outside. You have moved from your starting position under the sign puzzle to a part illuminated by the implicit theory" [HUNCH?]." (p. 223)

The following lights are analytic theory - deductive nomological explanation - hypotheses - research inventory - and, finally, one's research strategy

Mock Turtle Soup: Positivistic inductivistic universe
See chapter fourteen

Mountain: Solid conventions of academic scientific thought

"sociologists are no longer confined to an obscure corner in the magical mountain of science. Over the last couple of decades they have been taking an increasingly important place in the magical establishment" (p.79)

"Karl Popper... lives in one of the towers at the top of the mountain but, luckily, there is no need for us to go through all those dreary laboratories to get there: we can get to his door by climbing up the outside of the mountain and walking across a sloping cricket pitch" (p.97)

Rabbit: Scientist (but see white rabbit)

Red: Positivistic

Red herring: Red herring

Sampling game: Process of selecting 'representative' samples
See chapters
fourteen and fifteen

Spider: Confusion or intimation thereof. Spider battle: Philosophical brawl.

Statistricks: Statistical tricks. [Performed on cricket pitch]
See chapter nineteen

Thirty-nine stips: Contents of the Do-it-yourself-multi-purpose-data- matrix

Umpire: Philosopher of science [See Cricket Pitch]

Underwear: Theory construction procedures [Have a look at fairytales]

White: Idealistic

White Rabbit: Science teacher



Study links outside this site
Picture introduction to this site
Andrew Roberts' web Study Guide
Top of Page Take a Break - Read a Poem
Click coloured words to go where you want

Andrew Roberts likes to hear from users:
To contact him, please use the Communication Form




Good research
Begins with
a fairy tale

    You create a fairy tale (called a theory) which pretends to be a symbolic replica of the real world

    If it is a good (true) replica it will provide an explanation of reality that people feel they understand and it will enable you to make predictions about what will happen in the real world

    To find out if it is a good replica, you test it

    (Ford, J. 1972.
    Part 5)










Julie Ford's theory is reviewed by Stephanie Delgado in her essay Science: the case for imagination: Mary Wollstonecraft and Julienne Ford